God brought awakening to the American Indians, adding more than one hundred to Brainerd’s growing congregation. While experiencing sickness, extreme hardship, and loneliness, Brainerd often took up his pen to write of his increased love for the American Indians under his ministerial care. His heart longed to show them the glory of Christ through the preaching and teaching of Scripture. He spent hours in prayer, asking God to bring about their salvation and growth in Christ. However, his time among the American Indian tribes of New England was mingled with periods of severe depression and sickness. His diary is filled with entries chronicling these spiritual and physical battles. 

On a spring day in 1747, mounted on his horse, a frail twenty-nine year old David Brainerd (1718–1747) rode into the yard of the Northampton parsonage of New England pastor Jonathan Edwards. Before this day, Brainerd and Edwards were relative strangers to one another. However, the summer of 1747 nurtured a growing friendship between the two men culminating in one of the most influential missionary biographies in the history of American evangelicalism.
Childhood and Unspeakable Glory
Born on Easter Sunday, April 20, 1718, in Haddam, Connecticut, David was one of nine children born to Hezekiah and Dorothy Brainerd. The Brainerd family were descendants of a long line of men and women noteworthy for their religious zeal. It was said that David’s father, Hezekiah, was a man of “great personal dignity and self-restraint . . . and of extreme scrupulousness in the Christian life.”
As in most eighteenth century New England families with Puritan lineage, David and his eight siblings attended daily family worship consisting of Scripture readings and the singing of psalms. In addition, numerous chores around the house and farm awaited as they rose very early each morning.
David’s father died when he was only nine years old. A month before his fourteenth birthday, his mother died, which left young David incredibly distraught. Vividly depicted in his voluminous diaries, from this point until the end of his life, David experienced the dichotomy of living with the constant fluctuation between overwhelming joy and spiritual darkness. After the death of his mother, David moved to East Haddam to live with his sister. When he turned nineteen, he inherited a farm, but after only one year of farming, he decided education was vital for his preparation to enter the Christian ministry. He returned to East Haddam but remained unconverted. However, on the Lord’s Day, July 12, 1739, after a long battle with his resistance to the doctrines of the sovereignty of God and original sin, Brainerd wrote:
The Lord, I trust, brought me to a hearty desire to exalt him, to set him on the throne and to “seek first his Kingdom,” i.e. principally and ultimately to aim at his honor and glory as the King and sovereign of the universe, which is the foundation of the religion of Jesus . . . I felt myself in a new world.
David had experienced an “unspeakable glory” within his soul. He was twenty-one years old.
Yale College and Awakening
In early September 1739, only two months after his conversion, Brainerd entered Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut.
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As of February 4, 2023, at least 69 presbyteries have voted and the results thus far indicate that ten of the proposed amendments have received the necessary approval 2/3 of presbyteries, receiving at least 59 presbyteries voting in favor. Two of the amendments were not approved, with Overture 15 garnering approval from 57% of the presbyteries, and Overture 8 approved by 55% of the presbyteries.

The 49th General Assembly (2022) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) approved twelve proposed amendments to the Book of Church Order (BCO). For these amendments to be approved, requires that 2/3 of the eighty-eight presbyteries must approve them, and those approved by 2/3 of the presbyteries would have to be approved one more time by the 50th GA.
As of February 4, 2023, at least 69 presbyteries have voted and the results thus far indicate that ten of the proposed amendments have received the necessary approval 2/3 of presbyteries, receiving at least 59 presbyteries voting in favor. Two of the amendments were not approved, with Overture 15 garnering approval from 57% of the presbyteries, and Overture 8 approved by 55% of the presbyteries.
Overture 15 was seeking to amend BCO 7 by adding a fourth paragraph on qualifications for church office. The amendment stated: “Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.”
Overture 8 was an attempt to fix an area of dispute concerning how a higher court (General Assembly or a presbytery) could assume original jurisdiction over a lower court in a case of doctrinal or public scandal. Those who presented the amended wording were seeking to remedy the differing interpretations of BCO 33-1 and BCO 34-1.
Two overtures that have been receiving very favorable approval are Overture 29 and Overture 31. Both of these amendments arose from issues related to Revoice. The proposed overtures were quite similar to overtures approved by the 48th General Assembly but did not receive the necessary 2/3 approval of presbyteries. They were redrafted and both passed the 49th GA overwhelmingly, and presbyteries have been approving Overture 29 with 98.5% in favor and Overture 31 with 94% in favor. Overture 29 would amend BCO 16-4 on qualifications for church office. And Overture 31 would amend BCO 21-4 and 24-1 on requirements for ordination.
The rest of the amendments were not seen as controversial and are being approved by 94% or more of the presbyteries. The votes on the amendment are being regularly updated on this spreadsheet.
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To know God’s nature and His works are essential to a blessed and full life. As we peer into simplicity and inseparable operations, our creaturely mind collides with divine truth that is so grand that we, like Job, must place our hands over our mouth as we see this simple and magnificent God who is three persons working to glorify His name to bring a wicked people like us to glory. 

It seems like everyone is talking about the doctrine of God these days. Debates surrounding theology proper continue raging on with no end in sight. Overall, I believe this is a good thing. For many in the church, these discussions promote sharper doctrinal formulation, greater awareness of creedal and confessional statements, and clarity in teaching.
Thankfully, these discussions have also revealed the immense value of theological retrieval. As we seek to retrieve the doctrine and teachings of those eminent saints of the past and bring them into current conversation, we find that these issues were already debated and clearly defined. Those things that may seem new to us are not so new after all. Faithful theologians have set the course for us to follow, allowing for a true catholicity as the Holy Spirit continues to work in the school of Christ.
For that reason, I again suggest that we let William Perkins enter the chat, if you will, to briefly comment on two issues currently being hotly debated: Divine Simplicity and Inseparable Operations.
Divine Simplicity
Confessional theologians, both Reformed and Baptist alike, confess the doctrine of divine simplicity. Both the The Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession in 2.1 teaches that God is “without body, parts, or passions” and “most absolute.” Similarly, the first article of the Belgic Confession says that “We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God.” To say that God is simple in being is not a controversial statement for confessional Protestants. The question of late though, if I can put it simply, is whether each of the attributes of God are ontologically identical with his essence and with every other one of his attributes.[1] Some critics argue that this view is inconsistent with Scripture, and that it comes exclusively from a Thomistic metaphysic that wasn’t articulated as such until Thomas “baptized Aristotle.”
William Perkins, who no doubt cited Thomas favorably at different times, affirms this classical definition of simplicity. Drawing upon various texts, such as Exodus 3:14, Acts 17:24-25, and several in John, he writes “Hence it is manifest that to have life and to be life, to be in light and to be light in God are all one…Therefore, whatever is in God is His essence; and all that He is, He is by essence.”[2] Perkins first and foremost viewed the doctrine of simplicity as chiefly a biblical doctrine.
After giving a handful of scriptural references, the reformed catholic theologian then cites a major theologian of church history, showing that this doctrine is truly catholic and to be accepted. Yet he doesn’t quote Thomas, but one who precedes Thomas by several centuries.
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