BRAINERD, DAVID
(20 April 1718, Haddam, CT-9 October 1747, Northampton, MA). Education: Studied at Yale College, 1739-42; studied theology with Jedediah Mills, Ripton, CT, 1742. Career: Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) missionary to Indians in NY, PA, and NJ, 1742-47.
David Brainerd is one of the most paradoxical and controversial figures in Congregational history. Sickly with consumption from an early age, expelled from Yale during the Great Awakening, unsuccessful in his career as a missionary, and dead before his thirtieth year-be was an unlikely person to influence history. And yet his life, as reflected in his journal, was a model for Christian piety and missionary zeal during the century following his death.
From early childhood Brainerd was pathologically obsessed with questions of sin and death. Highly introspective and often depressed, he suffered from tuberculosis, which must have accentuated his sense of mortality. In 1739 at the age of 21 he experienced conversion in the approved Calvinistic fashion, realizing that salvation must come God, rather than from his own exertions. Although he was less prone to doubt his salvation afterwards, he did continue to experience periods of depression, and he remained highly introspective. During the year of his conversion he entered Yale.
In 1742 Brainerd compared preachers at Yale, including the President, unfavorably with New Light preachers of the Awakening. In a well-turned but illconsidered phrase, he characterized one of the tutors as having "no more grace than a chair." The authorities were not amused, and expelled the young man. Although Brainerd later petitioned for readmission, his requests were denied. Several of his supporters at Yale later became presidents at Princeton, and there is a tradition that disagreements about Brainerd were one of the reasons for the founding of the new university.
Brainerd was subsequently commissioned by The Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) as a missionary. He served in New York, where he moved from place to place too rapidly to learn native speech and customs, and he had little effect on the indigenous peoples. In New Jersey, however, he fostered a revival among the Indians. But by this time his health was so poor that he was bedridden in Northampton, at the home of Jonathan Edwards*. Jerusha, Edwards's daughter and Brainerd's fiancee, nursed him through the remaining months of his life.
Brainerd's later influence was largely a result of his having impressed Jonathan Edwards with his piety. Edwards published Brainerd's journal, and with the help of the great man's recommendation the book became a minor clas':' sic of Puritan religious experience-for better or for worse. Brainerd's supporters felt that his introspective religiosity was the ideal type of Congregational piety, especially among missionaries. Critics, however, felt that the journal encouraged a morose and self-centered piety that was far from ideal in a religious person and far from useful in practical missionary work.
Bibliography
A: Jonathan Edwards, ed., An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd (Boston, 1749) [Edwards's edition omits parts of the journal. In 1822 Sereno E. Dwight published the full diary and related papers. The book was subsequently republished under many titles; the latest was edited by Philip E. Howard, Chicago, 1949.]
B: AAP 3, 113-17; DAB 2, 591-92; DARB, 61-62; NCAB 2,253; SH 2, 251; Richard E. Day, Flagellant on Horseback (Philadelphia. 1950); David Wynbeck. David Brainerd: Beloved Yankee (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1961).
David Brainerd is one of the most paradoxical and controversial figures in Congregational history. Sickly with consumption from an early age, expelled from Yale during the Great Awakening, unsuccessful in his career as a missionary, and dead before his thirtieth year-be was an unlikely person to influence history. And yet his life, as reflected in his journal, was a model for Christian piety and missionary zeal during the century following his death.
From early childhood Brainerd was pathologically obsessed with questions of sin and death. Highly introspective and often depressed, he suffered from tuberculosis, which must have accentuated his sense of mortality. In 1739 at the age of 21 he experienced conversion in the approved Calvinistic fashion, realizing that salvation must come God, rather than from his own exertions. Although he was less prone to doubt his salvation afterwards, he did continue to experience periods of depression, and he remained highly introspective. During the year of his conversion he entered Yale.
In 1742 Brainerd compared preachers at Yale, including the President, unfavorably with New Light preachers of the Awakening. In a well-turned but illconsidered phrase, he characterized one of the tutors as having "no more grace than a chair." The authorities were not amused, and expelled the young man. Although Brainerd later petitioned for readmission, his requests were denied. Several of his supporters at Yale later became presidents at Princeton, and there is a tradition that disagreements about Brainerd were one of the reasons for the founding of the new university.
Brainerd was subsequently commissioned by The Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) as a missionary. He served in New York, where he moved from place to place too rapidly to learn native speech and customs, and he had little effect on the indigenous peoples. In New Jersey, however, he fostered a revival among the Indians. But by this time his health was so poor that he was bedridden in Northampton, at the home of Jonathan Edwards*. Jerusha, Edwards's daughter and Brainerd's fiancee, nursed him through the remaining months of his life.
Brainerd's later influence was largely a result of his having impressed Jonathan Edwards with his piety. Edwards published Brainerd's journal, and with the help of the great man's recommendation the book became a minor clas':' sic of Puritan religious experience-for better or for worse. Brainerd's supporters felt that his introspective religiosity was the ideal type of Congregational piety, especially among missionaries. Critics, however, felt that the journal encouraged a morose and self-centered piety that was far from ideal in a religious person and far from useful in practical missionary work.
Bibliography
A: Jonathan Edwards, ed., An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd (Boston, 1749) [Edwards's edition omits parts of the journal. In 1822 Sereno E. Dwight published the full diary and related papers. The book was subsequently republished under many titles; the latest was edited by Philip E. Howard, Chicago, 1949.]
B: AAP 3, 113-17; DAB 2, 591-92; DARB, 61-62; NCAB 2,253; SH 2, 251; Richard E. Day, Flagellant on Horseback (Philadelphia. 1950); David Wynbeck. David Brainerd: Beloved Yankee (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1961).