Quotes from David Brainerd

Oh, how sweet it is to be spent and worn out for God!

Oh that I could dedicate my all to God. This is all the return I can make Him.

No poor creature stands in need of divine grace more than I, and none abuse it more than I have done, and still do.

Saw I was evidently throwing myself into all hardships and distressed in my present undertaking. I thought it would be less difficult to lie down in the grave; but yet I chose to go rather than stay.

It is good for me to be afflicted that I may die wholly to this world and all that is in it.

Alas, that so much of my precious time is spent with so little of God.

Nothing seemed to hard for God to perform; nothing to great for me to hope for from Him.

Oh, a barn, or stable, hedge, or any other place is desirable, if God is there.

Oh, how amazing it is that people can talk so much about men's power and goodness when, if God did not hold us back every moment, we should be devils incarnate!

To an eye of reason, everything that respects the conversion of the heathen is as dark as midnight; and yet I cannot but hope in God for the accomplishment of something glorious among them.

All my desire was the conversion of the heathen and all my hope was in God. God does not suffer me to please or comfort myself with hopes of seeing friends, returning to my dear acquaintance, and enjoying worldly comforts.

My soul is disconsolate when God is withdrawn.

But still, this great awakening, this surpassing concern, was never excited by any harangues of terror, but always appeared most remarkable when I insisted upon the compassions of a dying Saviour, the plentiful provisions of the gospel, and the free offers of divine grace to needy distressed sinners.

I longed to spend and be spent for God.

I pray] that we might not outlive our usefulness.

This day, I saw clearly that I should never be happy, yea, that God Himself could not make me happy, unless I could be in a capacity to 'please and glorify Him forever.' Take away this and admit me into all the fine heavens that can be conceived of by men or angels, and I should still be miserable forever.

My soul was this day, at turns, sweetly set on God. I longed to be with Him that I might behold His glory. I felt sweetly disposed to commit all to Him, even my dearest friends, my dearest flock, my absent brother, and all my concerns for time and eternity. Oh, that His kingdom might come in the world; that they might all love and glorify Him, for what He is in Himself; and that the blessed Redeemer might 'see the travail of his soul, and be satisfied! Oh, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Amen.

it hurt me, and pained my very heart, that any body should show me any respect. Alas! methought, how sadly they are deceived in me! how miserably would they be disappointed, if they knew my inside! Oh my heart! -

no amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls.

My whole soul was unspeakably bewildered and lost in myself and I knew of nothing that seemed likely to make me happy, in case I could with the greatest ease have obtained the best good that I had any conception of. And being that lost I became a suitable object for the compassion of Jesus Christ to be set upon, since he came to "seek and to save that which is lost.

Let me forget the world and be swallowed up in the desire to glorify God.

There is a God in heaven who overrules all things for the best; and this is the comfort of my soul.

Further, Take heed that you faithfully perform the business you have to do in the world, from a regard to the commands of God; and not from an ambitious desire of being esteemed better than others.

Oh! one hour with God infinitely exceeds all the pleasures and delights of this lower world.