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A14261
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Foure sea-sermons, preached at the annuall meeting of the Trinitie Companie, in the parish church of Deptford: by Henry Valentine vicar
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Valentine, Henry, d. 1643.
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1635
(1635)
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STC 24574; ESTC S103489
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42,166
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77
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it If a man have a fan in his hand he may ventilate and agitate the still ayre into a winde how much more may the devils by the greatnesse of their power and swiftnesse of their motion so compresse and agitate the ayre as to throw downe houses And I thinke the windes that are bought and sold are no other What the strength of the ayre is when it is compressed and moved violently wee may see in the breath of a bullet which sometimes kills that man it never touches It is an easie matter for the devill then if God suffer it to drive a ship at Sea which way he pleases whose motion is more swift and violent then that of a bullet And God suffers much for the triall of our faith and bringing about the passages of his secret but most just providence So then no true winde is raised but by God for he it is that formeth the mountaines and createth the winde Amos 4.13 nor nothing like a winde but by his permission for hee hath the devill as a dog in a chaine and this dog cannot ceaze upon a swine without leave I dare say that if the devill could raise a tempest when and where he pleased he would strike the foure corners of our Temples and bury us all in their ruines when we meet together to offer up our sacrifice of praise and praiers to Almighty God Now is it thus that stormes and tempests are the Lords doing and the singer of God were not the heathen Philosophers in an errour thinke you that chained up God in the circle of the heavens and confined him and his providence to the Sphere of the Moone supposing him either too lazie or too busie to intend sublunary affaires The soule informes all the members of the body the foot or finger as well as the head So God who is the soule of this great body the world rules and governes every part and limbe of it how little or remote soever In heaven he is a Glorious God in earth he is a Gracious God in the ayre he is an angry God in the Sea hee is a terrible God in hell he is a just God so that God is every where and wheresoever he is he is God blessed for evermore But you of the tribe of Zebulon may hence learne to whom to direct your prayers and addresse your devotions when stormes and tempests threaten you with destruction We must not with the Heathen invocate the starre of Venus or the two brethren Castor and Pollux or Aeolus the father of the windes as Horace did for his friend Virgil when he sailed to Athens nor with the superstitious Papist must we invocate S. Nicholas but with the disciples we must goe unto Christ and awaken him with our prayers saying Master save us or else we perish for he it is that raises the storme and he only it is that can rebuke it O Lord God of hosts Psal 89.8 9. who is a strong Lord like unto thee for thou rulest the raging of the Sea and when the waves thereof arise thou stillest them The floods have lifted up O Lord Psal 93.3 4. the floods have lifted up their voice the floods have lifted up their waves But the Lord on high is mightier then the noise of many waters yea then the mighty waves of the Sea And then be not discouraged with those dangers which attend your profession sith nothing befalls you but what comes by Gods commandement and providence I am not of his opinion that sayes that God made the Sea onely for the beauty of the element not for the art of Navigation True it is that many have been drowned at Sea and as true that far more have dyed in their beds Moses when he blessed Zabulon bade him Rejoyce in his going out and that you may doe so consider that no storme is raised by the malignity of the starres by the mischiefe of Fortune or by the malice of the devill but by the power and appointment of a good God Looke up to the crosse in your Flagges and remember him who was the beloved Sonne of his Father yet David prophecyed of him that all the waves and billowes should goe over him Psal 42.7 not the billowes of waters but of Gods wrath And remember that the Church your Mother is mindefull of you and commends the estate of all such as travell by land or water to Gods care custody providence and protection Now that God which led his people through the red Sea into the land of Canaan lead you through the dangers of the deepe and the waves of this world into the land of rest the Kingdome of Heaven Amen PSAL. 107.26 27. They mount up to heaven they goe downe again to the depths their soule is melted because of trouble They reele to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits end WEE have already seene the Seamans dangers in their causes both principal which is Gods command and instrumentall the windes and the waves Now when all these meet together at Sea as they did but lately in the Text it must needs be foule weather and both Ships and Saylours in great danger For what can man doe when God hath once given the word or how can a piece of wood hold out when it is assaulted on all sides with two furious Elements the wind and water The parts of the Text are as the Verses two First the danger it selfe in a violent and contrary motion of elevation and depression for the ship riding upon the backe of a vast and mountainous billow seemes to faile in the cloudes but the treacherous and deceitfull billow sliding from it throwes it into such depths Vix eminet aequore malus that the top mast is hardly discerned The second are the sad consequences and attendants of this danger and they are three 1. Exanimation and Feare Their soule is melted 2. Vacillation and staggering illustrated from the simile of a drunken man 3. Stupefaction and astonishment They are at their wits end And indeed many times they are so before they be halfe way in their voyage First of the danger They mount up to heaven they goe downe againe to the depths The Jewes derided the Gospell of S. Iohn because they read in it that if every thing that Christ did was written the world it selfe could not containe the Bookes that should be written lib. 2. epistol ep 99. But Isidore Pelus justifies S. Iohn by many expressions of the like nature God promised Abraham that he would make his seed as the dust of the earth Gen. 13.16 Yet who sees not saith S. Augustine but the graines of dust are incomparably more numerous then all the sons of men l. 16. de civit Dei c. 21. yet God speaks not of the whole world but of such onely as should descend from the loynes of Abraham and such as should bee accounted his children as he was the Father of
quis laboranti Deo suam operam ministravit Ambr. in orat de fid resurr what engines what instruments what labourers God used in so great a worke Moses tells you he did but say let it be so and it was so and David sayes He spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were created So that the creation of the world was like the building of the Temple there was no noyse of any toole or hammer heard in it but like Ionas his gourd though it was not planted nor watered grew up on a sodaine even in the short space of sixe dayes and this is another wonder John 2 20. Sex diebus faectus mundus Non quod Deus tempore indiguerit ad constitutionem ejus cui intra momentum suppetit sacere quae velit sed quiaea quae fiunt ordinem quaerum Ambr. in ep ad Horont Ista est causa admirationis cum res aut fingularis est cutrara Aug in ep ad Evod. Perseverantia consisetudinis amisit ad mirationem Aug. de Trin. l. 3. c. 2. Quam multa usitata calcantur quae considerata slupentur The Temple of Ierusalem was a stately and magnificent building yet it was not built in lesse time then forty and sixe yeares notwithstanding many hands went to it but the whole fabricke of heaven and earth was finished in the space of sixe dayes and hee that made it in so few dayes could if he had pleased have made it in as few minutes Thus then are al the workes of the Lord wonderfull yet as the Apostle sayes of the starres One starre is more glorious then another so say I of Gods workes some are more admirable and wonderfull then others as being either lesse common or more curious First that which makes some of them more wonderfull then others is because they are lesse frequent and common The people marvelled at the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and were so affected with the strangenesse of the miracle that they would have made Christ a King for it Quid non mirum facit Deus in ommbus creaturae motibus nisi consuetudine quotidiana viluissent Aug. in epist ad Volusian Psal 19. yet we wonder not at the increase of harvest and multiplication of the seed though in some grounds it brings forth twenty in some thirty and in some an hundred fold We wonder not at the Sunne though it be the beauty and bridegroome of nature as David calls it yet wee wonder at the faint light of a Comet because the one we see every day and the other but seldome Secondly some are more wonderfull and admirable because more curious and exquisite In some creatures wee have onely vestigium the print of his foot but in others imaginem his image Some are the workes of his fingers some of his hand some of his arme and the more power or wisdome God hath expressed in their forming the more wonderfull are they in our eyes And because I would not lose my selfe in this field of Zoan Eunt homines mirari alta monrium c. relinquunt seipsos nec mirantur V. August conf l. 10. cap. 8. In homine principatus est omnium animantium summa quaedam universitatis omnis mundanae gratia creaturae Ambr. Hexam lib. 6. cap. 10. Mark 16.15 Cura divini ingemi Tertul. this field of wonders I will determine you to the consideration of your selves first S. Augustine taxes such of folly that admired the height of mountaines the waves of the Sea the windings of rivers c. yet never wondered at themselves who are Gods Master-piece and the abridgement and Epitome of the whole creation for man hath being with stones life with trees sense with beasts and understanding with Angels and hence is it that he is called every creature In the making of other things God did but say let this or that be so and so and it was so but when he came to make man all the persons in the Trinity consult and advise about it Let us make man after our likenesse The Sunne Moone and Starres are glorious creatures Psal 3.3 yet are they but the workes of Gods fingers Psal 119.73 but man is the work of his hands Thy hands have made mee and fashioned me I need say no more but what the Psalmist does Psal 139.14 I will praise thee for I am fearefully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy workes and that my soule knowes right well yea I am curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth Compono hic canticum in laudem creatoris nostri c. V. Galen l. 3. de usu partium and the word in the originall signifies such art and curiositie as is used in needleworke and imbroidery And as Man is more wonderfull then other creatures so some parts of man are more admirable and artificiall then others In ep ad Volusian quod sol luna in coelo hoc oculi in homine Ambr. Hexam lib. 6. cap. 9. S. Augustine wonders most at the eye which though it bee but a small member yet in an instant runs from one side of the heavens to the other And thus having a little discovered you to your selves let me lead you abroad into the world and see what wonders we can there meet with If we climbe up into heaven we shall finde it as full of wonders as it is of starres for euery star is a wonder being as Astronomers observe if truly of a greater magnitude then the body of the whole earth If we descend a little lower who is able to satisfie these questions Job 38. Hast thou entred into the treasures of the snow or hast thou seene the treasures of the haile Hath the raine a father and who hath begotten the drops of dew out of whose wombe comes the ice and the hoary frost who hath gendred it If we goe downe yet lower from the aire to the earth Quid enumerem succos herbarum salubres quid virgultomem ac soliorum remedia c. V. plura in Amb. Hex cap. 8. de dietertio we shall finde that plants and trees and mineralls have wonderfull vertues nay that the earth it selfe is a wonder for it hangs as a ball in the midst of heaven and though it have no pillers to uphold it nor but tresses to comprehend it yet it stands fast for ever and shall never be removed Looke sayes Tertullian upon the buildings of the Bee Imitare si potes apis aedisicia formicae stabula araneae retia hombycis flamina Tertul. l. 1. advers Marcion or the lodgings of the Ant or the webs of the Spider or the threds of the silkeworme and imitate them if thou canst And thus we see the point cleared Now our duty is when we see these wonders to breake out in an acknowledgement of God of his excellencies and glorious Attributes which are displayed in these creatures O the depth of the riches