Brainerd's panting after God and "healing himself" by enlargement to duties [1738]
Some time in the beginning of winter, anno 1738, it pleased God, on one Sabbath morning, as I was walking out for some secret duties, as I remember, to give me on a sudden sense of my danger, and the wrath of God, that I stood amazed, and my former good frames that I had pleased myself with all presently vanished; and from the view that I had of my sin and vileness, I was much distressed all that day, fearing the vengeance of God would soon overtake me. I was much dejected, and kept much alone, and sometimes begrudged the birds and beasts their happiness, because they were not exposed to eternal misery, as I evidently saw I was. And thus I lived from day to day, being frequently in distress. Sometimes there appeared mountains before me to obstruct my hopes of mercy; and the work of conversion appeared so great, I thought I should never be the subject of it; but used, however, to pray and cry to God, and perform other duties with great earnestness, and hoped by some means to make the case better. And though I hundreds of times renounced, all pretences of any worth in my duties, as I thought, even in the season of the performance of them, and often confessed to God that I deserved nothing for the very best of them but eternal condemnation; yet still I had a secret latent hope of recommending myself to God by my religious duties. And when I prayed affectionately, and my heart seemed in some measure to melt, I hoped God would be thereby moved to pity me; my prayers then looked with some appearance of goodness in them, and I seemed to mourn for sin. And then I could in some measure venture on the mercy of God in Christ, as I thought, though the preponderating thought and foundation of my hope was some imagination of goodness in my heart-melting's, and flowing of affections in duty, and sometimes extraordinary enlargements therein. Though at some times the gate appeared so very strait that it looked next to impossible to enter, yet at other times I flattered myself that it was not so very difficult, and hoped I should by diligence and watchfulness soon gain the point. Sometimes, after enlargement in duty and considerable affection, I hoped I had made a good step towards heaven, and imagined that God was affected as I was, and that He would hear such sincere cries as I called them. And so sometimes, when I withdrew for secret duties in great distress, I returned something comfortable; and thus healed myself with duties.
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