David Brainerd
David Brainerd
David Brainerdwas an American missionary to the Native Americans who had a particularly fruitful ministry among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. During his short life he was beset by many difficulties. As a result, his biography has become a source of inspiration and encouragement to many Christians, including missionaries such as William Carey and Jim Elliot, and Brainerd's cousin, the Second Great Awakening evangelist James Brainerd Taylor...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionReligious Leader
Date of Birth20 April 1718
CountryUnited States of America
Oh that I may never loiter on my heavenly journey.
Oh, how precious is time! And how guilty it makes me feel when I think I have trifled away and misimproved it, or neglected to fill up each part of it with duty to the utmost of my ability and capacity
My soul often mourned of more time and opportunity to be alone with God
As the most extravagant errors were received among the established articles of their faith, so the most infamous vices obtained in their practice, and were indulged not only with impunity, but authorized by the sanction of their laws.
God enabled me to so agonize in prayer that I was quite wet with perspiration, though in the shade and the cool wind. My soul was drawn out very much from the world, for multitudes of souls.
Oh, how precious is time, and how it pains me to see it slide away, while I do so little to any good purpose.
I have withstood the power of convictions a long time; and therefore I fear I shall be finally left of God.
I board with a poor Scotchman: his wife can talk scarce any English.
I fear God never showed mercy to one so vile as I.
I am more weary of life, I think, than ever I was.
A few of the sublimest geniuses of Rome and Athens had some faint discoveries of the spiritual nature of the human soul, and formed some probable conjectures, that man was designed for a future state of existence.
Oh, how much mercy have I received the year past! How often has God caused His goodness to pass before me! And how poorly have I answered the vows I made this time twelve month to be wholly the Lord's, to be forever devoted to His service! The Lord help me to live more to His glory for the time to come. This has been a sweet, a happy day to me; blessed be God...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
I longed that those who, I have reason to think, owe me ill will, might be eternally happy. It seemed refreshing to think of meeting them in heaven, how much soever they had injured me on earth: had no disposition to insist upon any confession from them, in order to reconciliation, and the exercise of love and kindness to them. Oh! it is an emblem of heaven itself, to love all the world with a love of kindness, forgiveness, and benevolence...
Worldly pleasures, such as flow from greatness, riches, honours, and sensual gratifications, are infinitely worse than none