Page:Life of the honourable Col. James Gardiner (1).pdf/8

 and owning, in a few strong words, the many mercies and deliverances he had received, and the' ill returns he had made for them.

But these strains were too devout to continue long in a heart as yet unsanctified: for, how readily soever he could repeat such acknowledgments of the divine power and goodness, and confess his own follies and faults, he was stopt short by the remonstrances of his conscience, as to the flagrant absurdity of confessing sins he did not desire to forsake, and of pretending to praise God for his mercies, when he did not endeavour to live to his service. A model of devotion, where such sentiments made no part, his good sense could not digest; and the use of such language before a heart-searching God, merely as a hypocritical form, while the sentiments of his soul were contrary to it, appeared to him such daring profaneness, that, irregular as the state of his mind was, the thought of it struck him with horror. He therefore determined to make no more attempts of this sort; and was perhaps one of the first that deliberately laid aside prayer, from some sense of God’s omniscience, and some natural principle of honour and conscience.

These secret debates with himself, and ineffectual efforts, would sometimes return; but they were overborne, again and again, by the force of temptation; and it is no wonder, that in consequence of them his heart grew still harder. Neither was it softened or awakened, by the very memorable deliverances which at this time he received. Once he was in extreme danger from a fall of his horse. As he was riding fast down a hill, the horse threw him over his head, and pitched over him; so that when he rose,’ the beast lay beyond him, and almost dead. Yet, though he received not the least harm it made no serious impression on his mind. In his return from England in the packet-boat, but a few weeks after the former accident, a violent storm, that drove them up to Harwich, tossed them from thence for several hours, in a dark night, on the coast of Holland,