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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 any immediate revelations from God, which should raise him above the ordinary methods of instruction, or discover anything to him, whether of doctrines or facts. No man was farther from pretending to predict future events, except it were 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 anything 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 evidence 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 the strong impressions, to which men are generally such strangers, and of which he had long been entirely destitute, to the agency or influence 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 by his 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 are themselves strangers to elevated devotion, and 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 And I must further observe,

to cavil and find fault.

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, pages 40, 41, which respect to the memory of both these excellent persons inclines me to insert here. "How often are good thoughts suggested (namely, to the pure in heart), heavenly affections 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, O 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, O my soul, like another soul actuating thy faculties, exalting thy views, purifying thy passions, exciting thy graces, and begetting in thee an abhorrence of sin, and a love of holiness and is not all this an argument of his presence, as truly as if thou didst see him ?'

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.

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 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 everything 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 appearance 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 ?" with 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 friendship, acknowledges and laments it. Thus, in the first letter I had the honour of receiving from him, dated from Leicester, July 9, 1739, when he had been 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:

'Firm was my health, my day was bright,

And I presumed twould ne'er be night :

Fondly I said within my heart,
Pleasure and peace shall ne'er depart;
But I forgot thine arm was strong,
Which made my mountain stand so long:

!

Soon as thy face began to hide,

My health was gone, my comforts died.'

And here," adds he, "lies my sin and my folly."

I mention this, that the whole matter may be seen just as it was, and that other Christians may not be discouraged, if they feel some abatement of that fervour, and of those holy joys, which they may have experienced during some of the first months or years of their spiritual life. But, with relation to the colonel, I have great reason to believe that those which he laments as his days of spiritual deadness were not unanimated; and that quickly after the date of this letter, and especially nearer the close of his life, he had farther revivings, as the joyful anticipation of those better things in reserve, which were then nearly approaching. And thus Mr. Spears, in the letter I mentioned above, tells us he related the matter to him; for he studies as much as possible to retain the colonel's own words: "However," says he, "after that happy period of sensible communion, though my joys and enlargements were not so overflowing and sensible, yet I have had habitual real communion with God from that day to this" (the latter end of the year 1743); " and I know myself, and all that know me see, that through the grace of God, to which I ascribe all, my conversation has been becoming the Gospel; and let me die whenever it shall please God, or wherever it shall be, I am sure I shall go to the mansions of eternal glory," etc. And this is perfectly agreeable to the manner in which he used to speak to me on this head, which we have talked over frequently and largely.

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In this connection I hope my reader will forgive my inserting a little story, which I received from a

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