The Life of David Brainerd

David Brainerd was an 18th Century American missionary of Reformed beliefs. When we say American it is important to remember that he lived before the Declaration of Independence and so, like his contemporaries, thought of himself chiefly as English. The struggle between the colonial powers of England, France and Spain raged throughout his lifetime. In his short life he must have traversed over 12,000 miles on horseback but it was all in that vast north eastern sector of what we now know as the USA. As a young man he was expelled from Yale College for making disrespectful remarks about a tutor but became a missionary to Native Americans (Red Indians we used to say) and was a man of great earnestness and prayer. He died from tuberculosis before he had reached the age of 30. His name was immortalised by the pen of the great Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), in whose home he died. This year sees the 300th anniversary of his birth.

When we think of Brainerd we are thinking of at least two things, On the one hand, there is the life of David Brainerd 1718-1747. On the other, there is Jonathan Edwards' Life of the Late Rev David Brainerd (1749 to the present). That is to say, there is the actual life of Brainerd but there is also Edwards' An Account of the Life of the Late Rev David Brainerd published in 1749 and subsequent versions of the story that have continued to have an impact down to the present day.

Before I say something about the life of David Brainerd 1718-1747 then let me begin by saying something about the impact of his life, drawing here chiefly on the work of John A Grigg on this. He quotes Andrew F Walls (“The Evangelical Revival, the Missionary Movement, and Africa,” Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700–1990, eds Noll, Bebbington and Rawlyk, 1994), who says, “David Brainerd became the principal model of early British missionary spirituality.” Grigg demonstrates this.

William Carey and the BMS

When the Baptist Missionary Society was founded in 1792 a major catalyst for its founding was a book by William Carey (1761–1834). Carey had come to a Baptist church in Leicester in 1789 and that had brought him into closer contact with a circle of Calvinistic Baptist ministers who encouraged him to write about the need for concerted missionary effort. This led to the publishing of An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.

The book was inspired by a number of missionaries, including Brainerd. An objection to mission dealt with in the book is the “uncivilised, and barbarous way of living” of the target audience. Such a consideration, Carey declared, “was no objection to an Elliot [sic] or a Brainerd.” (John Eliot 1604-1690 a pioneer missionary to native Americans). In fact, he argued, the “uncivilized state of the heathen” should “furnish an argument for” sending missionaries. Indeed, he noted, “such effects [civilisation] did in a measure follow the afore-mentioned efforts of Elliot [sic], Brainerd, and others amongst the American Indians.”

Carey also invoked Eliot and Brainerd to counter another objection: fear of death at the hands of those to whom one was preaching. He suggests that most acts of brutality reported against Europeans may have originated in “some real or supposed affront [to local peoples], and were therefore, more properly, acts of self-defence, than proofs of ferocious dispositions.” To support his argument, he notes that “Elliot [sic], Brainerd, and the Moravian missionaries, have been very seldom molested” and insists that most native peoples had “principally expressed their hatred of Christianity on account of the vices of nominal Christians.”

In concluding his Enquiry, Carey reminds readers that they are “exhorted to lay up treasure in heaven,” and a great reward must await Paul, Eliot, Brainerd and others who “have given themselves wholly to the work of the Lord.”

For Carey, Brainerd exemplified the missionary life. Increasingly, British missionaries attempted to model not only their life, but their work, on him. Portions of a diary Carey kept, when he arrived in India, apparently in conscious emulation of Brainerd, have survived, and his respect for Brainered comes out there. On one occasion, he acknowledged being “much humbled by Brainerd- O what a disparity betwixt me and him; he always constant, I unconstant as the wind.” A little humorously, he complains on one occasion that he could not pray in the woods like Brainerd “for fear of tygers”!

David Bogue and the LMS

In 1795, the London Missionary Society was founded. Its roots are complex and disparate, but at least two of those who contributed to its foundation urged people to look to Brainerd’s example.

In his 1794 Letters on Missions Melville Horne (1761-1841) declared that the “labours of a Brainerd and an Elliot [sic] deserve to be had in everlasting remembrance.”

David Bogue, addressing the LMS founding meeting, also invoked the spirit of Brainerd. Refuting the claim that it was not yet time for the conversion of the heathen, he pointed to what had “already been effected by the preaching of the gospel among the heathen” by men such as “Brainard [sic], [Azariah] Horton [1716-1777] and others.” He went on to remind his audience that the Indians were “converted by the power of the gospel: and the same glorious truths confirmed by the holy lives of our missionaries, and accompanied by the energy of the Spirit, will, I trust, still produce the same effects.”

With Andrew Fuller and others, Bogue sponsored the quarterly Evangelical Magazine from 1793. Part of every issue was set aside to document the “progress of the Gospel throughout the kingdom” and the magazine soon became a voice for mission promoters. Bogue published a preliminary appeal for missions in September 1794 issue, and there were frequent reports on the LMS. The fourth volume, in 1796, featured an excerpted version of Brainerd's life, totalling about 25 pages across three issues. The editors noted that “few lives are more interesting than that of Mr. Brainerd.” They hoped readers would “perceive how easily God can provide instruments for his work” and that his success, “in circumstances most discouraging,” would provide “the clearest demonstration that those difficulties which, to us, appear insuperable, instantly vanish at the presence of the Almighty.” The Anglican periodical Missionary Register did something similar in 1816.

When missionary training institutions began to spring up they most frequently turned for instructional inspiration to the writings of the Moravians and the Life of Brainerd. David Bogue’s academy at Gosport, which turned out 40% of all LMS missionaries in the period, included lectures that were mainly based on Bogue's reflections on the lives of past missionaries such as Brainerd. O only five books in the Gosport Library one was the life of Brainerd. The CMS library was similar.

Student-led mission societies at Scottish universities encouraged their members to read the Life of Brainerd (along with those of other missionaries) and even to present papers on their readings.

He was frequently cited and referred to by the mission boards. CMS candidates expected to be asked if they had read Brainerd’s Life, and, by the 1820s, the LMS Committee of Examination required candidates to read it along with several other biographies. William Crow was judged to be a good candidate after his initial examination and was subsequently given a copy of the Life and a month to read it and write an essay on his perspective on the “character, difficulties, and privations of a Christian Missionary.” There are also frequent references to Brainerd in the writings of missionaries and mission candidates. Often, these men were challenged by Brainerd’s example of the ideal Christian.

Samuel Pearce

When Samuel Pearce (1766-1799) another godly man who died young, read part of the biography in 1793 he wrote that “the exalted devotion of that dear man almost made me question mine. Yet” because “at some seasons he speaks of sinking as well as rising” he felt that while lacking Brainerd's “singular piety” he too knew the same “feelings, prayers, desires, comforts, hopes, and sorrows” and that could at least be followed. Carey's son Samuel Pearce Carey, dubbed Pearce “The Baptist Brainerd” when he wrote his biography. The official memoir was put together by Andrew Fuller. He too saw Pearce as another Brainerd and, according to Michael Haykin, “clearly modelled” it on Edwards' life of Brainerd. He wrote, like Edwards, “out of the conviction that telling the stories of the lives of remarkable Christians is a means of grace for the church.”

Aspiring missionaries either wanted to or quickly learned that they were expected to incorporate lessons from Brainerd in their applications. William Miller, in his written application to the LMS, declared that he desired the “ardent love and compassion which [Brainerd] manifested toward those who were ignorant and far from God,” as well as Brainerd’s “exquisite tenderness of conscience and deep abhorrence of sin.” Similarly, BMS missionary John Chamberlain declared, “I long to be like [Brainerd]. Surely, if ever I arrive at the heavenly world, I shall be eagerly desirous of seeing him.”

There is much more in this vain and we will give one or two more examples later.

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Brainerd grew up in his parents' English Puritan Congregationalist tradition and after conversion in his early twenties served the Lord in connection with chiefly Presbyterian churches and societies. He went through a prolonged period of conviction before his eventual conversion and was greatly affected by the period of revival known as the Great Awakening (1739-1745) the revival associated with the names of Edwards, Whitefield (1714-1770) and others. This revival of Puritanism, though bitterly opposed, had a real impact on a populace that had previously been increasingly devoted to nominalism in the churches and scepticism in the colleges.

Brainerd once described a true Christian in these terms (Yale Edwards Vol 7, p 483)

1. He has a true knowledge of the glory and excellency of God, that he is most worthy to be loved and praised for his own divine perfections (Ps 145:3)

2. God is his portion (Ps 73:25) and God's glory his great concern (Mat 6:22)

3. Holiness is his delight; nothing he so much longs for as to be holy, as God is holy (Php 3:9-12)

4. Sin is his greatest enemy. This he hates for its own nature, for what it is in itself, being contrary to a holy God. And consequently he hates all sin (Rom 7:24; 1 Jn 3:9)

5. The laws of God also are his delight (Ps 119:97; Rom 7:22). These he observes, not out of constraint, from a servile fear of hell; but they are his choice (Ps 119:30). The strict observance of them is not his bondage, but his greatest liberty (Ps 119:45)

One would also like to think that the significant missionary zeal seen in his life was a product of Reformed convictions. It is important to recognise the role of post-millennialism in his thinking too. His missionary zeal can be traced in part to his belief that by means of missionary work the millennial kingdom is brought in. He once wrote (May 20 1742)

'My soul was concerned not so much for souls as such, but rather for Christ's Kingdom, that it might appear in the world, that God might be known to be God in the whole earth.'

Over the years, since the arrival of white men on the American continent, those not absorbed into the dominant population steadily moved westward from New England into the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and beyond. Animistic in religion their contact with uncaring Europeans tended to encourage only laziness, drunkenness and constant debt. Attempts had been made to evangelise them but by 1675 it was suggested that there were only some 4,000 'Praying Indians'.

Brainerd worked among Native Americans from many tribes in several different places. He first preached to Indians near New York in August, 1742. On April 1, 1743, under the auspices of the Society in Scotland for Promoting Christian Knowledge (founded 1701), he began a ministry at Kaunaumeek, between Stockbridge, Massachusetts and Albany, New York (now Brainard, NY, 18 mls SE of Albany – named for a Brainerd descendant). Just over a year later he arrived at the Forks of the Delaware, E Pennsylvania (near the present city of Easton) where he did further work. In June, 1745 he began work in Crossweeksung (now Crosswicks, near the present town of Freehold, 9 miles SE of Trenton, NJ). Just under a year later, in 1746, with a company of Native Americans, he moved 15 miles north west to Cranberry, near Newark, New Jersey, where he engaged in his final months of labour. It was in these latter places that he knew most success.

Brainerd is remembered as a man of great earnestness and prayer. His private diaries are chiefly prayer journals. They say little about his daily routine but much about his relationship with God. On page after page, as one writer notes, one reads such sentences as

1742 Wednesday, April 21 ... and God again enabled me to wrestle for numbers of souls, and had much fervency in the sweet duty of intercession …

Lord's Day, April 25 This morning I spent about two hours in secret duties and was enabled more than ordinarily to agonise for immortal souls. Though it was early in the morning and the sun scarcely shined at all, yet my body was quite wet with sweat …

Saturday, December 15 Spent much time in prayer in the woods and seemed raised above the things of this world …

1743 Monday, March 14 ... in the morning was almost continually engaged in ejaculatory prayer …

Thursday, August 4 Was enabled to pray much, through the whole day ...

Thursday, November 3 Spent this day in secret fasting and prayer, from morning till night …

He once wrote in his journal (August 4 1744)

Was enabled to pray much the whole day. It is good, I find, to persevere in attempts to pray, if I cannot pray with perseverance, ie continue long in my addresses to the divine Being. I have generally found, that the more I do in secret prayer, the more I have delighted to do, and have enjoyed more of a spirit of prayer; and frequently have found the contrary, when with journeying or otherwise I have been much deprived of retirement.

Only a man very familiar with the work of prayer can write with that sort of insight.

Something similar could be done with regard to his zeal.

1742 April 26 Oh, that I could spend every moment of my life to God's glory!

August 30 My soul longs with a vehement desire to live to God.

1744 April 30 Oh that time should pass with so little done for God!

1745 November 22 I have received my all from God. Oh that I could return my all to God.

1746 May 22 I longed to be as a flame of fire, continually glowing in the divine service, preaching and building up Christ’s kingdom, to my latest, my dying moment.

Though afflicted throughout his final years it was not until 1747 that he abandoned his work among the Native Americans, eventually coming to Edwards' home in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he spent his final weeks before dying of tuberculosis on October 9, 1747, aged just 29.

It is chiefly Edwards who ensured his name was preserved for posterity. Edwards preached at the funeral and, with the permission of Brainerd's brother John Brainerd (1720-1781), also a missionary to Native Americans, edited and published Brainerd's journals and papers to produce An Account of the Life of the Late Rev David Brainerd (1749).

It became the most often reprinted and the best known of all Edwards' works. Like Wesley's abridgement of it in England, it quickly became a bestseller in America.

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Brainerd's earthly life lasted 29 years, five months, 19 days. You can divide it into five unequal parts.

1. A melancholy boy: parentage, birth, parents' deaths (Apr 1718-Mar 1732)

We know little of his childhood. The fifth of five boys and four girls, his parents were Christians. His father Hezekiah was a country squire, a JP and one of the King's counsel for the colony. When he married David's mother Dorothy she was a widow. Her father, Jeremiah Hobart, had been minister in Haddam. An ancestor, Peter Hobart, had ministered at Hingham, Essex before crossing the Atlantic to settle in Hingham, Massachusetts.

A schoolhouse was established in Haddam in 1728. Perhaps David went there. His education would certainly have been thorough but basic. The simple Congregational church the family attended was built in 1721 when David was still a child. Long sermons and sober worship were the order of the day. The local parson was treated with the highest respect.

The upbringing would have been strict but loving and Bible-centred. Books like Janeway's Token for children and Pilgrim's Progress would have been used. In those early days Brainerd had some marked religious experiences that he later mentions but they did not last.

His father died, away on business in Hartford, when David was only nine. Five years later, in March, 1732, his mother also died. Brainerd confesses that he was a sad boy by temperament and no doubt these early deaths encouraged his serious temperament.

2. A serious teenager: with his sister, studies, conversion (Mar 1732-Sep 1739)

After his mother's death Brainerd lived with newly married sister Jerusha and her husband Samuel Spencer. During this period he struggled to find Christ and knew a good deal of inner conflict. He confesses to hating things he found in Scripture, especially the idea God could save or damn him. Like so many he wanted to be saved on his own terms.

In April, 1737, he returned to the farm, where he worked for a year before beginning to study and lodge with his pastor, Phineas Fiske (c 1682-1738). The families were close. Three of six Fiske daughters married Brainerds. Brainerd soon became a serious student of the Bible and took Fiske's advice to spend more time with older rather than younger people interested only in card playing and 'frolics'. He also spent time with more sober-minded young people.

In Autumn, 1738 Fiske also died. All this while Brainerd had been seeking the Lord. Though he sometimes thought himself acceptable, he was not converted. All his religion, he saw, was just show. By February, 1739, he was in the habit of setting aside days for fasting and prayer to seek God. Eventually, on July 12, 1739, he was converted and blessed with a wonderful assurance of salvation in Christ. Unspeakable glory seemed to open to his view. To quote him

I continued, as I remember, in this state of mind, from Friday morning until the Sabbath evening following ... when I was walking again in the same solitary place where I was brought to see myself lost and helpless ... and here, in a mournful melancholy state, was attempting to pray; but found no heart to engage in that, or any other duty; my former concern, and exercise, and religious affections were now gone. I thought the Spirit of God had quite left me; but still was not distressed: Yet disconsolate, as if there was nothing in heaven or earth could make me happy. And having been thus endeavouring to pray (though being, as I thought, very stupid and senseless) for near half an hour ... as I was walking in a dark thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul: I do not mean any external brightness ... nor ... any imagination of a body of light, somewhere away in the third heavens, or any thing of that nature; but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before, nor anything which had the least resemblance of it. I stood still, and wondered and admired! I knew that I never had seen before anything comparable to it for excellency and beauty: It was widely different from all the conceptions that ever I had had of God, or things divine. I had no particular apprehension of any one person in the Trinity ... but it appeared to be divine glory that I then beheld: And my soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable, to see such a God, such a glorious divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied, that he should be God over all for ever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in him; at least to that degree, that I had no thought ... about my own salvation, and scarce reflected there was such a creature as myself.

Thus God, I trust, brought me to a hearty disposition to exalt him, and set him on the throne, and principally and ultimately to aim at his honour and glory, as King of the Universe.

I continued in this state of inward joy and peace, yet astonishment, until near dark, without any sensible abatement; and then began to think and examine what I had seen; and felt sweetly composed in my mind all the evening following: I felt myself in a new world, and every thing about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont to do.

At this time, the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom, suitableness and excellency, that I wondered I should ever think of any other way of salvation; was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances, and complied with this lovely, blessed, and excellent way before. If I could have been saved by my own duties, or any other way that I had formerly contrived, my whole soul would now have refused. I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ.

3. An idealistic young man: in and out of Yale (Sep 1739-Jul 1742)

In September, 1739, he entered Yale College, New Haven. There were then about 45 students, mostly younger than Brainerd. As he expected, time for private devotions was now at a premium. Students then as now were often drunk and engaged in riotous behaviour. It was also a terribly cold winter and a bout of measles laid him aside that first year. He tried to catch up after being away only to get ill again. By August, 1740, he was weak and spitting up blood. Tuberculosis was the plague of colonial New England and already Brainerd showed signs of being a sufferer.

In November, 1740, however, he returned to Yale and found there had been a marked spiritual change. Whitefield had visited on October 27, and revival fires had touched the school. Gilbert Tennent (1703-1764) of New Jersey, author of a famous sermon on The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, also preached in New Haven in March, 1741. All this fuelled opposition to moderates in religion. Brainerd and other students became very zealous and visited each other 'for conversation and prayer'. It was through Brainerd that Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803) came under conviction of sin at this time.

In April, New York pastor Ebenezer Pemberton (1704-1777), another revivalist preacher, visited Yale and gave a stirring address on missionary work to the Indians. The next day Brainerd was 23. He vowed to be wholly the Lord's and forever devoted to his service.

The college authorities were opposed to the revival and forbade students to attend services in connection with it. They also decreed that any student speaking critically of the spiritual standing of any tutor would have to come before the college and openly repent. Failure to do so would lead to expulsion. The excesses of the Connecticut preacher James Davenport (1716-1757) confirmed their worst prejudices. Students favourable to the revival would meet together for fellowship, however, and it was in one of these gatherings that Brainerd said of his tutor Chauncey Whittelsey (1717-1787), whom he thought antagonistic to the revival, that he had 'no more grace than this chair' (a remark that turned out to be quite unjust).

A younger student overheard what was said and mentioned it to someone else who in turn spoke to the college's strict and overbearing rector, Thomas Clap (1703-1767) who demanded a public confession, even though the remark was made in private. Brainerd's refusal to comply, probably exacerbated by continued attendance at meetings in New Haven, led inevitably to expulsion. He was also accused of saying that he was surprised Clap had not dropped dead for fining students who went to hear Tennent in Milford but this he denied.

Despite Brainerd's expressions of regret his remark, his refusal to make a public confession led to him being expelled. Many, many attempts were made to have him reinstated and in fact the way eventually opened up for his reinstatement, but by then he was wholly taken up with missionary work and a return to college was not realistic. Ironically, in the 19th Century a Brainerd Hall was established on the Yale campus.

Expulsion was a bitter blow to Brainerd but readmission proved impossible, despite his repeated regrets and pleas from a council of Congregational ministers. He waged a constant fight against the bitterness of disappointment over his expulsion. The day of graduation when he would have passed out as top student was a testing one but he was able to cope by God's mercy. At other times he was thrown into deep despair. As time passed, he came to see how mistaken he had been to speak as he did, adding to his sense of shame and sadness. Undoubtedly Brainerd was constitutionally inclined to depression and no doubt his physical illness added to this. His shameful expulsion and his conviction that he had been misguided in his zeal served to increase his tendency to depression in this period.

Like other troubles he faced, though it cut him deep, by God's grace he seems to have been sanctified by it. The immediate effect was to draw him closer to God. It should also be noted that it was in this period that he came to Edwards' attention, receiving support from him and other like-minded ministers. He also came to know Jonathan Dickinson (1688-1747) who went on to be first president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton College, from which came Princeton Seminary, that bastion for orthodoxy in the following century). Dickinson and later Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) saw Brainerd's expulsion as an important catalyst in bringing about the foundation of Old Princeton.

Following Brainerd's expulsion laws were passed forbidding lay preachers, itinerant preachers and other unqualified men. However, attempts were made to provide ways for men like Brainerd to serve the Lord nevertheless. A new association was formed in Connecticut for licensing preachers unable to meet the demands of existing associations. A prime mover in forming this new group was Jedediah Mills (1697-1776) who, in Spring, 1742, invited Brainerd to his home in Riperton, 10 miles west of New Haven. On his 24th birthday Brainerd wrote,

... I hardly ever so longed to live to God and to be altogether devoted to him; I wanted to wear out my life in his service and for his glory …

But what was he to do? That June he spent several days in fasting and prayer yet still remained in a quandary about the future.

4. An earnest minister: labours among Native Americans (Jul 1742-Mar 1747)

On June 19 Brainerd wrote of Kaunameek where he first was and the Forks of the Delaware where he now was 'Not having had any considerable appearance of success in either of those places, my spirits were depressed, and I was not a little discouraged.' His expeditions along the Susquehanna had not given him reason to expect success anywhere there either.

It was at this time that he heard of a group of Indians at a place called Crossweeksung, about 80 miles south east of the Forks of the Delaware. He arrived there June 19, 1745, and spent two weeks among them. He saw a real interest in the gospel there. Upon his return to the Forks, the people there seemed more responsive too. On July 21 he baptised Moses Tattamy and his wife, his first converts among the Indians. Tattamy was in his fifties by this time. He had once been a hard drinker but under Brainerd's influence had slowly come to faith.

Then back in Crossweeksung he experienced the most glorious week of his life. Under William Tennent's ministry the small group had been sustained and grown but on August 8 the power of God came down as Brainerd preached to a group of about 65 and many genuine conversions took place in a short time. Brainerd wrote

There was much visible concern among them while I was discoursing publicly; but afterwards when I spoke to one and another more particularly, whom I perceived under much concern, the power of God seemed to descend upon the assembly like a rushing mighty wind, and with an astonishing energy bore down all before it.

I stood amazed at the influence that seized the audience almost universally, and could compare it to nothing more aptly than the irresistible force of a mighty torrent or swelling deluge, that with its insupportable weight and pressure bears down and sweeps before it whatever is in its way. Almost all persons of all ages were bowed down with concern together, and scarce one was able to withstand the shock of this surprising operation. Old men and women who had been drunken wretches for many years, and some little children not more than six or seven years of age, appeared in distress for their souls, as well as persons of middle age. And it was apparent these children (some of them at least) were not merely frighted with seeing the general concern; but were made sensible of their danger, the badness of their hearts, and their misery without Christ, as some of them expressed it. The most stubborn hearts were now obliged to bow. A principal man among the Indians, who before was most secure and self-righteous, and thought his state good because he knew more than the generality of the Indians had formerly done, and who with a great degree of confidence the day before, told me 'he had been a Christian more than 10 years,' was now brought under solemn concern for his soul, and wept bitterly. Another man advanced in years, who had been a murderer, a powow, (or conjurer,) and a notorious drunkard, was likewise brought now to cry for mercy with many tears, and to complain much that he could be no more concerned when he saw his danger so very great.

Brainerd now proceeded to disciple these young converts. Meanwhile as news travelled, more and more Europeans and Indians came to hear the young preacher. On August 25, he baptised 25 Indians (15 adults, 10 children). After the years of prayer and suffering, fruit was beginning to be seen.

Brainerd was still concerned about the Indians along the Susquehanna River and spent the period September 9-28 in the area. Despite several interesting encounters he saw no apparent success. Back at Crossweeksung on October 5, on the other hand, he was overjoyed at the response to the gospel. Others were converted and baptised. On November 14 he baptised 14, bringing the number to 47, including 12 from the Forks.

On December 22 he preached on the rich young ruler. His diary relates how, speaking to a woman later she spoke in broken English saying

Me try, me try, save myself, last my strength be all gone, (meaning her ability to save herself,) could not me stir bit further. Den last, me forced let Jesus Christ alone, send me hell if he please.' I said, But you was not willing to go to hell, was you? She replied,'Could not me help it. My heart he would wicked for all. Could not me make him good;' (meaning she saw it was right she should go to hell because her heart was wicked, and would be so after all she could do to mend it). I asked her, how she got out of this case? She answered still in the same broken language, 'By by my heart be glad desperately.' I asked her why her heart was glad? She replied, 'Glad my heart Jesus Christ do what he please with me. Den me tink, glad my heart Jesus Christ send me hell. Did not me care where he put me, me love him for all,' &c. And she could not readily be convinced but that she was willing to go to hell, if Christ was pleased to send her there. Though the truth evidently was, her will was so swallowed up in the divine will, that she could not frame any hell in her imagination that would be dreadful or undesirable, provided it was but the will of God to send her to it.

Brainerd not only taught the people but also catechised them and helped them practically. Some had debts that he arranged to be discharged. On January 31, 1746, a schoolmaster he appointed arrived with a dozen primers for them. In February he visited Indians back at the Forks 'under great weakness and some pain'. Some from Crossweeksung accompanied him. They persuaded some of the believers to join them in Crossweeksung.

About 150 now followed him and looked to him for direction. He encouraged these scattered Indians to develop Spring planting at a settlement he had picked out at what was originally a Scots settlement 15 miles distant called Cranberry (Cranbury). He later called it Bethel. They cleared the land in March and by May had moved to the new settlement. His attempts to turn the converts into farmers, however, were not very successful.

On April 27 the Indians took the Lord's Supper. In less than a year 77 (38 adults) had been baptised. The lives of these people had been permanently changed. What a happy situation Brainerd now found himself in. He continued to know some depression and at times bemoaned his relative ineffectiveness. It was an attractive situation, however. He was still concerned, nevertheless, for the pagan Indians of the Susquehanna River area where he had already failed to make headway three times. Finally, on August 12, 1746, he left his praying friends at Cranberry and with six Indian evangelists set out on his fourth trip. He had previously not gone further west than the 'Indian capital' Shamokin, but now wanted to go a hundred miles further to a site near present day Lockhaven, Pennsylvania.

This trip finally broke his health completely, and he had to curtail much of it. One wonders why he went on such an arduous journey. Such was his passion for Christ that he simply could not confine himself to one spot. Back at Shamokin on September 6, he clung to life, 'coughing and spitting blood'. On September 20 he arrived back at Cranberry, realising now that the tb was going to destroy him. There was some guilt at having so recklessly injured his health and aggravated the illness but it is probably true to say that his zeal and outdoor life had done something to preserve him, as we know his problems had started several years before, while still at Yale.

On October 6, he had his last blessed day at Cranberry, taking the Lord's Supper with 40 converts and baptising two adults. Some 85 Indians were now converted. November 3 was his last day as pastor in Cranberry. He spent the long winter in Elizabethtown with Dickinson. Rallying in health he made a last visit to his Indian converts March 18-20, 1747, bidding them farewell for what would be the last time.

5. A dying saint: final months, death, what followed (Mar-Oct 1747)

He then travelled further east, visiting family and friends at Haddam on May 10. His sister Jerusha would be dead in just two months.

On May 28 he arrived at Edwards' home. At this time he was much better and quite cheerful. For his remaining 19 weeks he was nursed by Edwards' daughter Jerusha who devoted herself to him with great delight, looking on him as an eminent servant of Christ. They travelled to Boston together in search of a cure but there was none.

By June he was worse. He took his last ride and prayed with the family for the last time on August 11. A room on the ground floor was set aside for him the following week as he could not climb steps. He went to church for the last time September 2. Edwards described his last days – his feet swollen, in constant pain, many indignities and bodily struggles.

On the morning of October 4, his last Lord’s day, Edwards wrote

as my daughter Jerusha, who chiefly attended him, came into the room, he looked on her very pleasantly, and said, ‘Dear Jerusha, are you willing to part with me? - I am quite willing to part with you: I am willing to part with all my friends: though if I thought I should not see you and be happy with you in another world, I could not bear to part with you. But we shall spend a happy eternity together.'

On the Wednesday he discussed his Indian work with his brother John, who succeeded him in it. On Friday, October 9, the appointed day arrived and he died. His last words were said to be 'He will come, and will not tarry. I shall soon be in glory; soon be with God and his angels." He was buried on the Monday, Edwards conducting the funeral. Four months later, grieving Jerusha, just 18 years old, took sick and in five days, on February 14, 1748, joined David in heaven. She was buried next to him. Brainerd's gravestone reads A faithful and laborious missionary to the Stockbridge, Delaware and Susquehanna tribes of Indians.

*

Edwards, John Thornbury tells us, was not the first to make use of Brainerd's diaries. As well as his personal diary, Brainerd composed a journal in which he chronicled the story of his ministry among the Indians. In this he explained in detail Indian customs and manners, what he preached to them and the difficulties and successes he knew. He prepared the Journal for the leaders of the missionary society from whom he received financial help. In 1746 William Bradford in Philadelphia published these portions for The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge in the Highlands of Scotland and in popish and infidel parts of the world. The extracts deal with his work at Crossweeksung June 19-November 4, 1745; November 24, 1745-June 19, 1746. The account of great revival became an important instrument in stirring up interest elsewhere in missionary work among native Americans. Both in America and in Britain many eagerly read it.

It was the private diary, however, that formed the basis of Edwards' Life. His edition became the standard one, although over the years it has been published many times with various editorial notes and alterations. A complete edition appeared in 1765 in Edinburgh and an abridged American edition was published in 1793. In 1822, Edwards' great grandson Sereno Edwards Dwight (1796-1850) edited and published the life and diary entire, with letters and other writings. In 1843 the Presbyterian Board of Publications printed an abridgement entitled The Missionary in the Wilderness or Grace displayed among the heathen. John Wesley (1703-1781) included the Life in abridged form in Volume 12 of his collected works (Bristol, 1771-1774). A complete edition was printed in London in 1851 in the Christian's Fireside Library series. The diary continues to be in print in various forms. In 1884 a more thorough revision was prepared by James Manning Sherwood (1814-1890) in New York.

By 1749 Edwards was already a well-known writer. His first publication in 1731 was God Glorified in Man's Dependence on 1 Corinthians 1:29-31. Others followed, such as A Narrative of Surprising Conversions (1736) dealing with the Great Awakening, his famous Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1742) and Religious Affections (1746). Edwards was about to set to work on his treatise Freedom of the will when these materials came to hand. (Freedom of the will did not appear until 1754). It seems the Brainerd project took priority because Edwards saw it as providing an excellent example of the sort of qualities extolled in his previous book The Religious Affections (1746). Perhaps no book by Edwards was to be more significant than his one on Brainerd.

Edwards rewrote parts of Brainerd's testimony and diary, which can be tedious in its repetitions. He also omitted phrases he deemed unsuitable for the Christian public. The book contains a preface (10 pages); Brainerd's edited papers interspersed with Edwards' narrative in eight parts (378 pages); further 'remains', mostly letters (33 pages); reflections and observations (42 pages); a funeral sermon (12 pages) [Page numbers refer to the Yale Edition which reinserts missing entries].

It has been said that Brainerd is the phantom in the background of other works. The Life gave a flesh and bones example of the sort of thing that Edwards was commending. In the Yale edition Professor Norman Pettit has written that “If it is true that his treatises were too abstruse to make an impact on the spiritual life of the ordinary person, then his Life of Brainerd represents an effort to reach a larger audience and to teach by example.” He draws attention to similarities between Brainerd's conversion and that of Edwards's wife Sarah, described anonymously in Some thoughts concerning the revival of religion in New England (1742). He also points out that though the text of Edwards' biography is largely Brainerd's “the volume as Edwards conceived it belongs to him”. Brainerd's journal provided not only his own example but that of other conversions, all judged according to the criteria laid down in Edwards' Distinguishing marks of 1741. Brainerd in turn undoubtedly influenced Edwards, who spent most of his last seven years working among Native Americans in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

The Book's Impact

It is perhaps no surprise that the life of Brainerd, one that exemplifies spiritual intensity and zeal for the salvation of souls, had such a profound impact on all who read about this brief but powerful ministry. The historian William Warren Street (1818-1959) remarked “Indeed, David Brainerd dead was a more potent influence for Indian missions and the missionary cause in general than was David Brainerd alive.”

Iain Murray in his life of Edwards goes as far as to say that “No book did more to create concern for wider missionary endeavour than Edwards' Life of Brainerd.” He mentions Gideon Hawley (1727-1807), Edwards' assistant at Stockbridge, as the first in a long line of Calvinist missionaries to benefit from the book. He carried it in his saddle-bag as he pioneered among the Iroquois.

The Welsh revival leader Howell Harris (1714-1773), we know, was one who was reading an edition of Brainerd's life in 1761. In England Philip Doddridge (1702-1751) had read Edwards' work much earlier and was among the first in England to do so. “I have been reading the life of excellent Mr. Brainerd,” he writes, “and it has greatly humbled and quickened me.” He recommended it widely and went on to publish parts of the diary.

John Wesley, though no Calvinist, once said, “Find preachers of David Brainerd's spirit, and nothing can stand before them, but without this what will silver or gold do?” He also asked “What can be done to revive the work of God where it is decayed?” His answer? “Let every preacher read carefully over the life of David Brainerd”. Methodist preachers in those days were all required to carefully read Edwards' Life. Later, at Princeton Seminary too, the Life was often commended, but without Wesley's cautions about Brainerd's failure to understand Christian perfection.

To give one more example, when Robert Murray McCheyne (1813–1843) read the Life of Brainerd, he wrote that he could not “express what I think when I think of [Brainerd]. Tonight, more set upon missionary enterprise than ever.”

Observations and lessons

Finally, I want to make some observations and draw some lessons arising out of what we have learned.

1. Extraordinary. I think we have to begin by saying that by any measure this was an extraordinary life. Brainerd is one of the great heroes of the faith yet even among these he stands out for his incredible zeal and prayerfulness. It is not simply that he is from another age. Even among his contemporaries it is clear that there was something rare about Brainerd. It is unusual to have such a full record of a man's prayer life. It reveals to us a man who was besotted with God who sought practically every day of his life only one thing – to glorify God.

2. The cross of Christ central in his preaching. Thornbury makes this point. He quotes this passage by Brainerd on his preaching. It begins

And I have oftentimes remarked with admiration, that whatever subject I have been treating upon, after having spent time sufficient to explain and illustrate the truths contained therein, I have been naturally and easily led to CHRIST as the substance of every subject.

3. Truth is more effective when backed up by a life without moral blemish. This was so in Brainerd in eminent degree.

4. Prayer and fasting. One cannot help but be struck by the large place prayer had to play in Brainerd's life. It is a rebuke to our prayerlessness and our self-reliance. He often spent days in fasting and prayer. This is part of the secret of his greatness. He believed (April 5 1744) that 'One hour of sweet retirement where God is, is better than the whole world.' Do you?

5. His zeal and devotion to the glory of God. This again stands out. Brainerd is an eminent example of truly outstanding zeal for God's glory. He wrote (18 July 1745) 'Longed to spend the little inch of time I have in the world more for God.' Is that you longing to?

6. His ability to overcome depression and adversity. Like every man Brainerd had his faults and failures. A more inwardly volatile man it would be hard to imagine. Nevertheless so set on God;s glory was he that every set back served only to strengthen him in his service to God. Here is a typical passage and perhaps we can end with this as typical of his approach (22 November 1744)

Came on my way from Rockciticus to Delaware river. Was very much disordered with a cold and pain in my head. About six at night I lost my way in the wilderness, and wandered over rocks and mountains, down hideous steeps, through swamps, and most dreadful and dangerous places; and the night being dark, so that few stars could be seen, I was greatly exposed. I was much pinched with cold, and distressed with an extreme pain in my head, attended with sickness at my stomach; so that every step I took was distressing to me. I had little hope for several hours together, but that I must lie out in the woods all night, in this distressed case. But about nine o’clock I found a house, through the abundant goodness of God, and was kindly entertained. Thus I have frequently been exposed, and sometimes lain out the whole night; but God has hitherto preserved me; and blessed be his name. Such fatigues and hardships as these serve to wean me more from the earth; and, I trust, will make heaven the sweeter.