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The Great Cloud of Witnesses · The Great Awakenings
David Brainerd
1718–1747
David Brainerd (April 20, 1718 – January 9, 1747) was a Colonial American Presbyterian missionary to Native Americans (Seneca and Delaware peoples of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) during the First Great Awakening.
The life
David Brainerd (April 20, 1718 – January 9, 1747) was a Colonial American Presbyterian missionary to Native Americans (Seneca and Delaware peoples of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) during the First Great Awakening. Educated at Yale (expelled before graduation for criticizing a tutor's spiritual state during the Awakening's emotional fervor), he was licensed by the Presbyterian "New Side" and commissioned by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge.
He died of tuberculosis at age 29 in Jonathan Edwards's Northampton parsonage. Edwards published An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd (1749) drawn from Brainerd's private diary — one of the most-circulated and most-influential missionary biographies in Christian history. The diary inspired William Carey, Henry Martyn, Jim Elliot, and generations of evangelical missionaries; it remains in continuous print.
Go further
Read them yourself — the works below are the next step, and the public-domain ones are free to read in full.
- The Life and Diary of David Brainerd1749
One of the most-circulated and most-influential missionary biographies in Christian history. Standard text for evangelical missionary-formation. One of the audiobook-library voices in the founder's roster.
Read it free — archive.org · Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Mirabilia Dei inter Indicos1746
Brainerd's own published account of the 1745 Crossweeksung Delaware revival; primary documentation of the Awakening-era Native American missionary work.
Read it free — archive.org · Christian Classics Ethereal Library