RETURN TO ENGLAND.
It appeared to him that by this remarkable event Providence called him
home. Accordingly, though he had other preferments offered him in the
army, he chose to return, and I believe the more willingly, as he did not
expect there would have been an action. Just at this time it pleased God
to give him an awful instance of the uncertainty of human prospects and
enjoyments, by that violent fever which seized him at Ghent on his way to
England, and perhaps the more severely for the efforts he made to push on
his journey, though he had for some days been much indisposed. It was, I
think, one of the first fits of severe illness he had ever met with, and
he was ready to look upon it as a sudden call into eternity; but it gave
him no painful alarm in that view. He committed himself to the God of his
life, and in a few weeks he was so well recovered as to be capable of
pursuing his journey, though not without difficulty. I cannot but think
it might have conduced much to a more perfect recovery than he ever
attained, to have allowed himself a longer repose, in order to recruit
his exhausted strength and spirits. But there was an activity in his
temper not easy to be restrained, and it was now stimulated, not only
with a desire to see his friends, but of being with his regiment, that
he might omit nothing in his power to regulate their morals and their
discipline, and to form them for public service. Accordingly, about the
middle of June, 1743, he passed through London, where he had the honour
of waiting on their royal highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales,
and of receiving from both the most obliging token of favour and esteem.
He arrived at Northampton on Monday the 21st of June, and spent part of
three days there. But the great pleasure which his return and preferment
gave us, was much abated by observing his countenance so sadly altered,
and the many marks of languor and remaining disorder which evidently
appeared, so that he really looked ten years older than he had done
ten months before. I had, however, a satisfaction sufficient to
counterbalance much of the concern which this alteration gave me, in a
renewed opportunity of observing, indeed more sensibly than ever, in
how remarkable a degree he was dead to the enjoyments and views of this
mortal life. When I congratulated him on the favourable appearances of
Providence for him in the late event, he briefly told me the remarkable
circumstances that attended it, with the most genuine expressions of
gratitude to God for them; but added, "that as his account was increased
with his income, power, influence, and his cares were proportionably
increased too, it was, as to his own personal concern, much the same to
him whether he had remained in his former station, or been elevated to
this; but that if God should by this means honour him as an instrument of
doing more good than he could otherwise have done, he should rejoice in
it."
I perceived that the near views he had taken of eternity, in the illness
from which he was then so imperfectly recovered, had not in the least
alarmed him; but that he would have been entirely willing, had such been
the determination of God, to have been cut short in a foreign land,
without any earthly friend near him, and in the midst of a journey
undertaken with hopes and prospects so pleasing to nature, which appeared
to me no inconsiderable evidence of the strength of his faith. But we
shall wonder the less at this extraordinary resignation, if we consider
the joyful and assured prospect which he had of a happiness infinitely
superior beyond the grave; of which that worthy minister of the church of
Scotland, who had an opportunity of conversing with him quickly after his
return, and having the memorable story of his conversion from his own
mouth, (as I have hinted above,) writes thus in his letter to me, dated
Jan. 14, 1746-7:
"When he came to review his regiment at Linlithgow, in summer 1743, after
having given me the wonderful story as above, he concluded in words to
this purpose: 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, and
enjoy my God and my Redeemer in heaven for ever."
While he was with us at this time he appeared deeply affected with the
sad state of things as to religion and morals, and seemed to apprehend
that the rod of God was hanging over so sinful a nation. He observed a
great deal of disaffection which the enemies of the government had, by a
variety of artifices, been raising in Scotland for some years; and the
number of Jacobites there, together with the defenceless state in which
our island then was, with respect to the number of its forces at home,
(of which he spoke at once with great concern and astonishment,) led
him to expect an invasion from France, and an attempt in favour of the
Pretender, much sooner than it happened. I have heard him often say, many
years before it came so near being accomplished, "that a few thousands
might have a fair chance for marching from Edinburgh to London
uncontrolled, and throw the whole Kingdom into an astonishment." And I
have great reason to believe that this was one main consideration which
engaged him to make such haste to his regiment, then quartered in those
parts, as he imagined there was not a spot of ground where he might be
more likely to have a call to expose his life in the service of his
country, and perhaps, by appealing on a proper call early in its
defences, be instrumental in suppressing the beginnings of most
formidable mischief. How rightly he judged in these things, the event too
evidently showed.
The evening before our last separation, as I knew I could not more
agreeably entertain the valuable friend who was then my guest, I preached
a sermon in my own house, with some peculiar reference to his case and
circumstances, from those ever-memorable words, than which I have never
felt any more powerful and more comfortable: Psalm xci. 14, 15, 16,
"Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I
will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon
me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver
him, and honour him: with long life (or length of days) will I satisfy
him, and show him my salvation." This scripture could not but lend our
meditations to survey the character of the good man, as one who so knows
the name of the blessed God--has such a deep apprehension of the glories
and perfections of his nature--as determinately to set his love upon him,
to make him the supreme object of his most ardent and constant affection.
And it suggested the most sublime and animating hopes to persons of such
a character, that their prayers shall be always acceptable to God; that
though they may, and must, be called to their share in the troubles and
calamities of life, yet they may assure themselves of the divine presence
in all, which will issue in their deliverance, in their exaltation,
sometimes in distinguished honour and esteem among men, and, it may be,
in a long course of useful and happy years on earth; at least, which
shall undoubtedly end in seeing, to their perpetual delight, the complete
salvation of God, in a world where they shall enjoy length of days for
ever and ever, and employ them all in adoring the great Author of their
salvation and felicity. It is evident that these natural thoughts on such
a Scripture were matters of universal concern. Yet had I, as a minister
of the gospel, known that this was the last time I should address Colonel
Gardiner, and had I foreseen the scenes through which God was about to
lead him, I hardly know what considerations I could have suggested with
more peculiar propriety. The attention, elevation, and delight with which
he heard them, were very apparent, and the pleasure which the observation
of it gave me, continues to this moment.
Let me be permitted to digress so far as to add, that this is indeed the
great support of a Christian minister under the many discouragements
and disappointments which he meets with in his attempts to fix upon the
profligate or the thoughtless part of mankind a deep sense of religious
truth; that there is another important part of his work in which he may
hope to be more generally successful; as, by plain, artless, but serious
discourses, the great principles of Christian duty and hope may be
nourished and invigorated in good men, their graces watered as at
the root, and their souls animated, both to persevere and improve in
holiness. When we are effectually performing such benevolent offices, so
well suiting our immortal natures, to persons whose hearts are cemented
with ours in the hands of the most endearing and sacred friendship, it is
too little to say that it overpays the fatigue of our Labours; it even
swallows up all sense of it in the most rational and sublime pleasure.
An incident occurred that evening, which, at least for the oddness of
it, may deserve a place in these memoirs. I had then with me one Thomas
Porter, a poor but very honest and religious man, (now living at Hatfield
Broad-Oak in Essex,) who is quite unacquainted with letters, so as not to
be able to distinguish one from another, yet is master of the contents
of the Bible in so extraordinary a degree, that he has not only fixed an
immense number of texts in his memory, but, merely by hearing them quoted
in sermons, has registered there the chapter and verse in which these
passages are to be found. This is attended with a marvellous facility in
directing readers to turn to them, and a most unaccountable talent of
fixing on such as suit almost every imaginable variety of circumstances
in common life. There are in this case two considerations that make it
the more wonderful; the one, that he is a person of very low genius,
having, besides a stammering which makes his speech almost unintelligible
to strangers, so wild and awkward a manner of behaviour, that he is
frequently taken for an idiot, and seems in many things to be indeed
so;--the other, that he grew up to manhood in a very licentious course of
living, and an entire ignorance of divine things, so that all these exact
impressions on his memory have been made in his riper years. I thought
it would not be disagreeable to the colonel to introduce to him this
odd phenomenon, which many hundreds of people have had a curiosity to
examine; and, among all the strange things I have seen in him, I never
remember any that equalled what passed on this occasion. On hearing
the colonel's profession, and receiving some hints of his religious
character, he ran through a vast variety of scriptures, beginning at
the Pentateuch and going on to the Revelation, relating either to the
dependence to be fixed on God for the success of military preparations,
or to the instances and promises occurring there for his care of good men
in the most imminent dangers, or to the encouragement to despise perils
and death, while engaged in a good cause, and supported by the views of
a happy immortality. I believe he quoted more than twenty of these
passages, and I must freely own that I know not who could have chosen
them with greater propriety. If my memory deceive me not, the last of
this catalogue was that from which I afterwards preached, on the lamented
occasion of this great man's fall: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I
will give thee a crown of life." We were all astonished at so remarkable
a feat, and I question not but many of my readers will think the memory
of it worthy of being thus preserved.
But to return to my main subject: The day after the sermon and
conversation of which I have been speaking, I took my best leave of my
inestimable friend, after attending him some part of his way northward.
The first stage of our journey was to the cottage of that poor but
religious family which I had before occasion to mention as relieved, and
indeed in a great measure subsisted by his charity. Nothing could be more
delightful than to observe the condescension with which he conversed with
these his humble pensioners. We there put up our last united prayers
together; and he afterwards expressed, in the strongest terms I have ever
heard him use on such an occasion, the singular pleasure with which he
had joined in them. Indeed it was no small satisfaction to me to have
an opportunity of recommending such a valuable friend to the divine
protection and blessing, with that particular freedom and enlargement on
what was peculiar in his circumstances, which hardly any other situation,
unless we had been quite alone, could so conveniently have admitted.
We went from thence to the table of a person of distinction in the
neighborhood, where he had an opportunity of showing in how decent and
graceful a manner he could unite the Christian and the gentleman, and
give conversation an improving and religious turn, without violating any
of the rules of polite behaviour, or saying or doing any thing, which
looked at all constrained or affected. Here we took our last embrace,
committing each other to the care of the God of heaven; and the colonel
pursued his journey to the north, where he spent the remainder of his
days.
The more I reflect upon this appointment of Providence, the more I
discern the beauty and wisdom of it--not only as it led directly to that
glorious period of life with which God had determined to honour him, and
in which, I think, it becomes all his friends to rejoice, but also as the
retirement on which he entered could not but have a happy tendency to
favour his more immediate and complete preparation for so speedy a
remove. To this we may add, that it must probably have a very powerful
influence to promote the interests of religion (incomparably the greatest
of all interests) among the members of his own family, who must surely be
edified by such daily lessons as they received from his lips, when they
saw them illustrated and enforced by so admirable an example, and for
two complete years. It is the more remarkable, as I cannot find from the
memoirs of his life in my hands that he had ever been so long at home
since he had a family, or indeed, from his childhood, ever so long at a
time in any one place.
With how clear a lustre his lamp shone, and with what holy vigour his
loins were girded up in the service of his God in these his latter days,
I learn in part from the letters of several excellent persons in the
ministry, or in secular life, with whom I have since conversed or
corresponded. In his many letters dated from Bankton during this period,
I have still further evidence how happy he was amidst those infirmities
of body, which his tenderness for me would seldom allow him to mention;
for it appears from them what a daily intercourse he kept up with Heaven,
and what delightful communion with God crowned his attendance on public
ordinances, and his sweet hours of devout retirement. He mentions his
sacramental opportunities with peculiar relish, crying out, as in a holy
rapture, in reference to one and another of them, "Oh how gracious
a Master do we serve! how pleasant is his service; how rich the
entertainments of his love! yet how poor and cold are our services!" But
I will not multiply quotations of this sort after those I have given
above, which may be a sufficient specimen of many more in the same
strain. This hint may suffice to show that the same ardour of soul held
out in a great measure to the last; and indeed it seems that towards the
close of life, like the flame of a lamp almost expiring, it sometimes
exerted an unusual blaze.
He spent much of his time at Bankton in religious solitude; and one
most intimately conversant with him assures me that the traces of that
delightful converse with God which he enjoyed in it might easily be
discerned in the solemn yet cheerful countenance with which he often came
out of his closet. Yet his exercises there must sometimes have been very
mournful, considering the melancholy views which he had of the state of
our public affairs.
"I should be glad," says he, (in a letter which he sent me about the
close of the year 1743,) "to hear what wise and good people among you
think of the present circumstances of things. For my own part, though I
thank God I fear nothing for myself, my apprehensions for the public are
very gloomy, considering the deplorable prevalency of almost all kinds
of wickedness amongst us--the natural consequence of the contempt of the
gospel. I am daily offering my prayers to God for this sinful land of
ours, over which his judgments seem to be gathering; and my strength is
sometimes so exhausted with those strong cries and tears, which I pour
out before God on this occasion, that I am hardly able to stand when I
arise from my knees."
If we have many remaining to stand in the breach with equal fervency, I
hope, crying as our provocations are, that God will still be entreated
for us, and save us.
Most of the other letters I had the pleasure of receiving from him after
our last separation, are either filled, like those of former years, with
tender expressions of affectionate solicitude for my domestic comfort
and public usefulness, or relate to the writings I published during this
time, or to the affairs of his eldest son, then under my care. But these
are things which are by no means of a nature to be communicated here. It
is enough to remark, in general, that the Christian was still mingled
with all the care of the friend and the parent.