The Life & Diary of David Brainerd

This is a couple of days old now.

I began reading The Life & Diary of David Brainerd last year but soon shelved it and moved on to something else. I was benefiting from it but it was pretty slow going. I downloaded it free from Christian Audio a while back and today began listening to it on my way to work. Amazingly if I stay according to plan, I will be able to listen to the entire book in just 2 weeks. I would prefer to actually read the book but this is a wonderful way to spend time with a work that I may not get time to spend with otherwise.

A few things struck me today. One of those was the thought that the best thing a person who tends toward legalism can do is to spend some time with someone who can "out legalize" them. The two that came to my mind were Luther and of course, Brainerd. Both were as vigilant as anyone could be in trying to keep God's law and both were driven to utter despair before yielding to the righteousness of God in Christ.

Brainerd got to the point where he was angry with God and with His way of salvation. He says,

The many disappointments, great distresses, and perplexity I met with, put me into a most horrible frame of contesting with the Almighty; with an inward vehemence and virulence finding fault with his ways of dealing with mankind. I found great fault with the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity; and my wicked heart often wished for some other way of salvation, than by Jesus Christ. Being like the troubled sea, my thoughts confused, I used to contrive to escape the wrath of God by some other means. I had strange projects, full of atheism, contriving to disappoint God's designs and decrees concerning me, or to escape his notice, and hide myself from him. But when, upon reflection, I saw these projects were vain, and would not serve me, and that I could contrive nothing for my own relief; this would throw my mind into the most horrid frame, to wish there was no God, or to wish there were some other God that could control him.

Brainerd took the Bible as God's infallible Word. He didn't reject the authority of the Bible because it didn't suit his fallen mindset; he just didn't like what it said. That seems remarkable doesn't it!

One of the things that use to "irritate" him was the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

2. Another thing {that irritated him} was, that faith alone, was the condition of salvation; that God would not come down to lower terms, and that he would not promise life and salvation upon my sincere and hearty prayers and endeavours. That word, Mar_16:16. "He that believeth not, shall be damned," cut off all hope there: and I found, faith was the sovereign gift of God; that I could not get it as of myself, and could not oblige God to bestow it upon me, by any of my performances, (Eph_2:1, Eph_2:8.) This, I was ready to say, is a hard saying, who can bear it? I could not bear, that all I had done should stand for mere nothing, who had been very conscientious in duty, had been exceeding religious a great while, and had, as I thought, done much more than many others who had obtained mercy. I confessed indeed the vileness of my duties; but then, what made them at that time seem vile, was my wandering thoughts in them; not because I was all over defiled like a devil, and the principle corrupt from whence they flowed, so that I could not possibly do any thing that was good. And therefore I called what I did, by the name of honest faithful endeavours; and could not bear it, that God had made no promises of salvation to them.

This is remarkable on many levels but the thing that struck me was seeing justification by faith alone as a "hard saying". This sentiment we do not often find today. I think we think that salvation being by faith makes things rather more easy. I am reminded of what Tim Keller said in Minneapolis at the DGM National Conference in 2006. According to my memory he said, quoting someone else, since salvation is not by something we can do and then be done with, but by faith, there is nothing the Lord cannot ask of us. He may even ask for our son on the altar.

Trusting in God for all things is not something that we can naturally do. It is a supernatural effect and is ever the struggle of the Christian in this life. Perhaps our inability to trust our Heavenly Father in this life is our greatest grief. Lord Jesus thank Your for Your righteousness which is ours by our simple faith. May we ever increase to trust you more and more.

The last thing that struck me today was the folly of believing we can attract unbelievers to God through external means, entertainments, etc. "The unregenerate man hates the light of truth because it reproves his deeds and shows him his just desserts." There is nothing worldly attractive about being convicted of sin and seeing what that sin deserves before a holy God. Therefore to hope to attract unbelievers outside of the context of understanding our alienation from God and restoration to God through Christ, is utter folly.

1 Corinthians 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Read Brainerd's words on being confronted by a holy, sovereign God.

4. Another thing to which I found a great inward opposition, was the sovereignty of God. I could not bear that it should be wholly at God's pleasure to save or damn me, just as he would. That passage, Rom_9:11-23, was a constant vexation to me, especially Rom_9:21. Reading or meditating on this, always destroyed my seeming good frames: for when I thought I was almost humbled, and almost resigned, this passage would make my enmity against the sovereignty of God appear. When I came to reflect on my inward enmity and blasphemy, which arose on this occasion, I was the more afraid of God, and driven further from any hopes of reconciliation with him. It gave me such a dreadful view of myself, that I dreaded more than ever to see myself in God's hands, at his sovereign disposal, and it made me more opposite than ever to submit to his sovereignty; for I thought God designed my damnation.

All this time the Spirit of God was powerfully at work with me; and I was inwardly pressed to relinquish all self-confidence, all hopes of ever helping myself by any means whatsoever: and the conviction of my lost estate was sometimes so clear and manifest before my eyes, that it was as if it had been declared to me in so many words, 'It is done, it is done, for ever impossible to deliver yourself.' For about three or four days my soul was thus greatly distressed. At some turns, for a few moments, I seemed to myself lost and undone; but then would shrink back immediately from the sight, because I dared not venture myself into the hands of God, as wholly helpless, and at the disposal of his sovereign pleasure. I dared not see that important truth concerning myself, that I was dead in trespasses and sins. But when I had as it were thrust away these views of myself at any time, I felt distressed to have the same discoveries of myself again; for I greatly feared being given over of God to final stupidity. When I thought of putting it off to a more convenient season, the conviction was so close and powerful, with regard to the present time, that it was the best, and probably the only time, that I dared not put it off.

It was the sight of truth concerning myself, truth respecting my state, as a creature fallen and alienated from God, and that consequently could make no demands on God for mercy, but must subscribe to the absolute sovereignty of the Divine Being; the sight of the truth, I say, my soul shrank away from, and trembled to think of beholding. Thus, he that doth evil, as all unregenerate men continually do, hates the light of truth, neither cares to come to it, because it will reprove his deeds, and show him his just deserts, Joh_3:20. And though, some time before, I had taken much pains, as I thought, to submit to the sovereignty of God, yet I mistook the thing; and did not once imagine, that seeing and being made experimentally sensible of this truth, which my soul now so much dreaded and trembled at, was the frame of soul that I had been so earnest in pursuit of heretofore. For I had ever hoped, that when I had attained to that humiliation, which I supposed necessary to go before faith, then it would not be fair for God to cast me off; but now I saw it was so far from any goodness in me, to own myself spiritually dead, and destitute of all goodness, that, on the contrary, my mouth would be for ever stopped by it; and it looked as dreadful to me, to see myself, and the relation I stood in to God, I a sinner and criminal, and he a great Judge and Sovereign as it would be to a poor trembling creature, to venture off some high precipice. And hence I put it off for a minute or two, and tried for better circumstances to do it in; either I must read a passage or two, or pray first, or something of the like nature; or else put off my submission to God's sovereignty, with an objection, that I did not know how to submit. But the truth was, I could see no safety in owning myself in the hands of a sovereign God, and that I could lay no claim to any thing better than damnation.

It is not possible to read something like that without shuddering at the thought of how lightly we treat conviction of sin. I shudder to think about my own unconcern for sin. Lord, may we seek to do that which is unnatural, indeed to do that which is supernatural, by rightly seeing our natural position before you and therefore magnifying the work accomplished by Christ Jesus on the cross for the salvation of our souls.