Brainerd, David; Edwards, Jonathan; Flavel, John. The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, chiefly extracted from his Diary : Somewhat abridged. Embracing, in the Chronological Order, Brainerd's Public Journal of the most successful year of his Missionary Labors. New-York: American Tract Society | D. Fanshaw, Printer, ca. 1840. [11514]
Two books bound together as one. Black leather spine with gilt title, teal cloth blindstamped boards, 6 x 4 inches, extra engraved series page "The Evangelical Family Library, Vol. VII", with steel-engraved vignette. 360 + 108 pp., tight, light foxing. Some light stains/ smudges to the binding. Good. Hardcover.
The second book has its own title page: A Treatise on Keeping the Heart. Selected from the Works of the Rev. John Flavel. Same imprint.
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd is no. 674 in Roberts, Revival Literature: An Annotated Bibliography.
Rev. David Brainerd (1718-1747), born at Haddam, Connecticut. “…a celebrated missionary to the Indians…from his earliest years he had strong impressions of religion. In 1739 he entered Yale College, where he was distinguished for general propriety and devotion to study. An indiscreet remark that one of the tutors was as ‘destitute of grace as the chair,’ led, in 1742, to his expulsion. He continued without interruption the study of divinity, and, having been licensed to preach, he received from the Scotch Society for promoting Christian Knowledge an appointment as missionary to the Indians. In 1743 he labored among a Kaunameek tribe and the Delaware Indians. Receiving ordination in 1744, he settled in Crossweeks, N.J…Deep impressions were made on his savage hearers, so that is was no uncommon spectacle to see the whole congregation dissolved into tears. In the course of a year not less than seventy-seven Indians were baptized, of whom thirty-eight were adults, and maintained a character for Christian consistency.
"Leaving this little church to the care of William Tennant, Brainerd repaired, in the summer of 1746, to the Susquehanna tribe of Indians, but his previous labors had so much impaired his health that he was obliged to relinquish his work. In July, 1747, he returned to Northampton, where he found a hospitable asylum in the house of Jonathan Edwards, and died there…Such was the brief but active career of Brainerd the missionary. The love of Christ, and a benevolent desire for the salvation of men, burned in his breast with the ardor of an unquenchable flame…perhaps no one in the list of the most devoted missionaries that the Church has ever known undertook so great labors and submitted to so severe privations and self-denial as Brainerd.” – M’Clintock & Strong.
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), b. East Windsor, CT, d. 1758, Princeton, NJ), "greatest theologian and philosopher of British American Puritanism, stimulater of the religious revival known as the Great Awakening. He has been called "The greatest philosopher-theologian yet to grace the American scene".
John Flavel (1627-1691), English nonconformist, ejected in 1662. "He was a man of exemplary piety, in doctrine a Calvinist; an experimental, affectionate, practical, and popular writer." - Darling.
