Overflowing with trust - 1738
James Gardiner
Introduction
James Gardiner was a valiant Scots soldier. After a wild youth, he converted to Christianity in 1719 (he was thirty-one at the time) and showed many evidences of earnest faith. Philip Doddridge, a Puritan pastor, educator, and author, was so impressed he wrote a life of Gardiner. Seven years after Gardiner’s conversion, he married. On this day 19 November 1738, he wrote a letter to his wife overflowing with trust in God.
Quote
“I bless God I was never better in my lifetime, and I wish I could be so happy as to hear the same of you: or rather, in other words, to hear that you have obtained an entire trust in God. That would infallibly keep you in perfect peace, for the God of truth has promised it. Oh, how ought we to be longing ‘to be with Christ,’ which is infinitely better than any thing we can propose here! to be there, where no mountains shall separate between God and our souls. And I hope it will be some addition to our happiness, that, you and I shall be separated no more; but that as we have joined in singing the praises of our glorious Redeemer here, we shall sing them in a much higher key through an endless eternity. Oh eternity, eternity! What a wonderful thought, is eternity!”
Doddridge, Philip. The Life of Col. James Gardiner.