Chapter 12.
“Lord, Thou hast joined my soul to Thine
In bonds no power can sever;
Grafted in Thee, the living Vine,
I shall be Thine forever.
Lord, when I die, I die to Thee,
Thy precious death hath won for me
A life that never endeth.”
―Hermann.
Although Brainerd was never to go amongst his Indians again, the severity of his illness relaxed for a few weeks, and he was able to receive his friends, and even make short visits out of doors. This brief stay in Beulah land within sight of the golden city, was a special happiness, both to the invalid and his friends. It was a constant source of thankfulness to him, and afterward much commented upon by those he left behind, that a Providence seems to have most wisely ordered the arrangements of these final days. He had been spared to see in the wonderful revival of religion among the Indians the salvation of God ere he was laid aside, Unlike his brave predecessor, John Eliot, he had the joy of seeing a Christian church established among the Indians, with the reverent institutions and preachers of the ordinances; to know that the old vagrant life of these people had been abandoned, their idolatries given up, the habits of murderous war exchanged for the peaceful pursuits of husbandry. When he left their settlement at the Forks of Delaware, the children were in school, and giving promise of a useful future. Not only this was a matter of real encouragement, but the publication of the former part of his journal had awakened a new impulse of interest for missions among the Indians, and in distant parts of America people were coming forward, not only with money, but offering themselves for a work which God had so highly forwarded in the hands of Brainerd. He did not, in fact, leave the field until his own brother, who had been greatly stimulated with the same devotion to the cause, had just finished his college course, and was ready to enter upon the work as his coadjutor and successor.
He had been taken ill while staying with his friend, Mr. Dickinson, at Elizabethtown, and for a time his life was then despaired of; but from this he recovered sufficiently to reach Boston at a time when it seemed providentially most suitable. The “Honorable Commissioners” of the Society, under whose direction he worked, had just reached Boston for the purpose of examining into the work, and appropriating at once, under the recent legacy of Dr. Williams, a sum of money for the support of two new missionaries to the Indians of the Six Nations. These candidates Brainerd was able to see himself, and instruct them in the best means of advancing the work which lay before them. Not the least of the works of Providence at this time was in the fact that he went to die under the roof of his friend and biographer, Jonathan Edwards, who happily dissuaded him from suppressing or destroying the whole of his journal and papers.
Had these never seen the light, one of the most interesting and stimulating works in missionary literature would have been lost to the world. Instead of doing that, however, he carefully prepared his diary and journal for the press, and had only just finished this important duty when death snatched the pen.
Brainerd was an excellent if not a considerable letter writer, and some few of his epistles are still preserved. Here and there we have a few lines written to his brother at Yale College (who succeeded him), describing his own labors, and disclosing many of the privations and adventures which it was his lot to endure. In one sentence of a letter, written from Crossweeksung in December, 1745, he shows how the burden of the Lord was upon him, and with a restless anxiety, he was ever pushing on.
“I am in one continual, perpetual, and uninterrupted hurry, and Divine providence throws so much upon me that I do not see that it will ever be otherwise. May I obtain mercy of God to be faithful unto the death! I cannot say I am weary of my hurry; I only want strength and grace to do more for God than I have ever yet done.”
To another brother he finds time to write while still ill at Boston, when, indeed, he thought his end was very nigh. At the time of writing this letter he was by no means satisfied as to the spiritual condition of this brother, Israel, and, therefore, he implores him with dying intensity to give himself to God, and follow in his steps to do His glory, and further His kingdom. What weight and directness are in these closing words: ―
“You, my dear brother, I have been particularly concerned for, and have wondered I so much neglected conversing with you about your spiritual state at our last meeting. O, my brother, let me then beseech you now to examine whether you are indeed a new creature? Whether you have ever acted above self? Whether the glory of God has ever been the sweetest and highest concern with you? Whether you have ever been reconciled to all the perfections of God? In a word―whether God has been your portion and a holy conformity to Him your chief delight? If you cannot answer positively, consider seriously the frequent breathings of your soul, but do not, however, put yourself off with a slight answer. If you have reason to think you are graceless, O, give yourself and the Throne of Grace no rest till God arise and save. But if the case should be otherwise, bless God for His grace, and press after holiness.
“My soul longs that you should be fitted for, and in due time go into the work of the ministry. I cannot bear to think of you going into any other business in life. Do not be discouraged because you see your elder brothers in the ministry die early one after the other. I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.”
The young brother to whom the foregoing was written was able to reach his bedside sometime before he died, and gave, to, the inexpressible joy of the departing saint, real evidence of being a Christian.
His brother John, who became his successor in the work, was much upon his mind at this closing season of his life, and to him far away among the Christian Indians, fighting the good fight of faith as his brother had done, one very precious letter was sent. He speaks of himself as “just on the verge of eternity, expecting very speedily to appear in the unseen world.” With many warm and earnest words he glorifies God for His mercy and the grace which has sustained him amid many trials. And he wants, as a departing legacy, to warn, exhort, and instruct his brother in the Divine life. His words are solemn, and he speaks as one whose hand is already upon the latch of that door from whence there is no return till the trumpet of God shall sound.
“And now, my dear brother, as I must press you to pursue after personal holiness, to be as much in fasting and prayer as your health will allow, and to live above the rate of common Christians; so I must entreat you solemnly to attend to your public work; labor to distinguish between true and false religion, and to that end watch the motions of God’s Spirit upon your own heart. Look to Him for help, and impartially compare your affections with His Word.
Read Mr. Edwards on the Affections, where the essence; and soul of religion is clearly distinguished from false affection. Value religious joys according to the subject-matter of them; there are many who rejoice in their supposed justification―but what do these joys argue but only that they love themselves? Whereas in true spiritual joys the soul rejoices in God for what He is in Himself; blesses God for His holiness, sovereignty, power, faithfulness, and all His perfections; adores God that He is what He is; that He is unchangeably possessed of infinite glory and happiness. Now, when men thus rejoice in the perfections of God, and in the infinite excellency of the way of salvation by Christ, and in the holy commands of God, which are a transcript of His holy nature, these joys are Divine and spiritual. Our joys will stand by us at the hour of death, if we can be then satisfied that we have thus acted above self, and in a disinterested manner, if I may so express it, rejoiced in the glory of the blessed God. I fear you are not sufficiently aware how much false religion there is in the world; many serious Christians and valuable ministers are too easily imposed upon by this false blaze. I likewise fear you are not sensible of the dreadful effects and consequences of this false religion. Let me tell you it is the devil transformed into an angel of light; it is a brat of hell, and always springs up with every revival of religion, and stabs and murders the cause of God, while it passes current with multitudes of well-meaning people for the height of religion. Set yourself, my brother, to crush all appearances of this nature among the Indians, and never encourage any degrees of heat without light. Charge my people in the name of their dying minister-yea, in the name of Him who was dead and is alive, to live and walk as becomes the Gospel. Tell them how great the expectations of God and His people are from them, and how awfully they will wound God’s cause if they fall into vice, as well as fatally prejudice other poor Indians. Always insist that their experiences are rotten, that their joys are delusive, although they may have been rapt up into the third heaven in their own conceit by them, unless the main tenour of their lives be spiritual, watchful, and holy. In pressing these things ‘thou shalt save thyself and those that hear thee.
“God knows I was heartily willing to have served Him longer in the work of the ministry, although it had still been attended with the labors and hardships of past years, if He had seen fit that it should be so; but as His will now appears otherwise, I am fully content, and can, with utmost freedom, say, The will of the Lord be done. It affects me to think of leaving you in a world of sin, my heart pities you, that these storms and tempests are yet before you, which I trust, through grace, I am delivered from. But God lives, and blessed be my Rock. He is the same Almighty Friend; and will, I trust, be your Guide and Helper, as He has been mine.”
Besides writing these letters, he was able, during these hours of weakness, to converse with many who were attracted to his bedside either by a desire to hear of the wonderful work accomplished by him among the Indians, or by an anxiety about their own spiritual state. His heart was with his Indians, and their faces and feathered hair were constantly before his mind. From distant parts of the country, people came to where he lay at Boston, many ministers of every denomination, and laymen of influence and position. To these, one theme was the paramount subject of his conversation―that of vital and sound religion, and the blessed experience of delighting in God. His soul, rapidly ripening for the garner of the Lord, was set upon heavenly things, and now that, for a brief space, he could no longer labor, he felt that he must wait patiently, and testify to all of the goodness of God. Brainerd seems to have had an increasing dread of people having a mere form of godliness, holding with firm allegiance to doctrines which, true in themselves, have no effect whatever upon their outward life, or the principles which move their actions and words. He was also jealous for Scripture teaching, as distinguished from the fantastic ideas which characterized the theology of that far-off time, as they do our own.
“I always conversed of the things of religion,” he says, in later notes referring to the present time, “and was peculiarly disposed and assisted in distinguishing between the true and false religions of the times. There was scarce any subject, that has been matter of debate in the later day, but what I was, at one time or other, brought to a sort of necessity to discourse upon, and state my opinions, and that frequently before numbers of people; and especially I discoursed repeatedly on the nature and necessity of that humiliation, self-emptiness, and full conviction of a person’s being utterly undone in himself, which is necessary to a saving faith, and the extreme difficulty of being brought to this, and the great danger there is of persons taking up with self-righteous appearances of it. The danger of this I especially dwelt upon, being persuaded that multitudes perish in this hidden way; and because so little is said from most pulpits to discover any danger here, so that persons being never effectually brought to die in themselves, are never truly united to Christ, and so perish. I also discoursed much on what I take to be the essence of true religion, endeavoring plainly to describe that God-like temper and disposition of soul, and that holy conversation and behavior, that may justly claim the honor of having God for its original and patron. And I have reason to hope God blessed my way of discoursing and distinguishing to some, both ministers and people, so that my time was not wholly lost.”
One result of these visits was that some generous souls, being deeply interested in the accounts he gave them of his work at the Forks of Delaware, sent three dozen Bibles for his school (no mean or inexpensive gift in those days), and fourteen pounds in money, to be expended for the good of the cause there.
After being so near death’s door, there came a marvelous rally, and Brainerd, to the astonishment of his friends, began to show some amendment in strength. How bad he had been may be seen by an account given by the faithful Jerusha, who was his constant nurse until the very last. She speaks of his delirious fever, and how one Saturday evening they all sat up with him during the night, fearing any moment might prove his last. His lungs were so diseased that the physician said he had no hopes of his life, and that in one of his hours of extreme debility he must pass away. This he thought himself, and told one of his friends that he was as certainly a dead man as if he had been shot through the heart. But he was not yet to go. Just as he began to revive, his young brother Israel hastened with alarm to his bedside, and this gave him much pleasure, although it was dashed with the intelligence of his sister’s sudden death at Haddam, his native place. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, we find him leaving Boston one cool afternoon, accompanied by many friends, and after a week’s travel, doing sixteen miles horseback each day, he reached Northampton. The effort cost him much, and from that moment he began to diminish in strength every day. But his heart was strong and his faith unfailing. He makes this note in his diary under date Lord’s Day, the 26th of July, 1747, “This day I saw clearly that I should never be happy; yea, that God Himself could not make me happy, unless I could be in a capacity to please and glorify Him forever. Take away this, and admit me into all the fine heavens that can be conceived of by men or angels, and I should still be miserable forever.”
Here, as at Boston, many visited him, and to some he gave most interesting details of his own spiritual experiences, but so averse was he to any show or fussy talk about religion that he bade those to whom he had confided these matters make no mention of them until after his death.
On the 16th of August, 1747, he was able to attend public worship for the last time, and a week later when he could not leave his room, he made a reference in his diary as follows:― “This morning I was considerably refreshed with the thought, yea, the hope and expectation of the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom; and I could not but hope the time was at hand when Babylon the Great would fall and rise no more. This led me to some spiritual meditation that was very refreshing to me. I was unable to attend public worship either part of the day, but God was pleased to afford me fixedness and satisfaction in Divine thoughts. Nothing so refreshes my soul as when I can go to God, yea, to God my exceeding joy.”
Once more confined to his room, and this for the last time, he again busied himself with his Indian affairs; wrote at large to the Commissioners at Boston respecting the projected development of the work, and recommended two young men to be sent into the field without delay. Just then, to his great joy, his brother John, who had taken up his work in New Jersey, came unexpectedly to see him, bringing him loving messages from his people and good news of their progress. One of the most noteworthy incidents of this visit was that his brother brought with him many manuscripts which had been left behind, amongst others, this precious diary which has since been such a faithful memorial of him.
A little over-exertion a few days later laid him prostrate, and those who watched him thought they discerned signs of approaching death. Observing their anxiety he called out, “O the glorious time is coming! I have longed to serve God perfectly, now God will gratify these desires!”
He was not to die then, but it is on record that his spirits rose with every intimation of the coming release, and only fell when it seemed as if he must linger longer still outside the gates. His talk, as he looked upon the faces of his friends, was full of intense love and devotion to God, yearning with an inexpressible ardor to be useful, to promote by every means His glory. We have few memorials of the triumphant end of any saint of God so rich in the glorious foretaste of the “abundant entrance” to the city of light. His mind was perfectly clear, and his eyes glistened with Divine rapture, as he told his watchers: ―
“My heaven is to please God and glorify Him, and to give all to Him, and to be wholly devoted to His day; that is the heaven I long for; that is my religion, and that is my happiness, and always was ever since, I suppose, I had any true religion; and all those that are of that religion shall meet me in heaven. I do not go to heaven to be advanced but to give honor to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high or a low seat there, but to love, and please, and glorify God is all. Had I a thousand souls, if they were worth anything, I would give them all to God, but I have nothing to give when all is done. It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God. God Himself could not make him happy any other way. I long to be in heaven praising and glorifying God with the holy angels, all my desire is to glorify God. My heart goes out to this burying-place, it seems to me a desirable place, but oh! to glorify God! that is it, that is above all. It is a great comfort for me to think that I have done a little for God and the world. Oh! it is but a very small matter, yet I have done a little, and I lament it that I have not done more for Him. There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God’s work, doing the work that Christ did. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing His whole will. My greatest joy and comfort has been to do something for promoting the interests of religion, and the souls of particular persons, and now, in my illness, while I am full of pain and distress, from day to day, all the comfort I have is in being able to do some little char (or small piece of work) for God, either by something that I say, or by writing, or by some other way.”
When he refers to his physical condition as full of pain and distress, it is no exaggeration, for we have glimpses in his private diary of what sufferings he patiently bore. The words just quoted were not those of one quietly and painlessly passing away, but were uttered often when the fever consumed his vitals, and every nerve seemed a vehicle of pain. If the spirit chafed at all, it chafed like the imprisoned bird of liberty. “Oh my dear Lord, I am speedily coming to Thee, I hope,” was his ejaculation when the agony was fiercest.
He had little strength to write now, but a few scrawled entries appear in his diary, such as: ― “Lord’s Day, September 27th. ―This was a very comfortable day to my soul; I think I awoke with God. I was enabled to lift up my soul to God early this morning, and while I had little bodily strength, I found freedom to lift up my heart to God for myself and others. Afterward was pleased with the thoughts of speedily entering into the unseen world.” On that particular morning it was observed how much exhilarated he was, and, greeting his friends as they came into his room with exceeding pleasure, he said:―
“I was born on a Sabbath Day; I have reason to think I was new horn on a Sabbath Day; and I hope I shall die on this Sabbath Day. I shall look upon it as a favor if it may be the will of God that it should be so; I long for the time. O why is His chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of His chariot?” The end was now not far off. His desire that the liberating angel should come and set him free on that day was not granted. For more than a week he lay waiting, blaming himself ofttimes for his impatience; and at one time he lay so long speechless that those who loved him bent their ear to his lips, thinking he was really gone, but could still catch the whispered prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”
Reviving again, he asked them to sing the 102nd Psalm, and with full hearts those sacred words of David’s cry in his affliction were uttered again in the ears of the God of Sabaoth, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto Thee. Hide not Thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline Thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.”
Listening to these words, he seemed to gain fresh strength, and began to speak again of his departure, and express the desire that his funeral should be of the quietest and simplest sort. He thanked God that he was not now in Boston, where he had seen mourning performed with much pomp and outward show. He was always most averse to anything which could be construed as self-gratification, whether of the living or the dead, and treasured the old Puritanical simplicity of taste and order.
His brother John had found it necessary to return for a few days to New Jersey, and the dying missionary looked in vain for his coming back, as promised, before he passed away. The daughter of his friend, Mr. Edwards, who had been his faithful and patient nurse all through his illness, and to whom he had been for some time much attached, came into his room, and he said farewell to her.
Her father says of her that it pleased “God to take away this my dear child by death on the 14th of February next following, after a short illness of five days, in the 18th year of her age. She was a person of much the same spirit with Mr. Brainerd. She had constantly taken care of and attended him in his sickness for nineteen weeks before his death, devoting herself to it with great delight because she looked on him as an eminent servant of Jesus Christ. In this time he had much conversation with her on the things of religion; and in his dying state often expressed to us, her parents, his great satisfaction concerning her true piety, and his confidence that he should meet her in heaven, and his high opinion of her, not only as a true Christian but as a very eminent saint; one whose soul was uncommonly fed and entertained with things that appertain to the most spiritual, experimental, and distinguishing parts of religion; and one who by the temper of her mind was fitted to deny herself for God, and to do good beyond any young woman whatsoever that he knew of. She had manifested a heart uncommonly devoted to God in the course of her life, many years before her death, and said on her deathbed that ‘she had not seen one minute for several years wherein she desired to live one minute longer for the sake of any other good in life but doing good, living to God, and doing what might be for His glory.”
To her, in his fast-ebbing moments, Brainerd turned with love and said: “Dear Jerusha, are you willing to part with me? I am quite willing to part with you; I am willing to part with all my friends; I am willing to part with my dear brother John, although I love him the best of any creature living; I have committed him and all my friends to God, and can leave them with God. Though, if I thought I should not see you, and be happy with you in another world, I could not bear to part with you. But we shall spend a happy eternity together!”
Brainerd fell into a stupor, and did not revive again until his brother came in, and soon after the silver cord was loosed, the pitcher broken at the fountain, and murmuring, “He will come, He will not tarry, I shall soon be in glory, I shall soon glorify God with the angels,” he fell asleep in Jesus, on Friday, the 9th of October, 1747. David Brainerd, with the language of the faithful and beloved, had reached at last the celestial city, which the glorious dreamer saw: ―
“Now I saw in my dream that these two men went in at the gate; and, lo, as they entered, they were transfigured, and they had raiment put on them which shone like gold. There were also that met them with harps and crowns, and gave them to them―the harps to praise, and the crowns a token of honor. Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the city rang again for joy, and it was said unto them, Enter ye into the joy of your Lord. I also heard the men themselves, that they sang with a loud voice, saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.”
“Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and, behold, the city shone like the sun, the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal.
“There were also of them that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.”
“And after that they shut up the gates, which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them.”
“O sweet and blessed country,
Shall I ever see thy face?
O sweet and blessed country,
Shall I ever win thy grace?
I have the hope within me
To comfort and to bless!
Shall I ever win the prize itself?
O tell me, tell me, Yes!
“Strive, man, to win that glory;
Toil man, to gain that light;
Send hope before to grasp it,
Till hope be lost in sight.
Exult, O dust and ashes,
The Lord shall be thy part;
His only, His forever,
Thou shalt be, and thou art.”
Bernard of Cluny.