Description
The Diary and Journal of David Brainerd is of much more than merely historical interest. The first internationally recognized biography ever to be published, it has had a profound impact on successive generations of Christians around the world.
The Diary covers the period from April 1742 to October 1747, and although written as a private and personal record, was published in abridged form by the great New England pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards in 1749.
Brainerd wrote the Journal, which covers the twelve months from June 1745 to June 1746, at the request of the Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, which was supporting his missionary work amongst the indigenous peoples of North America. As Sir Marcus Loane has noted in They Were Pilgrims, ‘the Diary and Journal were each written for a distinct purpose, and each had its separate character. The Diary is a remarkable record of the interior life of the soul, and its entries still throb with the tremendous earnestness of a man who whose heart was aflame for God. The Journal is an objective history of the missionary work of twelve months, and its details are an astonishing testimony to the grace of God in the lives of men.’
Jonathan Edwards’ own ‘Reflections and Observations’ on Brainerd’s life, included in this volume, are, according to Iain H. Murray in his Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, ‘among the most important descriptive pages on the Christian life which Edwards ever wrote.’
Between 1742 and his death in 1747 David Brainerd took the gospel to the North American Indians of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. He willingly ran any risk and accepted any hardship to fulfil his calling as a missionary. The amount of work which he achieved in such unpromising and difficult circumstances now seems almost incredible. Moreover his total dedication to the cause of making Christ known inspired the finest of missionaries who followed in his footsteps.
Few books have done so much to promote prayer and missionary action as The Diary and Journal of David Brainerd.
Endorsements
"Brainerd’s life is a vivid, powerful testimony to the truth that God can and does use weak, sick, discouraged, beat-down, lonely, struggling saints, who cry to him day and night, to accomplish amazing things for his glory."
—John Piper
"I was much humbled today by reading Brainerd. O, what a disparity betwixt me and him! He always constant; I as inconstant as the wind."
—William Carey
"Oh! blessed be the memory of that beloved saint! No uninspired writer ever did me so much good."
—Henry Martyn
About the Author
David Brainerd, the great missionary to the North American Indians, was born in April, 1718 at Haddam, Connecticut. His father, a legislator in Connecticut, died when David was nine years old and his mother died when he was fourteen. He lived with a godly aunt and uncle until he was eighteen and then tried farming for a year at nearby Durham, CT. Though growing up in the local Congregational Church, Brainerd was converted at age twenty-one and then studied at nearby Yale College. He left after a few months with a recurring illness, returning one year later at the height of the evangelical revival at Yale under the preaching ministry of George Whitefield.
Brainerd served the Housatonic Indians near Stockbridge, MA and several tribes at the Forks of the Delaware River where hundreds were converted in a very brief time. After a year or so near Lebanon, CT with the Iroquois Indians, Brainerd began losing his battle with tuberculosis. He made his way to the home of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards in May, 1747, where he died on October 10.
Brainerd died at the age of just 29, having been a Christian for only eight years and a missionary for only four years; yet probably no one has had more influence on the modern missionary movement than David Brainerd.
Edwards, Jonathan
Tomlinson, Mack M.
Edwards, Jonathan & Tomlinson, Mack
Tomlinson, Mack M.
