The former of these relates to the frame of his spirit on a journey; on the mention of which, I cannot but recollect how often I have heard him say that some of the most delightful days of his life were days in which he travelled alone, (that is, with only a servant at a distance,) when he could, especially in roads not much frequented, indulge himself in the pleasures of prayer and praise. In the exercise of this last, he was greatly assisted by several psalms and hymns which he had treasured up in his memory, and which he used not only to repeat aloud, but sometimes to sing. In reference to this, I remember the following passage, in a letter which he wrote to me many years after, when, on mentioning my ever dear and honoured friend the Rev. Dr. Watts, he says, "How often, in singing some of his psalms, hymns, or lyrics, on horseback and elsewhere, has the evil spirit been made to flee:
"'Whene'er my heart in tune was found,
'Like David's harp of solemn sound!'"
Such was the first of April above mentioned. In the evening of that day he writes thus to an intimate friend:––
"What would I have given this day, upon the road, for paper, pen, and ink, when the Spirit of the Most High rested upon me! Oh for the pen of a ready writer, and the tongue of an angel, to declare what God hath done this day for my soul! But, in short, it is in vain to attempt it. All that I am able to say, is this, that my soul has been for some hours joining with the blessed spirits above in giving glory, and honour, and praise unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever. My praises began from a renewed view of Him whom I saw pierced for my transgressions. I summoned the whole hierarchy of heaven to join with me, and I am persuaded they all echoed back praise to the Most High. Yon, one would have thought the very larks joined me with emulation. Sure, then, I need not make use of many words to persuade you, that are his saints, to join me in blessing and praising his holy name." He concludes, "May the blessing of the God of Jacob rest upon you all! Adieu. Written in great haste, late and weary."
Scarcely can I here refrain from breaking out into more copious reflections on the exquisite pleasures of true religion, when risen to such eminent degrees, which can thus feast the soul in its solitude, and refresh it on journeys, and bring down so much of heaven to earth as this delightful letter expresses. But the remark is so obvious, that I will not enlarge upon it; but proceed to the other letter above mentioned, which was written the next month, on the Tuesday after a sacrament day.
He mentions the pleasure with which he had attended a preparation sermon the Saturday before; and then he adds:
"I took a walk upon the mountains that are over against Ireland; and, I persuade myself, that were I capable of giving you a description of what passed there, you would agree that I had much better reason to remember my God from the hills of Port Patrick than David from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill of Mizar." I suppose he refers to the clearer discoveries of the gospel with which we are favoured. "In short," says he immediately afterwards, in that scripture phrase which had become so familiar to him, "I wrestled some hours with the Angel of the covenant, and made supplications to him with floods of tears, and cries––until I had almost expired; but he strengthened me so, that, like Jacob, I had power with God, and prevailed. This," adds he, "is but a very faint description; you will be more able to judge of it by what you have felt yourself upon the like occasions. After such preparatory work, I need not tell you how blessed the solemn ordinance of the Lord's supper proved to me; I hope it was so to many. You may believe I should have been exceeding glad, if my gracious Lord had ordered it so, that I might have made you a visit, as I proposed; but I am now glad it was ordered otherwise, since he hath caused so much of his goodness to pass before me. Were I to give you an account of the many favours my God hath loaded me with, since I parted from you, I must have taken up many days in nothing but writing. I hope you will join with me in praises for all the goodness he has shown to your unworthy brother in the Lord."
Such were the ardours and elevation of his soul. But while I record these memorials of them, I am very sensible that there are many who will be inclined to censure them as the flights of enthusiasm; for which reason, I must beg leave to add a remark or two on the occasion, which will be illustrated by several other extracts, which I shall introduce into the sequel of these memoirs. The one is, that he never pretends, in any of the passages cited above, or elsewhere, to have received from God any immediate revelations which should raise him above the ordinary methods of instruction, or discover any thing to him, whether of doctrines or facts. No man was further from pretending to predict future events, except from the moral prognostications of causes naturally tending to produce them, in tracing of which he had indeed an admirable sagacity, as I have seen in some very remarkable instances. Neither was he at all inclinable to govern himself by secret impulses upon his mind, leading him to things for which he could assign no reason but the impulse itself. Had he ventured, in a presumption on such secret agitations of mind, to teach or to do any thing not warranted by the dictates of sound sense and the word of God, I should readily have acknowledged him an enthusiast, unless he could have produced some other evidence than his own persuasion to have supported the authority of them. But these ardent expressions, which some may call enthusiasm, seem only to evince a heart deeply affected with a sense of the divine presence and perfections, and of that love which passeth knowledge, especially as manifested in our redemption by the Son of God, which did indeed inflame his whole soul. And he thought he might reasonably ascribe these strong impressions, to which men are generally such strangers, and of which he had long been entirely destitute, to the agency or influences of the Spirit of God upon his heart; and that, in proportion to the degree in which he felt them, he might properly say, God was present with him, and he conversed with God.[*] Now, when we consider the scriptural phrases of "walking with God," of "having communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ," of "Christ's coming to them that open the door of their hearts to him, and supping with them," of "God's shedding abroad his love in the heart of the Spirit," of "his coming with Jesus Christ, and making his abode with any man that loves him," of "his meeting him that worketh righteousness," of "his making us glad by the light of his countenance," and a variety of other equivalent expressions,––I believe we shall see reason to judge much more favourably of such expressions as those now in question, than persons who, themselves strangers to elevated devotion, perhaps converse but little with their Bible, are inclined to do; especially, if they have, as many such persons have, a temper that inclines them to cavil and find fault. And I must further observe, that amidst all those freedoms with which this eminent Christian opens his devout heart to the most intimate of his friends, he still speaks with profound awe and reverence of his Heavenly Father and his Saviour, and maintains (after the example of the sacred writers themselves,) a kind of dignity in his expressions, suitable to such a subject, without any of that fond familiarity of language, and degrading meanness of phrase, by which it is, especially of late, grown fashionable among some (who nevertheless I believe mean well,) to express their love and their humility.
[*Note: The ingenious and pious Mr. Grove (who, I think, was as little suspected of running into enthusiastical extremes as most divines I could name,) has a noble passage to this purpose in the sixth volume of his Posthumous Works, p.10, 11, which, respect to the memory of both these excellent persons, inclines me to insert here,
"How often are the good thoughts suggested," (viz. to the pure in heart) "heavenly affection kindled and inflamed! How often is the Christian prompted to holy actions, drawn to his duty, restored, quickened, persuaded, in such a manner, that he would be unjust to the Spirit of God to question his agency in the whole! Yes, on my soul! there is a Supreme Being, who governs the world, and is present with it, who takes up his more special habitation in good men, and is nigh to all who call upon him, to sanctify and assist them! Hast thou not felt him, oh my soul! like another soul, [Transcriber's note: illegible] thy faculties, exalting thy views, purifying thy passions, exalting thy graces, and begetting in thee an abhorrence of sin, and a love of holiness? Is not all this an argument of His presence, as truly as if thou didst see.">[
On the whole, if habitual love to God, firm faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a steady dependence on the divine promises, a full persuasion of the wisdom and goodness of all the dispensations of Providence, a high esteem for the blessings of the heavenly world, and a sincere contempt for the vanities of this, can properly be called enthusiasm, then was Colonel Gardiner indeed one of the greatest enthusiasts which our age has produced; and in proportion to the degree in which he was so, I must esteem him one of the wisest and happiest of mankind. Nor do I fear to tell the world that it is the design of my writing these memoirs, and of every thing else that I undertake in life, to spread this glorious and blessed enthusiasm, which I know to be the anticipation of heaven, as well as the most certain way to it.
But lest any should possibly imagine, that allowing the experiences which have been described above to have been ever so solid and important, yet there may be some appearances of boasting in so free a communication of them, I must add to what I have hinted in reference to this above, that I find in many of the papers before me very genuine expressions of the deepest humility and self-abasement, which indeed such holy converse with God in prayer and praise does, above all things in the world, tend to inspire and promote. Thus, in one of his letters he says, "I am but as a beast before him." In another he calls himself "a miserable hell-deserving sinner." And in another he cries out, "Oh, how good a master do I serve! but, alas, how ungrateful am I! What can be so astonishing as the love of Christ to us, unless it be the coldness of our sinful hearts towards such a Saviour?" There were many other clauses of the like nature, which I shall not set myself more particularly to trace through the variety of letters in which they occur.
It is a further instance of this unfeigned humility, that when (as his lady with her usual propriety of language expresses it in one of her letters to me concerning him,) "these divine joys and consolations were not his daily allowance," he, with equal freedom, in the confidence of Christian fellowship, acknowledges and laments it. Thus, in the first letter I had the honour of receiving from him, dated from Leicester, July 9, 1739, after mentioning the blessing with which it had pleased God to attend my last address to him, and the influence it had upon his mind, he adds, "Much do I stand in need of every help to awaken me out of that spiritual deadness which seizes me so often. Once, indeed, it was quite otherwise with me, and that for many years: