There is indeed a possibility, that while he was sitting in this solitude, and reading in this careless and profane manner, he might suddenly fall asleep, and only dream of what he apprehended he saw. But nothing can be more certain than that, when he gave me this relation, he judged himself to have been as broad awake during the whole time as he ever was in any part of his life; and he mentioned it to me several times afterwards as what undoubtedly passed, not only in his imagination, but before his eyes.[*]
[*Note: Mr. Spears, in the letter mentioned above, where he introduces the colonel telling his own story, has these words "All of a sudden there was presented in a very lively manner to my view, or to my mind, a representation of my glorious Redeemer," &c. And this gentleman adds, in a parenthesis, "It was so lively and striking, that he could not tell whether it was to his bodily eyes, or to those of his mind." This makes me think that what I had said to him on the phenomena of visions, apparitions, &c, (as being, when most real, supernatural impressions on the imagination, rather than attended with any external object,) had some influence upon him. Yet still it is evident he looked upon this as a vision, whether it was before the eyes or in the mind, and not as a dream.],
He thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall on the book while he was reading, which he at first imagined might happen by some accident in the candle. But, lifting up his eyes, he apprehended, to his extreme amazement, that there was before him, as it were suspended in the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, surrounded on all sides with a glory; and was impressed as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him to this effect, (for he was not confident as to the very words). "Oh, sinner! did I suffer this for thee, and are these the returns?" But whether this were an audible voice, or only a strong impression on his mind equally striking, he did not seem very confident, though, to the best of my remembrance, he rather judged it to be the former. Struck with so amazing a phenomenon as this, there remained hardly any life in him, so that he sunk down in the arm chair in which he sat, and continued, he knew not exactly how long, insensible, (which was one circumstance that made me several times take the liberty to suggest that he might possibly be all this while asleep,) but however that were, he quickly after opened his eyes, and saw nothing more than usual.
It may easily be supposed he was in no condition to make any observations upon the time in which he had remained in an insensible state, nor did he, throughout all the remainder of the night, once recollect that criminal and detestable assignation which had before engrossed all his thoughts. He rose in a tumult of passions not to be conceived, and walked to and fro in his chamber till he was ready to drop down in unutterable astonishment and agony of heart, appearing to himself the vilest monster in the creation of God, who had all his lifetime been crucifying Christ afresh by his sins, and now saw, as he assuredly believed, by a miraculous vision, the horror of what he had done. With this was connected such a view of both the majesty and goodness of God, as caused him to loathe and abhor himself, and to repent as in dust and ashes. He immediately gave judgment against himself, that he was most justly worthy of eternal damnation, he was astonished that he had not been immediately struck dead in the midst of his wickedness, and (which I think deserves particular remark) though he assuredly believed that he should ere long be in hell, and settled it as a point with himself for several months that the wisdom and justice of God did almost necessarily require that such an enormous sinner should be made an example of everlasting vengeance, and a spectacle as such both to angels and men, so that he hardly durst presume to pray for pardon; yet what he then suffered was not so much from the fear of hell, though he concluded it would soon be his portion, as from a sense of that horrible ingratitude he had shown to the God of his life, and to that blessed Redeemer who had been in so affecting a manner set forth as crucified before him.
To this he refers in a letter dated from Douglas, the 1st of April 1725, communicated to me by his lady,[*] but I know not to whom it was addressed. His words are these: "One thing relating to my conversion, and a remarkable instance of the goodness of God to me, the chief of sinners, I do not remember that I ever told to any other person. It was this, that after the astonishing sight I had of my blessed Lord, the terrible condition in which I was proceeded not so much from the terrors of the law, as from a sense of having been so ungrateful a monster to him whom I thought I saw pierced for my transgressions." I the rather insert these words, as they evidently attest the circumstance which may seem most amazing in this affair, and contain so express a declaration of his own apprehension concerning it.
[*Note: Where I make any extracts as from Colonel Gardiner's letters, they are either from originals, which I have in my own hands, or from copies which were transmitted to me from persons of undoubted credit, chiefly by the Right Honourable the Lady Frances Gardiner, through the hands of the Rev. Mr. Webster, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. This I the rather mention, because some letters have been brought to me as Colonel Gardiner's, concerning which I have not only been very dubious, but morally certain that they could not have been written by him. I have also heard of many who have been fond of assuring the world that they were well acquainted with him, and were near him when he fell, whose reports have been most inconsistent with each other, as well as contrary to that testimony relating to the circumstances of his death, which, on the whole, appeared to me beyond controversy the most natural and authentic, from whence, therefore, I shall take my account of that affecting scene.]
In this view it may naturally be supposed that he passed the remainder of the night waking, and he could get but little rest in several that followed. His mind was continually taken up in reflecting on the divine purity and goodness; the grace which had been proposed to him in the gospel, and which he had rejected; the singular advantages he had enjoyed and abused; and the many favours of providence which he had received, particularly in rescuing him from so many imminent dangers of death, which he now saw must have been attended with such dreadful and hopeless destruction. The privileges of his education, which he had so much despised, now lay with an almost insupportable weight on his mind; and the folly of that career of sinful pleasure which he had so many years been running with desperate eagerness and unworthy delight, now filled him with indignation against himself, and against the great deceiver, by whom (to use his own phrase) he had been "so wretchedly and scandalously befooled." This he used often to express in the strongest terms, which I shall not repeat so particularly, as I cannot recollect some of them. But on the whole it is certain that, by what passed before he left his chamber the next day, the whole frame and disposition of his soul was new-modelled and changed; so that he became, and continued to the last day of his exemplary and truly Christian life, the very reverse of what he had been before. A variety of particulars, which I am afterwards to mention, will illustrate this in the most convincing manner. But I cannot proceed to them without pausing to adore so illustrious an instance of the power and freedom of divine grace, and entreating my reader seriously to reflect upon it, that his own heart may be suitably affected. For surely, if the truth of the fact be admitted in the lowest views in which it can be placed, (that is, supposing the first impression to have passed in a dream,) it must be allowed to have been little, if anything less than miraculous. It cannot in the course of nature be imagined how such a dream should arise in a mind full of the most impure ideas and affections, and (as he himself often pleaded) more alienated from the thoughts of a crucified Saviour, than from any other object that can be conceived; nor can we surely suppose it should, without a mighty energy of the divine power, be effectual to produce not only some transient flow of passion, but so entire and permanent a change in character and conduct.
On the whole, therefore, I must beg leave to express my own sentiments of the matter, by repeating on this occasion what I wrote several years ago, in my eighth sermon on regeneration, in a passage dictated chiefly by the circumstantial knowledge which I had of this amazing story, and methinks sufficiently vindicated by it, if it stood entirely alone, which yet, I must take the liberty to say, it does not; for I hope the world will be particularly informed, that there is at least a second that very nearly approaches it, whenever the established church of England shall lose one of its brightest living ornaments, and one of the most useful members which that, or perhaps any other Christian communion, can boast. In the mean time, may his exemplary life be long continued, and his zealous ministry abundantly prospered! I beg my reader's pardon for this digression. The passage I referred to above is remarkably, though not equally, applicable to both the cases, under that head where I am showing that God sometimes accomplishes the great work of which we speak, by secret and immediate impressions on the mind. After preceding illustrations, there are the following words, on which the colonel's conversion will throw the justest light. "Yea, I have known those of distinguished genius, polite manners, and great experience in human affairs, who, after having out-grown all the impressions of a religious education––after having been hardened, rather than subdued by the most singular mercies, even various, repeated, and astonishing deliverances, which have appeared to themselves as no less than miraculous––after having lived for years without God in the world, notoriously corrupt themselves, and labouring to the utmost to corrupt others, have been stopped on a sudden in the full career of their sin, and have felt such rays of the divine presence, and of redeeming love, darting in upon their minds, almost like lightning from heaven, as have at once roused, overpowered, and transformed them; so that they have come out of their secret chambers with an irreconcilable enmity to those vices to which, when they entered them, they were the tamest and most abandoned slaves; and have appeared from that very hour the votaries, the patrons, the champions of religion; and after a course of the most resolute attachment to it, in spite of all the reasonings or the railleries, the importunities or the reproaches of its enemies, they have continued to this day some of its brightest ornaments; a change which I behold with equal wonder and delight, and which, if a nation should join in deriding it, I would adore as the finger of God."
The mind of Major Gardiner continued from this remarkable time, till towards the end of October, (that is rather more than three months, but especially the first two of them,) in as extraordinary a situation as one can well imagine. He knew nothing of the joys arising from a sense of pardon; but, on the contrary, for the greater part of that time, and with very short intervals of hope towards the end of it, took it for granted that he must in all probability quickly perish. Nevertheless, he had such a sense of the evil of sin, of the goodness of the Divine Being, and of the admirable tendency of the Christian revelation, that he resolved to spend the remainder of his life, while God continued him out of hell, in as rational and as useful a manner as he could; and to continue casting himself at the foot of divine mercy every day, and often in a day, if peradventure there might be hope of pardon, of which all that he could say was, that he did not absolutely despair. He had at that time such a sense of the degeneracy of his own heart, that he hardly durst form any determinate resolution against sin, or pretend to engage himself by any vow in the presence of God; but he was continually crying to him, that he would deliver him from the bondage of corruption. He perceived in himself a most surprising alteration with regard to the dispositions of his heart; so that, though he felt little of the delight of religious duties, he extremely desired opportunities of being engaged in them; and those licentious pleasures which had before been his heaven, were now absolutely his aversion. And indeed, when I consider how habitual all those criminal indulgences were grown to him, and that he was now in the prime of life, and all this while in high health too, I cannot but be astonished to reflect upon it, that he should be so wonderfully sanctified in body, as well as in soul and spirit, as that, for all the future years of his life, he from that hour should find so constant a disinclination to, and abhorrence of, those criminal sensualities to which he fancied he was before so invincibly impelled by his very constitution, that he was used strangely to think, and to say; that Omnipotence itself could not reform him, without destroying that body, and giving him another.[*]
[*Note: Mr. Spears expresses this wonderful circumstance in these remarkable words "I was (said the colonel to me) effectually cured of all inclination to that sin I was so strongly addicted to, that I thought nothing but shooting me through the head could have cured me of it, and all desire and inclination to it was removed, as entirely as if I had been a sucking child, nor did the temptation return to this day." Mr. Webster's words on the same subject are these "One thing I have heard the colonel frequently say, that he was much addicted to impurity before his acquaintance with religion, but that, so soon as he was enlightened from above, he felt the power of the Holy Ghost changing his nature so wonderfully, that his sanctification in this respect seemed more remarkable than in any other." On which that worthy person makes this very reasonable reflection "So thorough a change of such a polluted nature, evidenced by the most unblemished walk and conversation for a long course of years, demonstrates indeed the power of the Highest, and leaves no room to doubt of its reality." Mr. Spears says, this happened in three days' time, but from what I can recollect, all that the colonel could mean by that expression, if he used it, (as I conclude he did,) was that he began to make the observation in the space of three days whereas, during that time, his thoughts were so taken up with the wonderful views presented to his mind, that he did not immediately attend to it. If he had, within the first three days, any temptation to seek some ease from the anguish of his mind, in returning to former sensualities, it is a circumstance he did not mention to me, and by what I can recollect of the strain of his discourse, he intimated if he did not express the contrary.]