After preaching four years in New York and New Hampshire, he became, in April 1773, pastor of the Second church at Franklin (until 1778 a part of Wrentham, Massachusetts), of which he remained in charge until May 1827, when failing health compelled his relinquishment of active ministerial cares.
He developed an original system of divinity, somewhat on the structural plan of that of Samuel Hopkins, and, in Emmons's own belief, contained in and evolved from Hopkinsianism.
His system declared that holiness and sin are free voluntary exercises; that men act freely under the divine agency; that the slightest transgression deserves eternal punishment; that it is through God's mere grace that the penitent believer is pardoned and justified; that, in spite of total depravity, sinners ought to repent; and that regeneration is active, not passive, with the believer.
[1] Early in his life, his father intended to give Nathaniel a liberal education, and to allow him to enter someone of the professions; but on witnessing his volatile, trifling spirit, he changed his mind, and determined to sober his views by making him a farmer.
[2] Being indisposed to agricultural pursuits, to which his childhood and early youth were devoted, and having an ardent thirst for knowledge, he gained his father's consent to commence a course of classical study.
[1] Of his early religious history Emmons stated that "by reading the life of a pious youth, I was sensibly struck with a conviction of my great guilt and the awful thought of dying unprepared",[1] noting that "[w]hen one of my sisters died of consumption, my fears about myself were again alarmed, and I had some lively apprehensions of the state of the damned, especially of the lake that burned with fire and brimstone".
[1] Emmons further described the feelings that led him to pursue a career in the ministry: All this time, however, I had no sense of the total corruption of my heart, and its perfect opposition to God.
I durst not close my eyes in sleep daring the whole night, but lay crying for mercy with anxiety and distress.
[1]I felt a peculiar complacence in good men, but thought they were extremely stupid, because they did not appear to be more delighted with the Gospel, and more engaged to promote the cause of Christ.
I pitied the deplorable condition of ignorant, stupid sinners, and thought I could preach so plainly as to convince every body of the glory and importance of the Gospel.
The examination which he underwent, on that occasion, was, on several points, unsatisfactory to a part of the Association,—particularly on the doctrines of depravity, regeneration, human and Divine agency.
[1] Emmons considered himself an intellectual theologian, rather than an orator, and sought to influence his parishioners with reasoned arguments rather than stirring speeches.
[3]Throughout his life, Emmons abstained almost entirely from alcohol, seldom drank tea or coffee, and ate simply and in moderate quantities.
[2] In 1775, Emmons married Deliverance, daughter of Moses French, of Braintree, Massachusetts, who was said to have been "a pattern of prudence, condescension, benevolence, and faithfulness".
[1] Within two months from her death, his two little sons, the only surviving members of his family, suddenly sickened and died in one day, and were buried in the same grave.
[1] His recorded reflections on the occasion show that, while his heart was deeply smitten, it was full of humble trust in the Divine wisdom and goodness.
He found her to be a companion not only distinguished for her excellent intellectual and moral qualities, but of such exemplary domestic habits as to relieve him, in a great measure, from the ordinary cares of his family.
[1] In the summer and autumn of 1840, his strength began perceptibly to decline, he died at about three o'clock on Wednesday morning, September 23, 1840.