REFLECT. III.
The foregoing account of Mr. Brainerd's life may afford matter of conviction, that there is indeed such a thing as true experimental religion, arising from immediate divine influences, supernaturally enlightening and convincing the mind, and powerfully impressing, quickening, sanctifying, and governing the heart; which religion is indeed an amiable thing, of happy tendency, and of no hurtful consequence to human society; notwithstanding there having been so many pretences and appearances of what is called experimental, vital religion, that have proved to be nothing but vain, pernicious enthusiasm.
If any insist, that Mr. Brainerd's religion was enthusiasm, and nothing but a strange heat and blind fervour of mind, arising from strong fancies, &c. I would ask, What were the fruits of his enthusiasm? In him we behold a great degree of honesty and simplicity, sincere and earnest desires and endeavours to know and do whatever is right, and to avoid every thing that is wrong; a high degree of love to God, delight in the perfections of his nature, placing the happiness of life in him; not only in contemplating him, but in being active in pleasing and serving him; a firm and undoubting belief in the Messiah, as the Saviour of the world, the great Prophet of God, and King of God's church; together with great love to him, delight and complacence in the way of salvation by him, and longing for the enlargement of his kingdom; earnest desires that God may be glorified and the Messiah's kingdom advanced, whatever instruments are employed; uncommon resignation to the will of God, and that under vast trials; great and universal benevolence to mankind, reaching all sorts of persons without distinction, manifested in sweetness of speech and behaviour, kind treatment, mercy, liberality, and earnest seeking the good of the souls and bodies of men. And all this we behold attended with extraordinary humility, meekness, forgiveness of injuries, and love to enemies; and a great abhorrence of a contrary spirit and practice; not only as appearing in others, but whereinsoever it had appeared in himself; causing the most bitter repentance, and brokenness of heart on account of any past instances of such a conduct. In him we see a modest, discreet, and decent deportment, among superiors, inferiors, and equals; a most diligent improvement of time, and earnest care to lose no part of it; great watchfulness against all sorts of sin, of heart, speech, and action. And this example and these endeavours we see attended with most happy fruits, and blessed effects on others, in humanizing, civilizing, and wonderfully reforming and transforming some of the most brutish savages; idle, immoral, drunkards, murderers, gross idolaters, and wizards; bringing them to permanent sobriety, diligence, devotion, honesty, conscientiousness, and charity. And the foregoing amiable virtues and successful labours, all end at last in a marvellous peace, unmovable stability, calmness, and resignation, in the sensible approaches of death; with longing for the heavenly state; not only for the honours and circumstantial advantages of it, but above all for the moral perfection, and holy and blessed employments of it. And these things are seen in a person indisputably of good understanding and judgment. I therefore say, if all these things are the fruits of enthusiasm, why should not enthusiasm be thought a desirable and excellent thing? For what can true religion, what can the best philosophy, do more? If vapours and whimsy will bring men to the most thorough virtue, to the most benign and fruitful morality; and will maintain it through a course of life attended with many trials, without affectation or self-exaltation, and with an earnest, constant testimony against the wildness, the extravagances, the bitter zeal, assuming behaviour, and separating spirit of enthusiasts; and will do all this more effectually, than any thing else has ever done in any plain known instance that can be produced; what cause then has the world to prize and pray for this blessed whimsicalness, and these benign vapours?
It would perhaps be a prejudice with some against the whole of Mr. Brainerd's religion, if it had begun in the time of the late religious commotion; being ready to conclude, however unreasonable, that nothing good could take its rise from those times. But it was not so; his conversion was before those times, in a time of general deadness; and therefore at a season when it was impossible that he should receive a taint from any corrupt notions, examples, or customs, that had birth in those times.
And whereas there are many who are not professed opposers of what is called experimental religion, who yet doubt of the reality of it, from the bad lives of some professors; and are ready to determine that there is nothing in all the talk about being born again, being emptied of self, brought to a saving close with Christ, &c. because many that pretend to these things, and are thought by others to have been the subjects of them, manifest no abiding alteration in their moral disposition and behaviour; are as careless, carnal, covetous, &c. as ever; yea, some much worse than ever: it is to be acknowledged and lamented, that this is the case with some; but by the preceding account they may be sensible, that it is not so with all. There are some indisputable instances of such a change, as the Scripture speaks of; an abiding great change, a "renovation of the spirit of the mind," and a "walking in newness of life." In the foregoing instance particularly, they may see the abiding influence of such a work of conversion, as they have heard of from the word of God; the fruits of such experiences through a course of years; under a great variety of circumstances, many changes of state, place, and company; and may see the blessed issue and event of it in life and death.
REFLECT. IV.
The preceding history serves to confirm those doctrine usually called the doctrine of grace. For if it be allowed that there is truth, substance, or value in the main of Mr. Brainerd's religion, it will undoubtedly follow, that those doctrine are divine: since it is evident, that the whole of it, from beginning to end, is according to that scheme of things; all built on those apprehensions, notions, and views, that are produced and established in the mind by those doctrine. He was brought by doctrine of this kind to his awakening, and deep concern about things of a spiritual and eternal nature; and by these doctrine his convictions were maintained and carried on; and his conversion was evidently altogether agreeable to this scheme, but by no means agreeing with the contrary, and utterly inconsistent with the Arminian notion of conversion or repentance. His conversion was plainly founded in a clear strong conviction, and undoubting persuasion of the truth of those things appertaining to these doctrine, against which Arminians most object, and about which his own mind had contended most. His conversion was no confirming and perfecting of moral principles and habits, by use and practice, and industrious discipline, together with the concurring suggestions and conspiring aids of God's Spirit; but entirely a supernatural work, at once turning him from darkness to marvellous light, and from the power of sin to the dominion of divine and holy principles. It was an effect, in no regard produced by his strength or labour, or obtained by his virtue; and not accomplished till he was first brought to a full conviction, that all his own virtue, strength, labours, and endeavours, could never avail any thing towards producing or procuring this effect.
A very little while before, his mind was full of the same cavils against the doctrine of God's sovereign grace, which are made by Arminians; and his heart full even of opposition to them. And God was pleased to perform this good work in him, just after a full end had been put to this cavilling and opposition; after he was entirely convinced, that he was dead in sin, and was in the hands of God, as the absolutely sovereign, unobliged, sole disposer and author of true holiness. God showing him mercy at such a time, is a confirmation, that this was a preparation for mercy; and consequently, that these things which he was convinced of, were true. While he opposed, he was the subject of no such mercy; though he so earnestly sought it, and prayed for it with so much care, and strictness in religion: but when once his opposition is fully subdued, and he is brought to submit to the truths, which he before had opposed, with full conviction, then the mercy he sought for is granted, with abundant light, great evidence, and exceeding joy; and he reaps the sweet fruit of it all his life after, and in the valley of the shadow of death.
In his conversion, he was brought to see the glory of that way of salvation by Christ, that is taught in what are called the doctrine of grace; and thenceforward, with unspeakable joy and complacence, to embrace and acquiesce in that way of salvation. He was, in his conversion, in all respects, brought to those views, and that state of mind, which these doctrine show to be necessary. And if his conversion was any real conversion, or any thing besides a mere whim, and if the religion of his life was any thing else but a series of freaks of a whimsical mind, then this one grand principle, on which depends the whole difference between Calvinists and Arminians, is undeniable, viz. that the grace or virtue of truly good men not only differs from the virtue of others in degree, but even in nature and kind. If ever Mr. Brainerd was truly turned from sin to God at all, or ever became truly religious, none can reasonably doubt but that his conversion was at the time when he supposed it to be: the change he then experienced, was evidently the greatest moral change that ever he passed under; and he was then apparently first brought to that kind of religion, that remarkable new habit and temper of mind, which he held all his life after. The narration shows it to be different, in nature and kind, from all that ever he was the subject of before. It was evidently wrought at once, without fitting and preparing his mind, by gradually convincing it more and more of the same truths, and bringing it nearer and nearer to such a temper. For it was soon after his mind had been remarkably full of blasphemy, and a vehement exercise of sensible enmity against God, and great opposition to those truths which he was now brought with his whole soul to embrace, and rest in as divine and glorious; truths, in the contemplation and improvement of which, he placed his happiness. And he himself (who was surely best able to judge) declares, that the dispositions and affections which were then given him, and thenceforward maintained in him, were, most sensibly and certainly, perfectly different in their nature from all that ever he was the subject of before, or of which he had ever had any conception. In this he was peremptory, even to his death. He must be looked upon as capable of judging; he had opportunity to know: he had practised a great deal of religion before, was exceeding strict and conscientious, and had continued so for a long time; had various religious affections, with which he often flattered himself, and sometimes pleased himself as being now in a good estate. And after he had those new experiences, that began in his conversion, they were continued to the end of his life; long enough for him thoroughly to observe their nature, and compare them with what had been before. Doubtless he was compos mentis; and was at least one of so good an understanding and judgment, as to be pretty well capable of discerning and comparing the things that passed in his own mind.
It is further observable, that his religion all along operated in such a manner as tended to confirm his mind in the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty, man's universal and entire dependence on God's power and grace, &c. The more his religion prevailed in his heart, and the fuller he was of divine love, and of clear and delightful views of spiritual things, and the more his heart was engaged in God's service; the more sensible he was of the certainty and the excellency and importance of these truths, and the more he was affected with them, and rejoiced in them. And he declares particularly, that when he lay for a long while on the verge of the eternal world, often expecting to be in that world in a few minutes, yet at the same time enjoying great serenity of mind, and clearness of thought, and being most apparently in a peculiar manner at a distance from an enthusiastical frame, he "at that time saw clearly the truth of those great doctrine of the gospel, which are justly styled the doctrine of grace, and never felt himself so capable of demonstrating the truth of them."
So that it is very evident, Mr. Brainerd's religion was wholly correspondent to what is called the Calvinistical scheme, and was the effect of those doctrine applied to his heart: and certainly it cannot be denied, that the effect was good, unless we turn atheists, or deists. I would ask, whether there be any such thing, in reality, as Christian devotion? If there be, what is it? what is its nature? and what its just measure? should it not be in a great degree? We read abundantly in Scripture of "loving God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, and with all the strength; of delighting in God, of rejoicing in the Lord, rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory; the soul magnifying the Lord, thirsting for God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness; the soul breaking for the longing it hath to God's judgments, praying to God with groanings that cannot be uttered, mourning for sin with a broken heart and contrite spirit," &c. How full is the book of Psalms, and other parts of Scripture, of such things as these! Now wherein do these things, as expressed by and appearing in Mr. Brainerd, either the things themselves, or their effects and fruits, differ from the scripture representations? These things he was brought to by that strange and wonderful transformation of the man, which he called his conversion. And do not these well agree with what is so often said in the Old Testament and the New, concerning the "giving of a new heart, creating a right spirit, a being renewed in the spirit of the mind, a being sanctified throughout, becoming a new creature?" &c. Now where is there to be found an Arminian conversion or repentance, consisting in so great and admirable a change? Can the Arminians produce an instance, within this age, and so plainly within our reach and view, of such a reformation, such a transformation of a man, to scriptural devotion, heavenly-mindedness, and true Christian morality, in one that before lived without these things, on the foot of their principles, and through the influence of their doctrine?
And here is worthy to be considered the effect of Calvinistical doctrine (as they are called) not only on Mr. Brainerd himself, but also on others, whom he taught. It is abundantly pretended and asserted of late, that these doctrine tend to undermine the very foundations of all religion and morality, and to enervate and vacate all reasonable motives to the exercise and practice of them, and lay invincible stumbling-blocks before infidels, to hinder their embracing Christianity; and that the contrary doctrine are the fruitful principles of virtue and goodness, set religion on its right basis, represent it in an amiable light, give its motives their full force, and recommend it to the reason and common sense of mankind. But where can they find an instance of so great and signal an effect of their doctrine, in bringing infidels, who were at such a distance from all that is civil, sober, rational, and Christian, and so full of inveterate prejudices against these things, to such a degree of humanity, civility, exercise of reason, self-denial, and Christian virtue? Arminians place religion in morality: let them bring an instance of their doctrine producing such a transformation of a people in point of morality. It is strange, if the all-wise God so orders things in his providence, that reasonable and proper means, and his own means, which he himself has appointed, should in no known remarkable instance be instrumental to produce so good an effect; an effect so agreeable to his own word and mind, and that very effect for which he appointed these excellent means; that they should not be so successful, as those means which are not his own, but very contrary to them, and of a contrary tendency; means that are in themselves very absurd, and tend to root all religion and virtue out of the world, to promote and establish infidelity, and to lay an insuperable stumbling-block before pagans, to hinder their embracing the gospel: I say, if this be the true state of the case, it is certainly wonderful, and an event worthy of some attention.
I know, that many will be ready to say, "It is too soon yet to glory in the work, that has been wrought among Mr. Brainerd's Indians; it is best to wait and see the final event; it may be, all will come to nothing by and by." To which I answer, (not to insist, that it will not follow, according to Arminian principles, they are not now true Christians, really pious and godly, though they should fall away and come to nothing,) that I never supposed every one of those Indians, who in profession renounced their heathenism and visibly embraced Christianity, and have had some appearance of piety, will finally prove true converts. If two thirds, or indeed one half of them (as great a proportion as there is in the parable of the ten virgins) should persevere; it will be sufficient to show the work wrought among them to have been truly admirable and glorious. But so much of permanence of their religion has already appeared, as shows it to be something else besides an Indian humour or good mood, or any transient effect in the conceits, notions, and affections of these ignorant people, excited at a particular turn, by artful management. For it is now more than three years ago, that this work began among them, and a remarkable change appeared in many of them; since which time the number of visible converts has greatly increased: and by repeated accounts, from several hands, they still generally persevere in diligent religion and strict virtue. I think a letter from a young gentleman, a candidate for the ministry, one of those before mentioned, appointed by the honourable commissioners in Boston, as missionaries to the heathen of the Six Nations, so called, worthy of insertion here. He, by their order, dwelt with Mr. John Brainerd among these Christian Indians, in order to their being prepared for the business of their mission. The letter was written from thence, to his parents here in Northampton, and is as follows:
bethel, in New Jersey, Jan. 14, 1748.
Honoured and dear Parents,
"After a long and uncomfortable journey, by reason of bad weather, I arrived at Mr. Brainerd's the sixth instant; where I design to stay this winter: and as yet, upon many accounts, am well satisfied with my coming hither. The state and circumstances of the Indians, spiritual and temporal, much exceed what I expected. I have endeavoured to acquaint myself with the state of the Indians in general, with particular persons, and with the school, as much as the short time I have been here would admit of. And notwithstanding my expectations were very much raised, from Mr. David Brainerd's Journal, and from particular informations from him; yet I must confess, that in many respects they are not equal to that which now appears to me to be true, concerning the glorious work of divine grace amongst the Indians.
"The evening after I came to town, I had opportunity to see the Indians together, whilst the Reverend Mr. Arthur preached to them: at which time there appeared a very general and uncommon seriousness and solemnity in the congregation: and this appeared to me to be the effect of an inward sense of the importance of divine truths, and not because they were hearing a stranger; which was abundantly confirmed to me the next sabbath, when there was the same devout attendance on divine service, and a surprising solemnity appearing in the performance of each part of divine worship. And some, who are hopefully true Christians, appear to have been at that time much enlivened and comforted; not from any observable commotions then, but from conversation afterwards: and others seemed to be under pressing concern for their souls. I have endeavoured to acquaint myself with particular persons; many of whom seem to be very humble and growing Christians; although some of them (as I am informed) were before their conversion most monstrously wicked.
"Religious conversation seems to be very pleasing and delightful to many, and especially that which relates to the exercises of the heart. And many here do not seem to be real Christians only, but growing Christians also; as well in doctrinal as experimental knowledge. Besides my conversation with particular persons, I have had opportunity to attend upon one of Mr. Brainerd's catechetical lectures; where I was surprised at their readiness in answering questions to which they had not been used; although Mr. Brainerd complained much of their uncommon deficiency. It is surprising to see this people, who not long since were led captive by Satan at his will, and living in the practice of all manner of abominations, without the least sense even of moral honesty, yet now living soberly and regularly, and not seeking every man his own, but every man, in some sense, his neighbour's good; and to see those, who but a little while past knew nothing of the true God, now worshipping him in a solemn and devout manner; not only in public, but in their families and in secret; which is manifestly the case, it being a difficult thing to walk out in the woods in the morning, without disturbing persons at their secret devotion. And it seems wonderful, that this should be the case, not only with adult persons, but with children also. It is observable here, that many children (if not the children in general) retire into secret places to pray. And, as far as at present I can judge, this is not the effect of custom and fashion, but of real seriousness and thoughtfulness about their souls.
"I have frequently gone into the school, and have spent considerable time there amongst the children; and nave been surprised to see, not only their diligent attendance upon the business of the school, but also the proficiency they have made in it, in reading and writing and in their catechisms of divers sorts. It seems to be as pleasing and as natural to these children, to have their books in their hands, as it does for many others to be at play. I have gone into a house where there has been a number of children accidentally gathered together; and observed, that every one had his book in his hand, and was diligently studying it About thirty of these children can answer to all the questions in the Assembly's Catechism; and the greater part of them are able to do it with the proofs, to the fourth commandment. I wish there were many such schools; I confess, that I never was acquainted with such an one, in many respects. Oh that what God has done here, may prove to be the beginning of a far more glorious and extensive work of grace among the heathen!
" I am your obedient and dutiful son,