The Life of Col. James Gardiner eBook

Philip Doddridge
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 170 pages of information about The Life of Col. James Gardiner.

The Life of Col. James Gardiner eBook

Philip Doddridge
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 170 pages of information about The Life of Col. James Gardiner.
of this body of sin and death under which we now groan, and which renders this life so wretched!  I desire to bless God that ——­ (another of his children) is in so good a way; but I have resigned her.  We must not choose for ourselves; and it is well we must not, for we should often make a very bad choice, and therefore it is our wisdom, as well as our duty, to leave all with a gracious God, who hath promised that all things shall work together for good to them that love him; and he is faithful that hath promised, who will infallibly perform it, if our unbelief does not stand in the way.”

The greatest trial of this kind that he ever bore, was in the removal of his second son, who was one of the most amiable and promising children that has been known.  The dear little creature was the darling of all that knew him; and promised very fair, so far as a child could be known by its doings, to have been a great ornament to the family, and blessing to the public.  The suddenness of the stroke must, no doubt, render it the more painful; for this beloved child was snatched away by an illness which seized him but about fifteen hours before it carried him off.  He died in the month of October 1733, at near six years old.  Their friends were ready to fear that his affectionate parents would be almost overwhelmed at such a loss; but the happy father had so firm a persuasion that God had received the dear little one to the felicities of the celestial world, and at the same time had so strong a sense of the divine goodness in taking one of his children, and that, too, one who lay so near his heart, so early to himself, that the sorrows of nature were quite swallowed up in the sublime joy which these considerations administered.  When he reflected what human life is—­how many its snares and temptations are—­and how frequently children who once promised very well are insensibly corrupted, and at length undone, with Solomon he blessed the dead already dead, more than the living who were yet alive, and felt unspeakable pleasure in looking after the lovely infant, as safely and delightfully lodged in the house of its Heavenly Father.  Yea, he assured me that his heart was at this time so entirely taken up with these views, that he was afraid they who did not thoroughly know him might suspect that he was deficient in the natural affections of a parent, while thus borne above the anguish of them by the views which faith administered to him, and which divine grace supported in his soul.

So much did he, on one of the most trying occasions of life, manifest of the temper of a glorified saint, and to such happy purposes did he retain those lessons of submission to God, and acquiescence in him, which I remember he once inculcated in a letter he wrote to a lady of quality under the apprehension of a breach in her family with which Providence seemed to threaten her, which I am willing to insert here, though a little out of what might seem its most proper place rather

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The Life of Col. James Gardiner from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.