Читать книгу The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, Chiefly Extracted from His Diary онлайн

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“Being sensible of the necessity of deep humiliation in order to a saving close with Christ, I used to set myself to produce in my own heart the convictions requisite in such a humiliation: as, a conviction that God would be just, if he cast me off for ever; that if ever God should bestow mercy on me, it would be mere grace, though I should be in distress many years first, and be never so much engaged in duty; and that God was not in the least obliged to pity me the more for all past duties, cries, and tears. I strove to my utmost to bring myself to a firm belief of these things and a hearty assent to them; and hoped that now I was brought off from myself, truly humbled, and that I bowed to the divine sovereignty. I was wont to tell God in my prayers, that now I had those very dispositions of soul which he required, and on which he showed mercy to others, and thereupon to beg and plead for mercy to me. But when I found no relief, and was still oppressed with guilt and fears of wrath, my soul was in a tumult, and my heart rose against God, as dealing hardly with me. Yet then my conscience flew in my face, putting me in mind of my late confession to God of his justice in my condemnation. This, giving me a sight of the badness of my heart, threw me again into distress; and I wished that I had watched my heart more narrowly, to keep it from breaking out against God’s dealings with me. I even wished that I had not pleaded for mercy on account of my humiliation; because thereby I had lost all my seeming goodness. Thus, scores of times I vainly imagined myself humbled and prepared for saving mercy. While I was in this distressed, bewildered, and tumultuous state of mind, the corruption of my heart was especially irritated with the following things.