they bring forth their young That God does for the good of those creatures that live in desarts Wildernesses and uninhabited places in the world send out of the Heavens a dreadful thundring which is heard running and ecchoing up and down from one side of the Porrests and Wildernesses unto another that thereby the ligaments of those creatures that are with young are loosned and by this voyce of the Lord the travels of all the wild beasts in the world are facilitated The voice of the Lord makes the Hinds to calve i. e. Surely that they may not wrong they young or off-spring of which they are so careful that they seem to strain and dilate themselves for the speedier passage of their deliverance and this is their natural midwifery Psal 50.10 11. Every beast of the forrest and the cattel upon a thousand hills is the Lords and hee knows all the fouls of the mountains and the wild-beasts of the desart Wild-Goat 15. The Rock-climing Wild Goat which is undoubtedly the surest footed beast of any other in the world for they will go up unto the top of the inaccessiblest Crag that ever yet was seen without any staggering haesitancy or stumbling and when dogs are in chase of them they will flye to the Rocks where they do know themselves to bee both safe and out of the reach both of dogs and man I have not a little admired the nimbleness of this creature when I have seen of them both in Norway and other places how they will climb places that one would think they would bee praecipitated by coming upon them This Scripture has come into my thoughts Job 39.1 Knowest thou when the wild Goats of the Rock bring forth I learn thus much from thence that the eyes of God are in every secret part and corner of the earth where man has neither being nor dominion and that all the various actions that bee amongst his creatures are daily viewed by him 16. The Tyger Tyger which is of beasts the furiousest and cruelest he out-strips them all in matter of truculency and unmercifulness his abode is usually in the hottest Countries because it is supposed that their generation does require much heat This beast is of an incredible swiftness and fierceness especially in the time of his lust or when hee has his young to bring up and though many of the Mariners bee frequently skirmishing with him yet notwithstanding all their fire-locks and staffs does hee tear some of them to peeces and makes his escape 17. The Lyon Lyon who is indeed the Kingliest and Princeliest beast of them all This creature is of that stately prowess and most noble spirit that hee will not seek his prey himself but sends his Caterer or Jack-call to run about to seek it him which very much resembles a dog and this creature waits upon the Lyon and at his pleasure searches him the bushes and thickets in the wilderness and when hee finds any beast worthy preying upon hee makes report thereof to his Lord and Master Latrante voce with a barking mouth welk welk and the majestick Lyon answers him again with a teering mouth as if it were the crack of a great Gun Bou Bou and as soon as hee comes up to the creature which has no power to escape the Lyon after it hears his heart-daunting mouth hee seizes upon it and when the Lyon is well fed his servant Jack-call goes to dinner and not till then but stands at a distance from him Wild-Cows 18. The Wild-Cows and Wild-Oxen that be to be seen in the Indies there be thousands of these that run wild upon the Mountains that are very tall goodly fat and broad-headed beasts that know no homage unto man nor will not own him but if they see him walking at a distance they will leave their pasturing and follow him This dictares thus much unto mee that when God at the first became an enemy unto man because of his falling from him all the creatures did and are also become his enemy in the world every one of them ready to fall upon him let him go where hee will with as great violence to kill him as any other feral creature in the world will do Wild-bore 19. The Wild-boar of this sort and kind of Wild-Swine there bee without number that live in the Indies ranging upon every hill and Mountain these creatures are very fierce and furious for if they set but an eye upon any man that is walking to and again neer unto them It is observed of the Wild-Swine in the Indies that they will at some certain time every year once especially when there falls much rain come running down off the mountains creep into holes to hide themselves for they can endure neither rain nor wind at this time they will come into the Indian towns and out of the windows they will kill them they will pursue him with the greatest ferity that can bee with their bristles raund and their mouths wide open which are beset on each side with long great and dreadfull tusks But to avoid them they betake themselves into trees out of which they will shoot and kill many of them I may now take up the words of the Apostle in his Epistle unto the Hebrews 11.32 and tell you And what shall I more say for the time would fail mee to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of Sampson and of Jeptha c. So truely the time would fail mee I and it would bee too hard and too tedious an undertaking for mee to go about in an uncomfortable Sea to tell you of the many more things May it not now bee said in the praise of the Sea-man that hee is a lad that walks with Apollo per Xanthi fluenta and with Diana per Eurotae ripas perjuga Cynthi in suburbanis agris hortis irriguis ubi multiplex arborum genus florum varietas pomorum ubertas fluviorum cursus parietum vestitus avicularum melos vallium amaeâ—itas stagna omnis generis piscibus abundantia Juga florea dican Creationis errantque ripas that Sea-men do behold in their travails who are far more able to give you an accompt thereof themselves than I am What has been presented is but small in comparison of what is seen and to bee seen and read of in the great volume in the Creation yet I hope sufficient to demonstrate and prove the foregoing proposition That the most or the greatest part of the works of the Lord are seen by Sea-men The third circumstance then that offers to our view is of those creatures that are of a creeping crawling and reptile nature I will take the pains to run over a few of them and come unto the prosecution of that which is more material 1. Reptile They that go down to the Sea in ships Amongst the rest of those delightful and heart-taking objects that they have that venemous creature called a
whilst you do float above When the Lord would stir up David and melt his heart and bring it unto a kindly sorrow for all his mercies hee takes this course 2 Sam. 12.7 Did not the Lord do thus and thus Did hee not make thee King of Judah and of Israel Did he not give to thee thy Masters wives and houses into thy bosom and if this had not been enough hee would have done more for thee therefore recount the particular kindnesses and Sea-deliverances the Lord has bestowed upon thee does not the Lord seem to say I delivered thee at such a time and in such a storm did not I deliver thee from such a Rock and from such a sand God keeps a reckoning Sirs of what hee does and also of all your deliverances it is but wisdom then to kiss the Son lest hee bee angery to kisse him with a kiss of adoration and subjection all your daies 3. Consideration That thankful hearts are evermore full of thankful thoughts and these are such as are evermore suitable unto the benefits that are received Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits Hee has delivered mee out of this and the other storm from this and the other shore from many Rocks and Sands both in this and also in the other parts of the world I have met with a story of a Company of Sailors in Zara called by some Jadera a Town in Sclavonia that they consecrated a Church to St. John di Malvatia which they built out of their own wealth and wages to express their thankfulness for their great deliverance out of a storm in which they had like every man of them to have gone to the pot This they vowed when at Sea and when come on Land they were as good as their words where are your thanks Sailors what shall I now bestow upon him How has hee preserved mee when shot has flown like hail When dangers have been unfordable and miseries innumerable then has the Lord stept in to deliver mee Ah Sirs what cause have you that use the Seas to fall down before the Lord in all thankful acknowledgment to him for your deliverances at Sea even as the Wise men of the East did before Christ and offer unto him Gold Incense and Myrrhe aurum fidei thus devotionis aromata pietatis mentes humiles probos mores animos dignos Deo The Gold of faith the Frankincense of Devotion the Myrrhe of Godliness humble minds good manners souls worthy of God 4. Consider That thankful hearts are evermore full of admiring thoughts I wonder at the goodness of God says a good and an honest heart that hee should come and step down so seasonably to deliver mee when I was in a Sea far from any eye or heart to pitty mee Ah how has mercy taken the pains to come and meet us How has mercy as it were fallen into our mouths and into our laps even very unexpectedly Abraham's servant was very full of admiring thoughts when hee saw providence so working for him Gen. 14.21 as the womans coming to the well and her willingness to give him and his Camels as much water as they pleased Ah stand amazed at Gods deliverings of your souls in the stormy and tempestuous Seas 5. Consider That thankful hearts are evermore full of awful and trembbling thoughts at the Judgments of God both executed and threatned upon others in the Seas when they see themselves so threatned in storms and others to bee cast away in them and yet notwithstanding they themselves spared this strikes thoughts of fear into them and upon them Psal 119.20 My flesh trembles for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy righteous Judgments 6. Consider That thankful hearts are evermore full of viewing and observing thoughts Oh how has the Lord delivered mee in this late storm and Tempest in what danger was I in but now our Sails rent our Mast fell about our ears wee pumped and toyled night and day for our lives Cables broke and at another time our Anchors came home and our ships drive And thus such hearts cannot but say Exod. 15.13 Thou in thy Mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed 7. Solemnly consider that thankful hearts after Sea-deliverances are full of improving thoughts and will not you bee so too Gentlemen You that use the Seas Such a soul has his whole mind taken up with the mercies of the Lord and hee plots contrives and designs how hee may make a good use and a good improvement of all that he has done for him in the Seas Pliny writes of Egypt It is well if it may not too truly be said of those that use the Seas that shee was wont to boast how shee owed nothing to the Clouds or any forein streams for her fertility being abundantly watered by the inundation of her ovvn River Nile I am affraid that you think that you are not beholden to your God and beheld with his eyes in the great deeps Such a soul sets all his Sea-deliverances in print and layes them up in the wardrobe of his heart The holiness goodness mercifulness and majesty of God is evermore much in such a souls eye 8. Consider That all good men are for it and that with tooth and naile and will you not then bee thankful unto the Lord I will tell you who bee against it the Devil and wicked men but I pray God preserve you from such Counsellors Psal 65. Praise waiteth for thee O God in Sion Psal 29.2 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name Worship the Lord in the beauty of holynesse 9. Consider That God himself is for it Mal. 2.2 If yee will not hear and if yee will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name saith the Lord of hosts I will even send a curse upon you 10. Consider That God commands it The shortest cut to ruine men is unthankfulness Trumpeters delight to sound when where they are answered with an Eccho 11. Consider That God expects it 12. Consider That God prizes it and commends it 13. Consider That God is hereby much honoured by it Psal 50. ult 14. Consider That God will fully and freely reward it A word or two now of Use and so I will leave the point because it is so painful to mee to write and lay down at large what I might and what every point would bear I do acknowledge that Spices when they are pounded and beaten small they do evermore smell the sweetest and points of doctrine or Scriptures when they are branched forth expounded and broken up into parts are evermore the profitablest For my part I know not what to say to the generality of Sea-men because they put me to as great a stand as the Turky Painter was once put to when he was to set forth all the several Nations of the world according to their Country dress and habit hee left one
of being prayed for Job 9.26 They are called in that place Ships of desire 1. When a man sees a goodly and a stately ship that is then a ship of desire 2. A Merchants longing for his ships good return home is a ship of desire 3. A ship of desire is a swift Pinnace oâ— a Pyrats Bark or Vessel that is made on purpose for the prey to out-sail all others But to proceed Let mee tell thee Good Reader before I take my leave of thee that I can say of and by my going to Sea for which I had as clear a all to as ever man had to any place in this world as a good man once said who had lyon a long time in prison in the primitive times of persecution I have quoth hee got no harm by this No more harm hath all my troubles at Sea done my inward man than a going up to the rops of those mountains hath done them that have made the trial where neither Winds Clouds nor Rain doth over-top them and such as have been upon them do affirm that there is a wonderful clear skye over head though Clouds below pour down rains and break forth in thunder and lightning to the terrour of them that are at the bottome yet at the top there is no such matter Mee thinks I have heard the Seas say unto mee Vide hic mare hic venti hic pericula disce sapere See how ready the Winds and Seas are at Gods beck and wilt not thou fear him If I may tell thee my experiences of Gods doing of my soul good in the Seas then can I tell thee thus much bee it spoken to the praise of that sweet God whom I serve and honour that I have got no harm by going to Sea but a great deal of good both to my soul and also to my understanding and intellectual parts 1. I have learned by my going to Sea to love the world less than I did before Love not the world c. 1 Joh. 2.15 2. I have learned to know men and the world far better than I did before 3. I have learned to prize a life in heaven far before a reeling and staggering life here on earth 4. I have learned to bee far more shye and wary of sin than I was before because I found my self so fearful of death and drowning many times in storms when in the Seas I have read of a young man that lay on his death-bed and all that ever hee spoke whilst hee lived was this I am so sick that I cannot live and I am so sinful that I dare not dye It is good to keep clear of sin 5. I have learned to live upon God and to put my trust in him more than ever I did before so that I can comfortably speak it Psal 7.1 O Lord my God in thee doe I put my trust c. 6. I have seen more of the Creation by my going to Sea than ever I should have done if I had stayed on Land The Lord sets men the bounds of their habitations It is said of Lypsius that he took such delight in reading of a Book I wish that thou mayest as much in this that hee said Pluris faecio quum relego semper novum quum repetivi repetendum The more I read the more I am tilled on to read 7. I have learned to fear God more and to stand in awe of that God who hath the lives of all his creatures under his feet and is able to dispose both of a mans present and also future condition even as pleaseth him than ever I did before 8. I have learned to pray better and to ply the Throne of Grace oftner with my prayers for spiritual blessings than ever I did before 9 I have so learned Christ that I made it my work and businesse all the time I was at Sea to lead my life so as in the continual presence and aspect of the Lord Meer Heathens thought God to be every where as appears by their Jovis omnia plena Quascunque accesseris oraâ— Sub Jove semper eris c. Psal 16.8 I have set the Lord alwayes before me c. and so I lived and have lived both at Sea and also at Land that I shall give both foe and friend and friend and foe their liberty to speak and observe me as much as they can 10 I have learned to love my God more than ever I did before and if I had not I should appear to be a very rebellious Child As Demetrius Phalerius deceived the calamities of his Banishment by the sweetness of his Study so I the troublesome Seas and rude society by mine I know that this poor Peece of mine has in it its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naâ—vi its blacks and spots its Human frailties which the good Lord remit yet in it is there truths Divine and things very profitable and worthy to be embraced in respect the Lord has done so much for me to preserve me and mercy me as hee hath done in a cruel Sea which is a place as the Poet sings Luctus ubique pavor plurima mortis imago Good Reader doest thou live in times of trouble and daies of danger then turn over this Book and thou wilt finde that there is a wise and a powerful God in the Heavens that sits at the Helm both of Sea and Land to preserve poor souls in them Wouldst thou hear of those Sights and Wonders of the Lord that those that goe down into the Seas doe see then will I commend this small Treatise to thee what delight fuller thing canst thou read than a Theam or Subject of the Sea and Sea affairs here mayest thou read and peruse this my Nec inter vivos nec inter mortuos which cost me much pains and get some good out of it When Nebuzaradan burnt the rubbish of the Temple hee kept the Gold c. Though in reading thou meetest with Creature-defects which I will assure thee was never writ upon Land but drawn up as I studied it upon water Libentèr omnibus omnes opes concesserim ut mihi liceat vi nulla interpellante isto modo in literis vivere Tully I would freely give all the good in the world that I might sit down in the world live and lead a studying life But it was the Lords will that I should travel in the great and wide Sea yet wilt thou meet with many a savoury truth if thou hast but a gracious heart in the brest of thee Accept of it My sute to you Readers is that upon your perusal of it you would seek the Lord in its behalf that it may doe good to them that use the Seas I begge the prayers of every godly and gracious Minister into whose hands peradventure it may come that he would pray that it may be instrumental to reform these People that goe in the Seas who stand in need of
kinde of evil amongst us but gave us our liberty to do what wee thought good And what Captain served you at Sea I have served Captain this three years but hee neither ever prayed amongst us nor instructed us in any thing that was good What a dreadful reckoning will there bee here to bee made many Captains think that they do not stand charged with the care of souls but one day you will finde it when God shall bid you go to hell for the neglect of your duties 2. Suppose a Captains reproof have not such success upon their souls as hee could desire yet may it bee that hee may thereby tame and take down their high hoised insolency by seasonable contradiction as that they shall not bee able to carry it away in a vaunting Bravado You may cool and confound their swearing and swaggering humors that they glory not in it by bringing them unto shame and condign punishment for it If Sea-men will swear I would then stand up and tell them that all this while they fight against God damn their own souls and please none else but the Devil and wicked men and that they shall assuredly burn everlastingly in hell if they hold on in their cursed humors without timely repentance and reformation 3. Suppose that reproof after reproof will not prevail know thus much that it is not in vain for hereby you shall the more increase and aggravate their inexcusableness clear your selves and glorifie the Tribunal of Gods justice which shall one day smoak against them 2. In all sinful cases you are bound to speak 1. Because silence at such times when you hear swearing lying and behold drunkenness in your ships and amongst your Sea-men will greatly bewray either your Cowardliness in the cause of God or hypocrisie in your professions Will it not seem strange think you that you that pretend to stand on the Lords side shall hear the glorious Name of God prophaned in a base sordid and blasphemous manner and yet never open your mouthes at all in his behalf against them who will not but say Captain Thou art an Hypocrite and Captain Thou art another dissembling Hypocrite also 2. If your consciences Gentlemen bee either inlightned wakened tender or rightly informed I will appeal to any of you whether or no they do not and will not smite check and quarrel with you for the omission of your reproving duty by your cowardly and unseasonable silence Hereby you do but intangle your selves in their guiltiness and pull upon your own heads an accountableness for that swearing and villany which you are privy unto who would not then but reprove and slash the roots of sin 3. How knowest thou but that by thy speaking in such cases thou maist lay and charm down the spirit of profaneness that walks up and down the ships thou art in so that it shall not bee able to rage and break out in others as otherwise it would do Who would then but ever and anon be speaking 4. Hereby you will exceedingly comfort and cheer up the hearts of the godly amongst you from being grieved and cast down by a company or crew of Sathans swaggerers Revellers I am confident of it that if our Sea-Commanders were but as carefull to put out the fire of swearing of lying that is in ships every day as they are to pass the word every evening fore aft put out your candles alow there There would not be so many ships lost and cast away as there bee and Ranters Good people they mourn to hear the swearing and the profaneness that is in your ships both betwixt decks and in every corner they walk into or sit themselves down in Their villany is a meer dagger and burthen to their hearts and spirits I profess that that bad order that is in the Sea and that toleration of swearing and profaneness makes many an honest heart take his leave of the States service and bid farewel Sea who would otherwise have continued in it longer than they have done I have known some that have striven to be cleered upon an account of a great internal fear lest God should fire the ships from heaven which they have gone in or otherwise in stormes throw them upon Rocks or sands because of that filthiness abominable wickedness they have observed amongst them I remember once that when wee were comming out of the Sea from France into England that we saild neer to one of our Sea-port towns and upon an occasion a piece of Ordinance was fired the smoke of which fell into our main-sail and represented the ship on a fire to those that were on shore and great running forth there was and weeping and wailing by those that had friends in our ship for fear of the loss of our lives but blessed bee the Lord there was no such danger though it was a great town-talk When I came to hear of it I returned my God thanks Chrysostome speaking of youth says it is difficilem jactabilem fallibitem vehementissimisque egentem fraenis hard to be ruled easy to bee drawn away apt to bee deceived standing in need of very violent reins Seamen stand in need of tutoring and looking to that the swearing that was within board set us not on a blasing fire in the sight of our own Country The Objections now that seem to arise against the putting what has been said into practice are some such invalid arguments as these 1. Objection I love not to medle and I have Scripture commands for it Jam. 3.1 Bee not many masters Answ Not medling in this case is a kind of soul murthering what sayest thou to this now wilt you lye under the guilt of murther 2. Object It is a thankless office Answ Not with the wise Prov. 9.8 I have read concerning the sweating sickness when it was in England that those whom they carefully kept waking escaped but the sickness seized mortally on them that were suffered to sleep Oh keep your Sea-men waking if it bee possible that they sleep not unto death and though it bee an unpleasing work on both sides yet shall you have thanks for it one day 3. Object I shall lose my labour Answ Venture that thou hast lost many a worse Job 6.25 How forcible are right words 3. Object Plato went thrice to Sicily to convert Dionysius and lost his labour Polemo a great Drunkard by hearing Xenocrates became a sober man a very learned Philosopher I shall hereby lose the love of all my Sea-men Answ It may bee not but say thou shouldest thou shalt find a better thing than ever their good word or well likeing of thee will ever avail thee I will present thee with one Scripture that wil when thou readest it sparkle thy spirits and draw thee on to bee more for thy God than ever thou hast been Peruse it then Mark 10.29 30. A man had better offend all the Sailors in the Seas and all the people in the
whole world gathered together into one Auditory and had some high Mountain for his Pulpit c. I shal say the like in another Were all the whole Navy of England gathered together that a Chaplains Pulpit were or could be placed in the Maintop of some goodly ship that he might have a prospect of all the ships in his view and were furnished with a heart of brass and a voyce as loud as a trumpet of an Archangel that all the whole Navy might hear him I would either choose for him or for my self these two texts of Scripture Jam. 4.12 But above all things my brethren swear not at all Isa 5.11 Wo to the Drunkards of Ephraim c. This is Dâ—vinity enough to be preached unto Sea-men and my reason is this that they that will not leave off swearing and drunkenness they will practise nothing in the whole book of God To scoure you of this rotten distemper let me prescribe you this soul-healing medicine which lyes in the sacred word of God and if you can but digest it I dare promise you that you will neither swear more nor affect it in others when you hear it Look then into Jam. 5.12 But above all things my brethren swear not at all c. Why so seems many a prophane wretch to say I will tell thee wherefore the reason is ready at hand â—xod 20.7 God is tender of his Name It is said of the Jews that they were so tender of the Name of God that one should never hear them presume to pronounce that dreadful name of Jehovah in the Law but read Adonai unless it were by the High-priest once a year Augustus as Suetonius reporteth would not have his name obsolefieri worn thred-bare What think you of the Lords holy Name then Sailors which you wear and tear in your mouths day by day The name of Mercurius Trismegistus was not commonly pronounced because of great reverence to him 1. Swearing is a grievous sin if thou consider but well the object about which its conversant and that is the Lord. 2. It is a grievous sin if thou consider the occasion and that is none at all God knows It is with the major part of the Sailors in England as it was with a great swearer in the dayes of King Edward the sixth to whom when that godly Minister Mr. Haines replied when hearing of a brave Gallant rapping out most horrid oaths told him that hee should one day give an account thereof the young Spark ill-mannerly answered him Take no care for mee but prepare for your winding sheet Well said the good Minister Amend for death gives no warning At which counsel hee still broke into a far â—â—her rage and strain of swearing till such times that he came to a bridge which passed over an arm of the Sea and putting the spurs to his horse the metalness of the beast took the wall and down went the horse and the great swearer into the depths and his last words were when hee saw no recovery but death Here is horse and man going now full speed unto the Devil I pray God it may not bee said both of some men and ships when they sink in the Seas That there is a ship and all the swearing Sea-men in her the other day or the last week gone to the Devil My reason is this the preaching of the word and the telling them of the danger of this sin would never take nor prevail with them and therefore what other end can such expect at their death than a meer going unto the Devil Our English Sailors are too like and too near a kin unto that desperate Boy of Tubing in Germany of whom it is said that hee was a most damnable Swearer and inventer of new Oaths even of such as were neither common nor ever heard of before A swearing ship is an ill air for holy zeal to breathe in a good heart will soon be weary of such an abode and say Wo is me that I dwel in Meshek and that I sojourn in the Tents of Kedar But what became of this blasphemous wretch may some say I answer and what the Lord did by him I pray you Sailors take notice lest God do not so by you for your swearing God sent a canker or some worse disease that did eat out his tongue which was the instrument hee blasphemed with I have read also of another and his usual oath was By Gods Arms shortly after this mans arm was hurt with a knife but nothing in all the world could ever cure it again but it wrankled festered and rotted off his body and through anguish and pain thereof hee dyed most miserably Is it not just with God think you to rot your arms legs and tongues off and out of your mouthes for you are worse swearers than any of these that I have presented unto you out of history as arguments to deter you from the practice of it This sin of swearing or any other sin indeed if it bee but born withall a while will not know it self to bee sin at all but plead innocency to bee no iniquity Consuetudo delinquendi pro lege est said Tertullian Custome is for a Law and so will bee accounted good if a man use himself but to this or any other sin a while hee will never take notice of it nor know when hee doth evil And truly after sin once becomes customary Citius finienda vita quam vitia Life may sooner end than they will part with their vices Most Sea-men are got into such a garb and habit of swearing that I may take up the words of the Prophet Jer. 23.13 and tell them that the Aethiopian cannot change his skin nor the Leopard his spots Woe bee unto you if this sin and your lives end together 3. Lying I know no people under the whole Heavens again given and addicted so much unto this evil as our Sailors are should inquiry bee made into all the Kingdomes Provinces Continents or Territories of the world their accounts would bee at last that they had none such amongst them as bee and go in the Seas A Tale-bearer or a Tale-carrier in the Hebrew Tongue is compared to a Pedlar who will when hee hath furnished himself and filled his pack with variety of pedling and petty stuffs of several colours of Ribbanding and Inkling trot up and down from Town to Town where hee can finde best custome and trading After this manner doth the pedling Sea-man carry upon his back his paltry pack of lyes and opens it on board every ship hee comes into I would Commanders would do by lyars in their ships as Artaxerxes did by one of his Souldiers when finding him in a lye caused his tongue to be thrust through with three needles This is a good course to discourage lying or every house and Town hee goes into hee matters not the truth of any thing hee speaks but out goes his rotten wares to impoyson all
their pleasure Shall not this set an edge upon your spirits to do your utmost in the suppressing of these intolerable evils What is become of that Heroick and Warlike spirit that in former Wars have acted in you Hark! Hark! is not the Drum beating and the Trumpet sounding Hath not God bid England sound the Trumpet and beat the Drum and prepare war against the enemies of Christ God is setting on England to break the yoak of Christs and Sions enemies and many of you are sitting down in the Nation one in one place and another in another One Commander sits down with his hundred pound per annum that hee got in the late Wars and another sits down with his two hundred and perhaps another with his four or five hundred Thus it was with Alexanders Souldiers and it is the same with many of you that when they grew rich they would follow him no longer in the Wars What one of Englands late famous Sea-Generals said of some Sea-Captains the like may bee said of the Souldier sayes hee You are grown so wealthy by being Captains three or four years that you are afraid to fight What a shame is it that now your swords rust in your Scabbards and your Pistols in your Holsters which have been formerly very valiantly in your hands in the high places of the field That I may give you one sound alarm more where ever your quarters bee in this Land of ours let me tell you that you will grow aged therefore you have need to run wel and to do all the good you can both for God the world and Christ his Son It is usual for those that run races to whip and spur hard when they come within sight of the Goal Have not many of you gray hairs upon your heads or at leastwise will have very shortly and will you not have one fling at Spain and at the gates of Rome before you dye and go to your graves 2. A word unto the Sea-men This is a time wherein the ten Kings of Europe have given their power to the Beast but they are a tumbling down and if they fall surely many will fall with them I have read concerning Joshua that valiant Souldier that when he was a young man and more in the strength of nature he was then least in vigor and valour for God and sometimes in cases of danger concealed himself but when he grew older found the strength of nature declining and decaying then he be stirred himself for God I bring but this in as an instance now to our English Souldiery that they may take notice of this rare president weigh but what God is a doing and will do When the tree is falling the Proverb is Run for the Hatchet It is an old Proverb Gentlemen and a true one Post folia cadunt lirbores After the leaves are once off the trees the trees themselves do fall at last God hath prospered you against the Spaniard hitherto keep shaking of the tree and it will fall or break at last Bee every one of you willing now when the Monarchy of Spain is staggering and tottering to contribute all the help that lyes within you against them What It is not enough that the Merchandizings of this Nation bee kept up though sufficient reason enough for it but there is far greater work in hand Therefore what Domitians Empress said unto him the Emperour when fishing and angling O noble Emperour it doth not become you said shee to fish for Trouts and Gudgeons but for Towns and Castles The same I say to you Stand to your Arms. Now I will a little touch upon the means whereby wee may in England under God bring down the Spaniard Mahumet would never enter into any City and especially the City of Damascus lest he should be ravished with the pleasures of the place and so should forget to go on with the great work he had in hand This is a president for the Souldiery of England whether great or small who ly perfuming and effeminating of themselves in London and in the Land Mary Queen of Scots that was mother to king James was wont to say That she feared Mr. Knoxes prayers more than she did an army of 10000. knocking men Plutarch in the life of Pyrrhus said of Cyneas that rare Thessalian Orator that he overcame more by sweet words speeches than Pyrrhus did by the sword So more by prayer than by strength and the Pope of Rome and these I finde to bee twofold 1. By Prayer 2. Shipping 1. By Prayer In Salem was the arrows of the Bow broke Psal 76.3 and the shield and the sword Prayers and complaints unto God are the Churches best weapons to fight their merciless enemies with all Exod. 17 11. Whilst Moses held up his hands Israel prevailed but when he let his hands go down then Amalek prevailed 1 Chron. 5.20 When some of Israel who warred with the Hagarites the sons of Ishmael in the midst of the battel cried unto God hee heard them and gave them their enemies into their hands This was that which Solomon desired after the building of the Temple 1 King 8.44 45. When thy people shall go out to battel and shall pray unto the Lord toward the house that I have built hear thou in heaven their prayers and judge their cause O admirabilem piarum precum vim quibus caelestia cedant hostes terret manus illa quae victoriae suae trophaea in ipsis Caeli orbibus figit Oh the admirable power of godly prayers to which heavenly things give place that hand terrifies the enemies which fasteneth the tokens of its victory in the celestial orbes Bucholcerus St. Augustine gave this reason why David put off Sauls Armour when hee went to fight with the Philistim Mystica ratione significavit arma Ecclesiae non esse carnalia sed spiritualia The Churches weapons are not carnal but spiritual and David was not armed with iron but with faith and prayer Prayer is the very best whole Canon that is in England Luther calls it Bombarda bellicosissima The Lord in Scripture is called a man of War and he may be taken to fight against all the Navies and Gunn'd Armadoes in the world for four Reasons 1. Because he gives victory 2. Because he fighteth the battels of his people 2 Chron. 33 7 8. 3. In respect of his prudence and policy as a wise Captain will watch all opportunities of advantage against his enemy he knows how to bring down the crafty and how to take them napping 4. He will encounter his enemy boldly though not with so sâ—eming a strength as they have Pray unto this God If that the people of God in England would but joyn in their prayers together I am confident they would bee of greater force than if wee had a thousand Canons marching in the fields of Spain Therefore what a shame is it that there is no more zeal for God and for his
the half way nay it may bee that a storm that hath fallen upon the Occidental Seas is felt and seen in the South though many hundred miles from it by its rowling restlesness the Hebrew Expositors read it How hee commandeth and raiseth that is maketh to stand c. And indeed none see how the Lord raiseth up the stormy wind but those that go down into the Sea these see the dreadful billows that bee at such times upon the face of the deeps All that I finde now either remarkable or observable in the words is this 1. That the great God hath all the creatures at his command All the creatures Observ 1 both the Magnalia and the Minutila throughout the whole universe are at Gods command to come and go and go and come at his will and pleasure Nay let the errand bee what it will they will perform it if but commissionated from him to go about it If that hee say but unto the winds Go I will have the Seas thrown into heaps hills and mountains There be storms which fall upon the sandy plains in Egypt that bury many thousands of travellers that pass over them The least gnat in the air but impowred and set on by God shall choak one as it did once a Pope of Rome a little hair in milk strangle one as it did a great Counsellour in Rome a little stone of a Raisin stop ones breath as it did the Poetical Pipe of Anacreon how quickly is it done and when the Seas were but even now on a sweet smoothe and silver calm they are upon an instant thrown into dashing and dreadful clashing waves This Wind-army when the Lord stands in need of it may I so speak or hath service for it to do it is presently upon the march to run and dispatch his errands whether of indignation or of mercy If that the great Lord General of Heaven and Earth the great supreme Commander of the winds will have them to destroy a people to throw down their houses on land or break their ships at Sea it is quickly done 2 Chron. 20.37 Because thou hast joyned thy self with Ahaziah the Lord hath broken thy works and the ships were broken that they were not able to go to Tarshish Nay the snuff of a candle a tile of an house a crum of bread a Chery-stone hath been impowred to mortalize man God wants not for means to punish the wicked divers wayes When God is about to fight against a people all the creatures will march in rank and file against them the Drum of Gods wrath is no sooner struck up and the Trumpet of his indignation blown but the creatures are up in their arms his servants are in every corner of the world let a man travel what way hee will hee hath a rod in every angle of the universe to lay upon their backs and that will follow them at the heels God is Lord General in chief and all the creatures are his hosts and servants if hee say to the Plague Feaver Ague c. Go and fall upon such a Town Country or person it is gone The unruly Sea tamely stands still if God command it and lovingly opens its bosome to entertain the Israelites The Sun goes backward at his command Josh 10.12 The greedy and cruel Lions are quickly muzled and grow gentle at his command Isa 38.8 So the Sun returned ten degrees by which degrees it was gone down The course that I shall now shape in the handling of this Proposition will bee to inlighten you further in this truth in a parcel of very clear evidences The four Wind-armies of the world This Wind-army of the Lord then as I may properly call it I shall rank divide and marshal into four Squadrons because they lye quartered in the four corners of the world at a great distance from one another 1. The first is quartered in the North and it is a very terrible Army when it hath a commission and is set on by God vi armis as wee say it makes the Seas under the Artick pole and elsewhere to snere again and if it doth not execution enough in that quarter hee can give it command to advance on to the North and by West and do his will there and if not in that place in the North North-west and there shall it stay and blow and accomplish his ruining work upon ships even as hee pleases and if not in that place on it marches into the North-west and by North North-west and if not there on it goes again into the North-west and by West West North-west c. Who so is wise will observe these things Psal 107.43 2. The other lyes quartered in the East and it is no less potent and powerful than the other but doth presently at the sound of Gods silver Trumpet consurgere in arma rise up into arms and military postures either to break ships or to throw the Seas into pyramidical hills Be advertised all ye graceless Sailors that go in the Seas that think your selves because you have good ships under you so safe and so secure that neither God Winds nor Devils can harm you alas if God commissionate impower and set but on one of these Wind-armies upon your backs you would not be able to stand under the blows of it it would either tear your ships to peeces throw them upon the shore the Rocks and Sands or else sinck you down right into the bottoms where you should never bee seen nor heard of more and mountains and this Army wheels as easily about to serve the Lord in any part of the world as the flaming sword did to keep the Garden of Eden Gen. 3.24 If it bee not serviceable enough either to do good or evil in the Seas in the East and by East it will advance on into the East South-east and if not in that place it will go on into the East and by South and again if the Lord will have some Vessels or other ruined and drowned it will wait upon his pleasure in the East East and by North and from thence again to attend upon his sacred and most holy will it will bee in the twinkling of an eye in the East North-east I and round about the Card if hee pleases to break ships in any part of the world whatsoever 3. The next Army is quartered in the West and it is as blustring and stormy as the rest and when it has pleased the Lord to suffer this Army to draw the sword many ships have perished in the Seas by it and been both forced on shore and also unmercifully and irrecoverably thrown upon the Rocks and Sands of destruction This is one of the great supream Lord General 's attendants and is ready at hand to bee his messenger either of good or evil where the great Soveraign of Heaven and Earth shall appoint him either to take ships and break them in the West South-West or if not there
infinite mercy goodness and undeserved kindness of the Lord that every day in the Seas is not a stormy Sailors the Seas are turbulent because of you the winds above thunder and roar more over our heads every day than they would the skies are cloudy thick and foggy because of you and the Sun doth not give his light unto the Sea we take not our enemies in our chases because of you neither do wee nor can we bring them down with that violency as we might if you were but good and gracious a gloomy and a dreadful day as long as our ships are full of Diagoras's and drunken Zeno's c. I am confident there is more danger in going to Sea amongst the unsavoury crew that is in ships in England whether Merchant or Men of War than there was for Lot to stay in a stinking Sodome and yet in very deed he had been burnt if the two Angels had not come down from heaven to give him warning and to usher him out of the City whilst fire-balls were making in heaven Gen. 19. The Mariners that carried Jonah had like to have lost their lives what then may one expect in going amongst Sailors that are as full of sin and filthiness as a Dog is full of hairs and fleas 6. To put faith on work Christ was Reason 6 resolved to try Peter Matth. 14.29 30. But when hee saw the wind boysterous hee was afraid and beginning to sinke hee cried saying Lord save mee The German drinks down his sorrows the Spaniard weeps it away the French man sings it away and the Italian sleeps it away all these are but sorry shifts but if thou hast faith in God in stormy times this will make thee sweeter melody in thy foul than all the fidling jigs of Musik in the world Christ soon saw the weakness of his faith It is a strong faith that God delights in and indeed the greater the strength and boldness of it is in God the more it makes for Gods honour declaring him to bee All-sufficient in the worst and greatest of dangers Hee that is faith-proof may go with comfort to Sea whether to the East or to the West to the North or to the South nay such an one ma adventure to imbrace the Artick an Antartick Poles when as a faithless person is but like a Souldier without hi arms Get this grace of faith and thou wilt then see that all thy safety is in God that hee is thy only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Resson 7 7. That patience may bee set on work What a rare speech was that of Paulinus when under that great trial when the savage Goths had invaded the City Nola and ransacked it and taken from him all his richest goods out of his house and coffers hee yeelded not unto the stream of sorrow which might have carried him down into the gulf of despair When Cato's Souldiers were discouraged in their march through the Desart of Lybia because of thirst heat â—â—d and â—â—â—nts he 〈◊〉 this 〈◊〉 unto 〈◊〉 Come 〈◊〉 friends and â—â—at my â—â—uldiers impâ— nt and d câ—uraged these are all pleaâ—â— to a valiant man and to all the storms hazzards and dangers that Sailors meet with all to them that are both valiant and patient but striving against it hee lift up his hands to heaven after this manner Domine ne excrucier propter aurum argentum ubi enim omnia sunt mea tu scis Lord sayes hee let not the loss of these things vexe mee for thou knowest that my treasure is not in this world here was patience exercised The grace of patience is evermore in this world both at Sea and Land upon the trial and sanctified trials both do and will evermore leave in the soul a tranquil calm and quietness Heb. 12.11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to bee joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward it yeeldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby This is Patiences language Plura sunt tolleranda there be harder storms to bee undergone Job 13.15 Though hee slay mee yet will I trust in him as if hee should have said Should an harder storm come upon mee I would bear it without murmuring Patience will bear every thing quietly and sit as mute in the Sea in time of storms as that Egyptian's goddess whom they call Constancy which they paint upon a rock standing in the Sea where the waves come dashing and roaring upon her with this Motto Semper eadem Storms shall not move mee Certainly all repining comes from an unmortified and an unsanctified spirit the fault lyes not in any condition how desperate soever but in the heart because the heart stoops not to it 8. To set prayer on work If fire bee Reason 8 in straw it will not long lye hid Bias the great Philosopher sailing over some small arm of the Sea amongst the Mariners at that very time there fell a most dreadful storm amongst them insomuch that the ship he was in was greatly endangered of being cast away and the Mariners falling to their strange and confused kinde of prayer and worship the poor Philosopher could not indure it but calls to them and intreats them to hold their peace lest the gods should hear them and he should thereby fare the worse for them if grace bee in the heart it will appear in time of storms and this is the method that God uses many times to put Seamen upon prayer Isa 26.16 Lord in trouble have they visited thee they powred out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them Isa 33.2 O Lord bee gracious unto us wee have waited for thee he thou our arm every morning our salvation also in the time of trouble Storms are like the tolling of a Bell in a ship and when they are dreadful and violent they call all that are in the Seas at those times to prayer and fasting The dumb Son of Craesus could then speak when hee saw the knife at his fathers throat Storms will open those mens mouthes at Sea that never opened them to God in prayer in all their lives The Sea-mans devotion is up in a storm but dead and down in a calm Hee is religious whilst the judgements of the Lord are roaring upon the face of the great deeps but as great a Swearer Drunkard and Adulterer is hee after they are over as ever hee was Reason 9 9. To urge them to seek unto God for pardon of sin There is none under the whole heavens that are more in debt to God than the Sea-man is yet is hee as little sensible of it and as little affected with it as the insensiblest thing in the world either is or can bee But gracious and penitent souls are much troubled for their sins in time of storms looking upon them as the products of their misery and so cannot sleep upon the pillow of worldly enjoyments without a pardon in their hands and hearts The hunted
night or what hour there is in the year that the Sea-man is not liable to some fearful jeopardy and casualty or other hee cannot positively and absolutely say any day that hee either sails or anchors in that it shall bee a day of peace and quietness unto him Hee cannot say after this day is over I will live and go into this and that place to morrow it was therefore a very humble and also a very gracious saying of one when invited to come and give his friend a visit upon the morrow ensuing to which courtesie hee returned this answer Ego crastinum non habui hos plurimos annos I have not had a morrow in my hands this many years What greater dangers of losing life are those in that go down into the Seas than that poor soul was that ever lived in the expectation of death The Sea hath a million of dangers in it I and fuller of perils to the Mariner than Africa either is or can bee unto the Traveller It is observed What I have read of one concerning that which he did see in a vision I may bring in and say of the Sea when hee beheld the many snares of the. Devil that were spread upon the face of the earth he sate down mourning and lamenting in this manner Oh Quis pertransiet ista who shall pass through all this and by and by after some long debate a voyce behinde him was heard Humilitas pertransiet Humility will carry thee through them Good Lord seems many a stout man to say how shall wee ever go through those many dangers that are upon the Seas in one place lies lurking rock in another perilous sands and every where the stormy wind I answer that faith in God will carry thee thorow them all that hee that will travel in Africa must take these following directions besides the many more that are prescribed or otherwise they will soon bee cut off with that multiplicity of venemous creatures that bee in it 1. Hee must not take his journey fasting because if hee should accidentally bee bitten or stinged by any of them the poyson will have the greater Influence upon the body in respect that the veins and arteries are the more open and empty at those times than at ohers 2. Hee must have a care of travelling when the Sun is hot and shining because all manner of vermine lye very much couchant in every field and graminous place and not onely for that reason neither but because if they should bee stinged at such a time the wound will bee the harder to get cured 3. Hee must have a special heed that hee foot it not over graminous bushy leavy and bramble places because in those places the veniferous creatures take up their abode and so will ceize upon any one that shall but tread or come amongst them 4. Hee must not go without that antidoting herb called A veneniferis creaturilis libera me domine The good Lord deliver mee from all venemous and hurtful creatures I bring but in this dangerous part and place of the world as a comparison to the Sea which is as full of hazzards as Africa can to him that shall travel it Nay further to set it home that they that use the Seas are in perpetual danger give mee leave to cast about and to tell you that all the creatures which encompass us about do as it were bend their whole force against us the very Sun in the firmament which is the dayes bright shining lamp of the world and is as a certain general Father to all living things doth sometimes so scorch with his beams that all things are parched and burnt up with the heat thereof at another time it takes its course so far from us that all things are like to dye in its absence with very cold the earth also which is the Magna parens mundiâ— the great mother of us all swallows up many thousands with her gulfs and earthquakes and the Season the other hand they devour and kill up men abundantly what an infinit of Rocks Sands Elâ—â—s Shallows Sirtes's and Charybdus's bee there in the Seas all which endanger the ships that go in them and upon them What shall I say also of the air Is not it many times corrupted And doth it not engender and gather clouds thick mists pestilence and sicknesses neither Land nor Sea Desart places private houses or open streets are free from ambushments conspiracies hatreds emulations Theeves and Pyrats Is there not spoyling of fields Terror ubique trerâ—or timor undique undique terror said the Poet. This may be the Sailors emblem Eccl. 2.23 For all his daies are sorrows and his travel grief yea his heart taketh not rest in the night sacking of Cities preying upon mens goods fireing of houses imprisonments captivities and cruel deaths falling upon mankinde in one place or other of the world It is at Sea as it is with a man that is of necessity having no other way to travel over some great wide thorny wilderness in which is all manner of ravening beasts in one corner Bear in another Wolf in one Lyon in another Tyger in one Wilde Oxen in another Wilde Boar in one Elephant in another Alligator in one Serpent in another Scorpion in one angry Leopard and in another the murthering Crocodile Would you think now that a man should ever get safe over such a place Consider all things and I know that the Sea is little inferiour to it for danger 5. Ship-leak springing The Mariner meets oftentimes with this most dreadful and inevitable accident which is of more trouble to him than any one thing in the world besides I a leak in a ship hath more terrour in it than an house that is on fire because the inhabitants may at their pleasure run out of it even when they please but it is not so at Sea in a ship for let the ship bee on fire or half filled with the waves of the Sea there is no back door for them to run out at That Log which Jupiter hurled out of heaven upon the heads of those Rana co axantes in cavernulis which molested him with their croaking Petitions for a King was not more terrible unto them than a leak is unto the Mariner in a storm It is reported of a ship that shee made this doleful complaint when going to sink Ego mergor quippe nautae mei aquam non extulerunt They let mee sink for want of pumping which if there had then many a thousand sail would have been left to run this way and that way ere this day at the pleasure of the winds and the Seas because men in such straights will give any thing for their lives A Leak in a ship is like to a sting in a Tortoyse of whom it is said that if shee bee stung with a Viper shee dyes upon it if she get not to that medicinable herb Margerum or Penny-royal This is an hour
They who â—oe really call upon the Name of the Lord in dreadful storms and dangers do acknowledge him to be omniscient one who knows best of all their wants and necessities 2. They acknowledge God to bee Omnipotent and one who is able to supply all their wants in their greatest straights that ever they are surrounded with 3. They acknowledge him to bee an all-good and one who is very merciful and bountiful and upon these considerations any one may take encouragment to pray That the Sea-man commonly makes the Observ 8 Lord many serious and solemn vows and protestations in the time of calamity I have read of some Mariners that vowed wonderful largely when their ship lives were at the stake what they would do for their God whom they served they told him if ever they got to shoar alive they would sacrifice a Candle to him that should have as much tallow in it as the main-mast was in length and substance but when got safe to Land they forgot their vow and one of them being more religious than the rest begun to tell them of it and to prompt them to itâ— push quoth the Sailors we are now at Land and onâ— small candle of eight in the pound will serve the turn which afterwards hee never performs Then they cry c. As if David should have said in time of danger they will both protest and vow nay and almost swear too that they will turn gratious and pretious souls but when the storm is over their vows are all forgotten and they are at their swearing again Jonah 1.16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a Sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows It seems that this is a very common thing amongst them Plato had perswaded Alcibiades to live justly and honestly in the world during the whole course of his life and when hee protested and vowed to him that he would do so I pray God said Socrates that hee would once begin So our Sailors make large vows in dreadful storms when the ship is upon Sands or when shee is leaky and half full of water and they tell God very largely what paenitents and what religious people they will bee if hee will but graunt them their lives but I may say unto them pray God they would once begin there is not a people under the heavens that are slower to good and that have a less skill in good than they are they are couzen Germans to Seneca's Semper victuri and I pray God that they hit on it before they dye Sailors are like Nebucadnezzar's image in storms whose head was all of pure gold the arms of silver the thighs of brass the legs of earth and clay They are gold and silver in storms but at Land and in calms meer dross and brass It is with Sailors in storms as it was with Israel at that dreadful time of Gods descending out of the heavens upon Mount Sinai Deut. 5.27 Go thou near and hear all that the Lord our God shall say and speak thou unto us all and wee will hear it and do it Here was a large protestation you will say Well vers 29. carries sad tidings in it Oh that there were such an heart in them that they would fear mee and keep all my Commandments alwaies that it might bee well with them and with their children for ever The Sea-mans large promise to his God in a storm is like to false fire to a great Peece which dischargeth a rich expectation with a bad report Siquidem vovens non solvens quid nisi pejero Bern. Hee that vows in storms and does not perform his vows when delivered out of them forswears himself before the Lord. If there were but such an heart in Sailors as they pretend to have when in storms I am confident that no people under the heavens would outstrip them in piety That the Sea-man never takes up the Observ 9 duty of Prayer but when hee sees himself involved in an unlikely estate and condition of his ever recovery Then they cry This was an unsavory saying of one of the Sailors to the rest of his companions when labouring under a most dolorous storm My lads bee of good cheer I will go take a turn at prayer both for you and for my self for I am very confident that the Lord will hear mee because I am nâ— common beggar I used prayer as little as any man in the world I have observed it that at such times when wee have been thrown on Sands and when our sails have been rent in pieces by the violence of storm even as one would tear careless paper and linnen that then they have prayed Jonah 1.5 Then the Mariners were affraid and cryed every man unto his God You should never have heard those Sailors at Prayer that Jonah was amongst if that their lives had not been in that dreadful jeopardy It was a graceless saying of one Sailor when in a most inevitable danger that hee had never used any prayer for seaven years together but hee was now fallen into that distress that hee must bee forced to do that which hee neither liked nor never used to do Sailors are not unlike to Agrippa's Dormouse that would not nor could not bee awaked till shee was thrown into the boyling Copper and then the kettle rang with her dolorous Sonnets Ego uror Ego uror Alass I burn I burn It is danger makes many in the Sea go to prayer and not grace conscience or the fear of God The Sailors life is not unlike to Herman Biswick's of whom it is said that it was his judgment that the world was eternal and that there was neither Angels nor Devils Heaven nor Hell nor future life but that the souls of men perished with their bodies And if our Sea-men hold but of this strain they may live as they please But grant they doe not their prayerless lives tell us that the thoughts of Hell and the thoughts of God and of another world is not in their minds they have not another place in their eye but only this present world One of the sadest things that my soul has mourned for and at whilst in the Sea was my serious consideration of the many Vessels that go in the great deeps that neither do nor never did and I fear never will take up the work of prayer Prayer at Sea is like to a poor Beggar or Traveller on Land who goes from Town to Town and from Country to Country but is never invited in or taken notice of by any strangers and travellers we usually say meet but with cold entertainment Oh the many ships both in the States Ah that I should be forced to say that of the ships that go in the Seas which the Lord complained of once in the sons daughters of men Rom. 1.29 Being filled with all unrighteousness wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers
were the people in them got safe to shore by one means or other Prayer will not onely keep off storms from ruining of you but also from fire and from the wrath of God to seize upon you Prayer will bee as commodious for our States ships and for our Merchant ships yea I dare bee bold to say it as that Antidote was which they used in antient times in their besmearing of all their wooden buildings with Alome in trial whereof Archilanus Mithridatis is a witness when hee washed all the wood of the Tower therewith which hee had in charge and when Sylla attempted to set it on fire hee could not but gave it up as invincible It is no wonder though wee have so many Frigots fired and so many warlike boats blown up rocked and stranded surely the main cause is there was not the fear of God in those mens hearts that sailed them Plutarch reports that at the sacking of Cities those houses that stood near to any Temples evermore fared well for it whilst others went to ruine and there was not prayer amongst those men that went out with them into the Sea Exod. 11.2 And the people cryed unto Moses and when Moses prayed unto the Lord the fire was quenched Pray Sailors pray or else your ships will either meet with fire rocks or sands 5. You are in danger of being unpittied and unhelped in the time of your distress because of your neglect of prayer What Chrysostome said in one case of the Christians sins I will say of the Sailors in another Nostri peacaâ—is fortes sint barbari That the Christians sins did furnish Arms to the very heathens to invade Christendome Prov. 28.9 Hee that turneth away his ear from hearing the Law even his prayer shall bee abomination Now who turn their backs and ears more from the sacred rules of the word than those that use the Seas Is it not one of the Lords great Commands that every one should pray How then canst thou expect that hee should look upon thee when the ship is even going into the bottome Doth not the Sailors swearing prayerless and irreligious lives lay them open and consequently furnish their enemies in the Seas with courage and valour to overcome them and doth it not also lay them open to the winds Seas sands rocks to catch hold of them to tear them to peeces I am afraid that God will say of you when in storms Prov. 1.26 27. I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh when your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind when distress and anguish cometh upon you 6. And lastly you are not onely in danger of being unpittied at such times when you are most in danger but also of being unheard in your prayers though you call never so vehemently Prov. 1.28 Then shall they call upon mee but I will not answer they shall seek mee early but they shall not finde mee This is a dreadful thing that men should thus desperately run themselves out of Gods favour I could not if I had all the language in the world set off your misery souls I will pray that Sea-men may not give the Devil the like occasion to triumph over Christ as hee did in Cyprians dayes whose words I will thus invert quoth Satan I never dyed for any Sea-men that serve me with such diligence as Christ hath done for his I never promised my Sailors that serve me so great a reward as Christ hath done to his and yet I have more Sea-men that are servants unto me than Christ hath amongst them that are servants unto him Christ hath here one in a ship and there one in a ship but do not you see that the greatest number and the greatest part of men even in all Nations that are sent out in ships to the Sea are my servants And yet notwithstanding though you run your selves upon these six dangers besides the many more that I might reckon up unto you I am afraid that you will not for all this deal with prayer What Objections lye in my way I will remove and then Sea-men answer God another day for your prayerless and irreligious lives it is not I but your selves that must give an account of your selves yet such is my love and largeness of heart towards you all that I cannot better express it than in the Apostles words Rom. 10.1 Brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved Whether ever or never that I shall see the face of a Sea-man again or set my foot in a States ship again yet shall my prayers bee for you both in private and publick and if I should not so do I think I should not bee well-pleasing to my God because I seriously lay to heart what need you have of it both for your conversion and also for your preservation and sanctification Object 1 Mee thinks I hear some poor Sea-men saying Alas Sir wee cannot pray wee have not those praying abilities to lay open our selves in to God otherwise we would not be so backward in the practising of your good and Christian counsel and advertisement as wee are Answer Abilities to pray are evermore found to increase upon and in the use of prayer Precando disces precare by practising prayer thou will learn to pray Do thy part and God will not bee wanting in the doing of his Moses begun to object to God his weakness in speaking but would God take or dispense with that excuse Exod. 4.12 Now therefore go and I will bee with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say Mee thinks I hear many Sea-men Object 2 speakieg unto mee on this wise Good Sir why are you so importunate with us to take up this duty of prayer there bee many thousand sail that goe to and again in the Sea that use no prayer at all and yet they prosper and meet with little danger or damage I am afraid that their prosperity is their plague and penalty Answer for because they prosper for the present Are not most Sailors Nero-like who said when counselled Ut facta superi semper comprebent sua that the gods above might approve of all his doings Stulte verebor esse cum faciam Deus Thou doting foâ—l shall I stand thinking or fearing the gods when I go about my own designs In like manner sayes the generality of Mariners What would you have us to be godly and to use prayer this we never did nor never will do they sinfully presume and sinfully presuming they presume to sin and sin will in the end set the doors wide open to let in the Seas and winds upon them Prayerless ships the more they prosper I am afraid that they are the nearer unto judgement Phericedes's boast was this that hee had as much contentment and safety though hee never sacrificed to the gods in all his life
their voice which is not half so clear nor so pleasant as it was at first Nay they are as much down when their lives are at the stake as the Seryphian Frogs were of whom it is said in Observ 13 Scyrum deportatae mutescunt eaedem alio translatae canunt Carry them into Scyrus and you silence them What Pliny said of Rome I may say of the Sailors at Sea that there was never any earthquake in Rome but it was the fore-runner of some great change event and alteration So no appearance of windsly in the Physiognomy of the skies but some change of weather Praecedunt paenas nuntia figna graves There was one that went up and down Jerusalem 80. years before ever the war begun to bee commenced against it crying a voice from the East a voice against Jerusalem and the Temple a voice against all this people Sailors God gives you some warning many times before hee claps his stormy wind upon your backs let all external signs of storms carry you then out to seek your God let them alone in Seryphia and you shall hear them sing and croak That it is and would bee the Sea-mans greatest wisdom and safest course when hee sees a storm a comming to run unto the Lord that hee would become his friend Then they cry c. You see the heavens grow black and many observations and guessings you have from and of the skies what weather is a brewing will you not then prepare to meet the Lord by sending out your prayers as Ambassadours to plead with him in your behalf Amos 4. ult people that are on Land if they see but a Tempest or a shoure of Hail or Snow a coming they will with all the speed that ever they can make betake themselves either to some good sheltering hedg or the nearest neighbouring house that they can get unto How much more should you then fly even as the young Chickens will under the wings of the old ones when the Kite is hovering to fall upon them to the protecting arms of God that you may bee supported in a shelterless Ocean Shal the sight of a warlike ship coming before the wind with all the clew of sail that ever shee can make and spread Top-gallant sails Stay-sails and Boome-sails call upon you I and startle you too to get your ship into her fighting weed and dress Insomuch that you are in such a toss at those times that you cut down Hammoks knock down wooden stanchions hale out your guns keep your matches lighted and your Ordnance primed your chartages filled your shot and powder upon and betwixt decks and all your men in arms some to stand by the great Guns and other some upon deck by your small shot and will you not bee in the like fear when the Heavens frown above you How should you make towards your God at such times Plutarch reports of Athens that when their City was visited and long punished with mortal sickness that they had recourse to the Oracle of Apollo to know what they should do in their extreamity who made them this answer that their onely way was duplare aram to double their Sacrifices The onely way for Sailors to bee delivered in time of storms is to ply God hard both before and when they are come with prayer Nautae sereno coelo non nihil laxant vela cum autem suspicio tempestatis contrahunt In fair weather Mariners will have their Top-gallant sails out but if foresee foul they presently take them in I would have Sea-men to strive who should bee the first at prayer in such times as these as it is said in Zach. 8.21 Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts I will goe also The Tulipant which our Herbalists call Narcissus because it is an admirandos flos ad radios solis se pandens a flower that will constantly expose it self unto the fulgency of the Sun but when ever it apprehends the Suns setting or a Tempest a coming it hides it self and will not hazzard its tender flower to bee shaken and rent with the wind Learn thus much from this creature as to betake your selves unto your God when you see storms a mustering in the clouds and starry Sphaeres That hee that has a gratious purpose Observ 14 and design in time of storms to honour God in the remainder of his life may the warrantablierly pray for the prolonging of his life Then they cry c. Psal 119.175 Sailors in storms resemble the Frogs in the Countrymans pond of whom it is said that whilst it thundered they were very silent but no sooner was the thunder over but they betook themselves to their croaking and obstreperous notes again whilst storms are upon the Sailors backs they tell God many a fair story which afterwards they leave undischarged Let my soul live and it shall praise thee As if David were a going to say if it were not for that end I would not wish to live a minute nor a moment upon the face of the Earth Sea-men if this bee not your design in your prayers I cannot see how you can have the face to expect audience from your God at such times Tell mee what is thy end Captain in this storm what is thy end Master what is thy end Boatswain Sea-men what are your ends now in this storm where our lives are at the stake are they not to swear to lye to drink and to dishonour God as you have done are they now fixed upon the glory of God and the honour of God and the obedience of your God Fear not then I will joyn with you in prayer for the Lord will never drown us if our hearts have these resolutions in them Psal 119.17 Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy Word Oh that this were the prayer and the very thought of every poor Sea-mans heart when hee is beset both on head and stern with that affrighting enemy pale death I shall say thus much for the encouragement of all those that go in the Seas that are thus gratiously disposed as it was said to the Emperour Marcus Antonius when in Almany with a very great Army and being beset by the enemy in a dry Country where all passages was stopped up and there being no other likelyhood but that both hee and his whole Army should perish and that for want of water the Emperours Lieutenant seeing him so sadly distressed told him that hee had heard that the Christians could obtain any thing of their God by prayer whereupon the Emperour having a Legion of Christians in his Army hee put them all upon prayer both for him and for his Army and shortly after dureing the time that they were at prayer great thunder fell amongst their enemies and abundance of water upon the Romans whereby their thirst was quenched and the enemy routed and overthrown without any fight at all You shall have
out side of which was nothing but deep water saying Lente equidem tamen attente gradior morae nulla est Si modo sat bent quo vis cito sat venies but of divers others also now the remote and Inland Towns of our Nation have not that delectable aspect that you daily have they are far from beholding the mountainous Seas the dreadful storms and shipwracks that are perpetually happening and befalling that restless element which you both see and daily hear of Sea-men tell you many a story how at such a time the winds blew their sails rent their masts broke and how at such a time they were shipwracked some got to shore upon this peece of plank and another upon that and at another time how they were put to it by reason of the leakiness of their ship and a thousand more dangers besides these do they tell you of All that I aim at unto you is this Bee affected with your deliverances Exod. 4.31 And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that hee had looked upon their affliction then they bowed their heads and worshipped Oh bee melted at the goodness of God towards men in this imployment and when they come into your Towns perswade the poor Sea-men to fear the Lord and win them if you can unto the liking of the good wayes of God One of the saddest plagues that I know of this day in England is in our Sea-port Towns the people in them care not if they can but get their monies though they leave a thousand Oaths behinde them in their houses 2. When you see great Fleets upon the Seas or going out of your Harbours or from the other parts of our Nation put up your prayers unto the Lord for them and in their behalf perhaps your eyes may never see them more The Sea-mans life is not unlike to the roof of the great Temple in Jerusalem which as Villalpandus records out of Josephus shewed flowers growing amongst gilded prickles The best dayes of your lives have many a thorn in them nor they ever see the land or shore again their imployment hath so many thousand casualties attending it Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labrae That comes in an hour that happens not in a thousand The Sea is not unlike to Proteus whom Homer tells of A ship in the Sea is in as much danger of being lost as the Owl in the Emblem who had many fowls pecking at her to tear her in peeces Perfero quid faciam nequeo compeâ—cere multos Spumat aper fluit unda fremit Leo sibilat anguis It foams like a Boar flyes like a flood hisses like a Snake and roars like a Lion Did Inland Towns but see and know of the staggering dangers that Sea-men go through they would send out their prayers for them that God would allay storms moderate Seas halter the winds and that God would prosper them to their desired Ports Ah Sirs No grace resembles God so much as the promoting of the good of others as well as our own private and particular good Every man looks upon his own things Phil. 2.21 Sea-port Towns in this case should resemble the Emblem of the candle pro vobis luceo ardeo I am willing to do all the good I can All minde themselves sayes the Apostle all comparatively in respect of the paucity of those that do pray for the good of others It was Tacitus's word of that famous Roman Emperour Sibi bonus aliis malus Hee that is too much for himself fails to bee good to others I may say of Haven Towns as some Antients used to say of the Statues of their Princes that they would have them alwayes placed by their fountains intimating that they were or at leastwise should bee Fountains of publick good Your dwellings are by the great Ocean side from whence you should learn to resemble it in the publick good it doth it admits every Bark Ship and Vessel to come and sail in it and upon it You should not bee for your selves onely but for others Sea-men sit in the waves of the Sea as he in the Emblem did of whom it is said Dum clavum rectum teneam navimque gubernem Uni committam caetera cuncta Deo Pray for them Oh let ships that sail in the Seas have many prayers from you bee they our Country or any other Country shipping that you see pray for them Is not the good of many to bee preferred above and before a private good Matth. 5.45 God makes his Sun to shine and his rain to fall upon the unjust as well as upon the just You cannot resemble God in any thing more than in being publick-spirited for the good of others 3. When you see the great ships of War that are the woodden walls of our land go out to Sea pray for them and for their good success and prosperity against the enemies of Jesus Christ to the end they may bee preserved in those hot and dreadful disputes that they are oftentimes called unto You can salute them now and then with your roaring Ordnance from off your Castles and Sea-ports Town and make all flye in fire and smoak when they are takeing their farewel of the Land The Sea is ful of perils not unlike to the English Colledge at Valladolid in Spain which at ones very first entrance bee terribiles visu formas terrible shapes and representations of men with knives at their throats Alas to the eye of reason death attends their imployment in the Seas every day they uprise or at their return home from some prolix voyage Ah Sirs salute them with your prayers that will do them most good Can you see the Warlike Frigots of this Land sailing and crusing of it every day upon the Seas before your eyes which lye out night and day in an uncomfortable and restless Sea to secure your Harbours Towns and Trading and yet never bee affected with their dangers fears and sorrows Can you go to your beds at an evening and rise up in the morning and never think of them who lye rocking reeling and staggering in the roaring and raging waves Let mee argue the case with you Is not the Commonwealth of England a great first rate And is not or hath not every one in the Nation their cabbins houses The Sea-mans habitation is Ubi nil est nisi pontus aer But yours is upon firm land and habitations in it our Nation is but an Island and stands in the Sea and so may very well bee resembled to a ship all of you are passengers and partners in this ship and if shee prosper miss or hit upon the rocks and sands that bee in the Seas you are like to bee sharers therein so that in seeking the publick good you most wisely seeke your own good 4. Certainly my friends Praying people in Sea-ports are Englands best Bombardae bellicosissimae Guns either in Towns
the sea Storms are the Lords surly Sergeants whom hee claps upon mens backs in the Seas to arrest them which say unto them that go in the Seas as Greg did to the Emperour Anastatius whom he took by the sleeve and told him Sir this silken cassock and this scarlet coâ—t you shall not carry hence with you This ship says a storm shall never go to her Harbour is by of and from the Divine permission and appointment of the Lord. God out of wrath and displeasure suffers some to go to the pot and perish Many ships have gone out with very famous names upon them some called the Swallow some the Antelope some the Lawrel and some again the Bonadventure some the Meer-maid some the Swift-sure and other some the Triumph and one Rock Sand Storm or casualty or other has in a short time given them the new name of a Non-such It is reported of a ship that had been a very long time out at Sea and having made a very good voyage of it shee was hard by and very fair for her Port but before shee could get into it a storm arose and drave her back and she mourningly said Per ware per procellas tutissime huc usque navigavi ac portum juxta infelicissime mergor I have hitherto gone clear and escaped all seas and storms and now my greatest misery is this I must perish in the sight of my harbour The Use that I would have all that go in the Seas to make of this Truth praedelivered will bee this Vse Nauf agium ad paucos ut mâ—tus ad omnes perveniat some suffer shipwrack that fear and terrour may strike upon the rest 1. Look upon the shipwrack of others with deep solid serious and not with flying and transient consultations that they may sink into your hearts and spirits fix your eyes upon such steep your thoughts in their sorrows ponder them in their certainty causes severity it is not possible that posting passengers can ever bee any serious or curious observers of homeward or forein Countries Ah Sirs dwell upon the Sea-monuments of Divine Justice transient thoughts does not become such dreadful and permanent judgements Quot vulnera tot ora Other mens harms should bee our warnings and Sea-standing spectacles Misericordia Judicium sunt duo pedes Domini are the two feet on which the Lord is oftentimes found walking upon with those that use the Seas I may say unto you that use the Seas as the Prophet said unto Israel in another case Isa 42.23 24. Who among you will give ear to this Who will hearken and hear for the time to come 2. Behold Gods Judgments in storms with particular application Many or indeed the major part of Sea-men hearing of the Judgments of God upon the Seas say within themselves and to the ships they are in as Peter once said to Christ These things shall not bee to us or as proud Babylon said of her self Ah Sirs mee thinks many of your calling run riot swagger swear drink and whore as if hell were broke loose God had dispensed with Justice and Judgement and granted you a general indulgence Your destruction in the Seas is never neerer than when you put it furthest from you Baltazar was tiplâ—ng but he was surprized in his bowels Dan. â— Ah! you live as if you had passed the day of Judgment over and the very torments of Hell Isa 47.8 I am and none else besides me I shall not sit as a widdow c. and though shee put destruction far from her yet was shee laid in the dust there cry the Ostriches and there dance the Satyres Isa 13.21 Few places have such prerogatives as Nineveh had so much state had that famous City says Volateran that it was eight years in building and all that time no less than ten thousand workmen upon it and Diodorus Siculus says that the height of the walls were an hundred foot the bredth able to receive three Carts in a brest it had one thousand five hundred Turrets and yet none of these have any other than paper walls to preserve their memories by Sin turned the seven Churches of Asia Nice Ephesus and Chalcedon who were famous for General Councils into rubbish and ruines pastures for Oxen and Sheep Sea-men In the Emblem there is a naked sword an halter about it Discite Justitiam laqueus monet illud et ensis Sirs you should learn goodness out of storms you are doing that your selves which you may see God punishing in others if you will but if God bee somewhat slack and loth to punish you as hee hath done others by sending them into the bottom of the Seas his patience should lead you to repentance Rom. 2.4 Make you better and not the worse Marke But Gods severity towards others and the same God that pays other men their deserved punishment will shortly pay you without speedy and sound repentance What ever you see God punishing in others in the Seas bee sure you beware of that in your selves if God punish a sinning Cain by setting a brand upon him it is to teach others to keep their hands from blood if God throw a Dives into Hell it is to teach others that they keep cleer of the sin of covetousness if hee set a fire on the Gates of Jerusalem for breaking the Sabbath it is to teach others to keep it holy Plurimae intrant pauciores perambulant paucissimae recedunt may bee the Motto of the Lords dealings with many ships that justly for their wretched unsavoury lives If hee hurl ships and Sea-men into the bottoms of the great deeps it is to teach others to take heed of swearing and the graceless lives that they lived and led whilst above water When the Epitamizer of Trogus had to the full described and set forth King Ptolomie's riot as the chief and principal cause of his ruine and destruction hee adds this Tympanum Tripudium It was when hee was fidling and danceing So should any ask mee when ships or wherefore such and such ships were cast away I should say it was when and because they were swearing 3. Behold Gods Judgments in storms with an eye of prudent anticipation and prevention Were such and such swearers and drunkards cast away in the last storm I may say of such ships as are cast away as one said of the fallen Angels 2 Pet. 2.4 5 6. God hanged them up in Gibbets that others might hear see and fear and do no more so wickedly So the Lord cast so many sail away in a stormy night or in a stormy day that you might take warning to live after another manner than they did Ah souls flye you then from that wrath which you are at such times warned of is it not easier to keep out of the Sea than to get out of it I have often times observed that both birds and beasts will avoid those places where
into the South but where are your thanksgivings all this time to God for your safe goings our and returnings home Go but to the Planets and they will tell you that they will not deal so with the Sun as you deal with your God wee say they receive much light from the Sun and for a testimony of our thankfulness wee do not detain it but reflect it back again upon the Sun Go to the Earth Sailors and shee will tell you that shee will not deal so with the Heavens as you do with your God shee will tell you that shee receives much rain from the Heavens and out of a testimony of much thankfulness shee detains it not but returns it back in Vapor again and after this manner may you hear her speaking Cessat decursus donorum si cesset recursus gratiarum Mercies from above would soon cease If my thanksgivings and returnings from below went not up It is said of the Lark that shee praises the Lord seven times a day with sweet melodious ditties Atque suum tiriletiriletiriletiriletirile cantat Alauda Isa 20. The beast of the field shall honour mee the Dragons and the Owls because I give waters in the Wilderness and rivers in the Desart to give drink to my people my chosen 1. Reason Because your lives were at the stake as Isaac's was upon the Altar's when the knife was at his throat yet did the Lord call and look forth very seasonably The Romans used to stick and bedeck the bosom of their great God Jupiter with Laurel as if they had glad tidings of fresh victories and that out of a testimony of their thankfulness for what they had out of the Heavens for you and spake to the winds when they were up in a rampant kind of hostility and rebellion against you and bid them be quiet and do you no harm otherwise you had perished in many a storm ere this day and is not this worthy a great many thanks Who can bee too thankful to that God that has been so careful and tender-hearted over you when in the Seas where there was no eye to pitty you 2. Reason Because in that storm if God had given it commission thou hadst been shortly after either in Hell I have met with a story of one when being risen from the dead therefore you that live ungodlily in the Seas think of it he was asked in what condition he was in when he was there he made answer No man will beleeve no man will beleeve no man will beleeve They asked him what hee meant by that he told them no man will beleeve how exactly God examines how strictly God judges and how severely hee punishes or Heaven or may I not leave Heaven out and thou hadst been in Hell where the Devils would have fallen upon thee to tear thee to peeces Ah Sirs your lives hang but upon small wyers and what would become of you if God should not spare you Bee affected with this mercy 3. Reason Because had the storm but had licence to have destroyed you and the ships you sailed in which the Lord would not suffer you had never come home with your rich lading nor never had that mercy granted you of ever seeing or enjoying of your loving friends wives children houses lands and acquaintance again and shall not all this move you unto thankfulness If this will not I know nothing in the world that will prevail with you I pray God that Sea-men do not with their deliverances at Sea as Pharaoh did with the miracles that were done before his face Exod. 7.23 Of whom it is said That hee would not set his heart to the miracle 4 Reason Because you have now at the present a still quiet and peaceable Sea to sail in and upon which in the storm you had not such was the proud vantingness of it that you durst not loose a knot of sail nor keep your Top-masts unlowred and un-peaked and the waves run mountain-high rageing and rowling on every hand you in such a miserable manner It seems strange to mee that Sea-men are not bettered by all the storms they meet with by all the calms God bestows upon them Iron is never cleaner than when it comes out of the furnace nor brighter than when it has been under the sharp file the Sun never shines clearer than when it comes from under a Cloud the Coale that has been covered with ashes is thereby the hotter the quicker every thing brightens betters but the rusty Sailor Gods mercies judgments in the Seas do not scour him as that you were at your wits-end but Oh what sweet peace and tranquil weather have you now insomuch that your Vessels go now upright without that nodding staggering and reeling which they were put to before How still are the waves how clear above bee the skies and Heavens how well escaped are you from the shore the Rocks and sands which you were so near to in the storm Are you not affected with this mercy The Lord soften your hard hearts then Give mee leave to present you with a few motives unto this duty of thankfulness 1. Consider Soul what an unspeakable mercy it is that God should hear thy Prayers in a storm when thou wast almost overwhelmed that God should hear prayers nay prating and babling rather than praying which is but an abomination unto the Lord that God should hear the prayers of the righteous that is nothing strange because hee hears them alwaies but that God should hear your prayers Sirs which are most sorry and sinful prayers The Stork is said to leave one of her young ones where shee hatched them The Elephant to turn up the first sprig towards Heaven when he comes to feed and both out of an instinct of gratitude to their Creator Sailors let not brute creatures excel you for whatsoever is not of Faith is sin this is wonderful Ah will not you bee thankful unto the Lord Sirs I have red of a Lyon that had but got a thorn in his foot as hee was walking and ranging in the Forrest for and after his prey and being exceedingly pained with it hee made after a foot-Traveller which hee spied in the Forrest making signs to him that hee was in distress which the Traveller seeing and apprehending that his case was dangerous if hee ran hee stood still to know the Lyons pleasure to whom the Lyon declared himself and the poor man pulled it forth and the Lyon to requite him followed him as guarding of him from all wrongs by other wild-beasts quite through the Forrest Ah Sirs will not you express your thankfulness to your good God 2. Consider the particular dealings of God with you he deals not so with every one Do you not see God in the winds Mercavab Velohaâ—ocheb how is hee to bee seen in the Chariot which he rides in though not the Rider says a Rabbi some goes down into the bottoms amongst the dead
people naked and being asked the reason why hee said hee could not tell vvhat apparrel to put upon them You are thankless to your God for your Sea mercies I must bee forced to do as the Musitioner who evermore strikes most and oftenest upon the sweetest note in his song the Paven or Galliard brevity is the Card I must sail by in the Sea unless I were in some warm study upon Land to write and expatiate my self in The uses are two 1. Of Reproof 2. Of Exhortation 1. Of Reproof Is it thus then that your great and many mercies do cal for thanksulness at your hands then let me tell you that this point looks sourely upon you even as Diana's image in Chios did upon all those that came into her Temple with a lowring and contracted countenance but looked blithe and smiled on them when they went forth Ah Sirs consider what you do you with-hold Gods right from him Will any Land-lord bear with his Tennant that shuffels him off from year to year Mariners like the fish Borchora of vvhom it is said that shee does devour many fish one after another but at last is met vvith taken so do they their Sea-mercies but God vvill meet vvith them if they repent not of it and pays him never a farthing Gentlemen consider this God will not alwaies bear with your ingratitude Pharaoh escaped many plagues and judgments as you do ship-wracks storms and Tempests which the rest of the Egyptians smarted under and so may you many storms whilst others perish and are denied to bee saved either by planks or boats but what was Pharaoh kept for was hee not reserved for the Sea to bee made a prey on in the great deeps so may you even thousands of you for ought I know out of all your deliverances out of storms bee reserved for the next to bee swallowed up in The Sodomites were rescued out of the hands of Chedorlaomer but were after consumed with fire from heaven and thus the wicked have many deliverances which they had in a manner as good bee without for they turn into curses and not blessings when they are not sanctified Will not the Lord say to you when you come into distresses Jer. 22.21 I spake unto thee in thy prosperity but thou saidst I will not hear this hath been thy manner from thy youth that thou obeyedst not my voyce I will deliver you no more for you have been unthankfull under all 2. Of Exhortation What I speak to you good people I speak to my own soul and the Lord speak it to us all let mee beg of you who have been delivered even out of a little Million of perils by Sea to express your thankfulness to that God that hath delivered you even to his praise in all societies that you either go amongst or converse with Ah how near drowning have you been at such a time how near killing at another time how near being lost Your condition hath been many and many a time like the tree the Poet fingâ— of which bore golden boughs Quaquantum vertice ad auras Aethereas tantum radice in tartara tendit Virg. whose root was just so much beneath the earth as the top was in height above it Your ships were hard by drowning and of never being heard of more many a time and is not all this worthy of thanks to that God from whence you had his care over you to protect you Observ 2 That there is no duty that man is more dull and backward to and in than in the praysing Si ingratum dixeris omnia dixeris let me but hear of a man accused for unthankfulness and you need say no more Senec. and celebrating of the Name of the Lord. Oh that men would praise the Lord c. Mee thinks there is a great deal of dead-heartedness upon the Sea amongst men as to the performance of this very duty Masters are dead Captains are dead Lieutenants Boatswains Gunners Carpenters Sea-men Tarpowlings and all that use the Seas are not so much affected with their deliverances as they should bee He deserves to lose his Garden that will not afford his Landlord a flower I have read of the heathen that when they had escaped shipwracks at any time they would hang up their votivas tabulas to Neptune as a testimony of their thankfulness What will you do Sirs for your God Sirs If you would praise God take these ensuing Directions along with you In some tenures people do not refuse to do their homage though it be but the rendring of a Red rose or a Pepper-corn 1. Labour for humility of heart Gen. 32.10 I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy servant A proud spirit cannot bee thankful unto God a haughty minde is never thankful unto God for any mercy bestowed 2. Labour for a due consideration of the greatness of the blessing Will a Picture continue that is drawn upon an Ice will it not fade and melt away when the Ice upon which it is drawn thaws 3. Take all advantages of praising God Jam. 5.13 when you are upon the merry pin then praise the Lord I mean cheerful Praise God in publick Many of you are as unthankful for your Sea-mercies as Bajazet the great Turk was for his being made so great a Monarch who when asked if ever hee had thanked God for it he said that he never so much as once thought of it in all his life time then but just you should smart for it quoth Tamerlain and praise him in private 4. Strive against all hindrances whatsoever bee it sluggishness backwardness or whatsoever 5. If you would praise the Lord do it speedily 6. Do it sincerely 7. Largely 8. Freely 9. For the least mercy 10. Constantly not like the new Moon which shines all the beginning part of the night and then leaves all the hinder part in darkness Motives to praise God are these 1. Hereby you will honour God much 2. It is a gainful kinde of trading with God the husbandman delights to sow his seed in and upon fruitful soils where hee knows his increase will yeeld sixty or an hundred fold There be seven sorts of people that I would put upon the praising of God for Sea-mens deliverances 1. Their Wives 2. Their Parents 3. Their Friends 4. Their Brethren 5. Their Sisters 6. Their Acquaintance 7. Gods people The meeting of Friends after a long Voyage at Sea should bee like that of Joseph Gen. 46. And hee fell on his neck and wept c. They are not lost praises that are given unto God 3. It is a most noble act of Religion to praise God 4. Giving of thanks to God is more than to pray 5. If you will bee much in the praising of the Lord you will bee under much joy and comfort Observ 3 That the praysing of the Name of the great and
usually sends them a peece of gold stampt with the Image of St. George upon it Who was valiant amongst you had Medals in the Dutch wars they have a brave warlike ship which they call the Preston To keep up the memory of that dreadful Sea-fight which they had with the Dutch near Portland they call one of their warlike ships the Portland To keep alive the memory of their transactions against the enemy at Yarmouth they have a gallant ship which they call the Yarmouth That their dealings with the enemy at Famouth might bee remembred and celebrated to the praise of that God whom they serve they call one of their brave warlike Vessels the Famouth To keepe alive the goodness of God in their helping them to overcome their enemies at Bristow they call one of their sumptuous ships the Bristow To keep up the memory of one sore bout they had with the enemy in Kent they call one of their ships which they built afterwards the Kent That they might not forget their dispute with the enemy at Dartmouth one of their ships is stiled the Dartmouth To remember that bout they had with the enemy at Tarrington they call another ship the Tarrington To remember the engaging of the enemy in Essex All these ships are called by the names of Englands Battels and every ship carrying the name of an English Battel upon her cannot otherwise chuse but under God be heart daunting terrible to the proudest enemy that ever strutted in the Seas What is said of the Leviathan I think I may say of our ships Job 41.9 Shall not one bee cast down even at the fight of them they call one of their ships the Essex To keep up the memory of that bout they had with the enemy at Basin-house in Hampshire they call one of their Friggots the Basin To perpetuate their engaging the enemy in Pembrokeshire they call one Friggot the Pembroke Another they call the Hamshire Another the Glocester Another the Non-such And all these besides several others as the Lime c. have been built since and after these disputes and so named Paul after his ship-wrack I find to that end hee might remember that deliverance calls it Melita and the Maltezes's at this day La scala di San Paulo St. Pauls shipwrack or arrival Sea-men have you no names for the places where you have been shipwracked what call you the places where you have been in greatest danger Call to mind the many places that you have been in and the many storms and perils that you have gone through The States of England throw not their dear and costly purchased Victories at their heels Imitate the Tartars in valour who go slightly armed into the Battel upon their Backs as scorning and abhorring ever to turn their backs whâ—n once the chief Standard of the General is let flye in the field A certain Prince would bee pictured with this Motto which I give to you that use the Seas Luctor non mergor I was much endangered but God has preserved mee Sibyllae mos erat in palmarum foliis oracula scribere in meliori metallo autem tenete naufragia vestra which they have got in their late wars but to keep them alive they put them upon their warlike Sea-boats 4. By erecting Pillars to bee standing memorials and monuments of the Lords undeserved goodness unto them Samuel set up a stone and called it Eben-Ezar 1 Sam. 7.10 12. Hitherto quoth hee when the Philistins fought against them Hath the Lord helped us The States of England to keep up the memory of their Land-deliverances layd out very costlily three thousand pound upon one ship Accipe redde Cave is a Motto that is writ upon all mercies Upon Fire is writ take heat from me Upon Apparel take warmth from me Upon bread take strength from me Upon a piece of a plank in a storm take safety from me But make a good improvement of these things or else stand cleer four thousand Pound upon another and six thousand upon another And will you lay out nothing to perpetuate the memory of your deliverances Give mee leave to hand to every soul in the Sea this short and sweet word of advice 1. Improve all your Sea-mercies for Gods glory 2. For your own good 3. For the good and benefit of others 1. For Gods glory esteem of God highly look out for higher thoughts of God than ever you have had in your souls and labour daily to beat down your own pride loftiness and haughtiness of mind otherwise you will never bee able to maintain high thoughts of God and to say of the Lord in all your Sea-preservations Exod. 15.11 Who is like unto thee O Lord amongst the Gods who is like thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders 2 Chron. 6.14 There is no God like thee in the Heaven nor in the Earth 2. To love God more dearly that has done so much for you David's heart began to bee on a burning glow within him when hee begun to consider of the Lords hearing of his prayers Psal 116.1 2. I love the Lord because hee hath heard my voice and my supplications Ah Sirs will not you that use the Seas love your God no more than you do Good Sirs do not with your God as the Heathens did by theirs of whom it is said that they would put them off with slight Sacrifices when called for a man they brought a candle Hercules offered up a painted man instead of a living one what had been become of you ere this day if God had not heard your prayers in your calamities 3. To thank and praise God Praecepta docent at exempla movent more heartily for what hee has done for you in all your straits at Sea Psal 103.1 2. Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within mee bless his holy name Tully calls gratitude Maximam imo matrem omnium virtutum reliquarum the greatest and the mother of all virtues 4. To obey God more cordially Many Sailors are a meer tortile lignum Too much a kin to the Crab Nunquam recte ingrediuntur Cancri Very disobedient and crooked unto God and freely this is to render again according to the mercies and favours God did for you when in the great deeps which Hezekiah nay not onely hee but thousands of our Sailors fail in this very duty 2 Chron. 32.25 But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him The Elements are obedient unto the Caelestial bodies the Orbs and Sphaeres to the moving intelligence and all the Intelligences to the chiefest of all which is the Lord loved of all Darius escaping a great danger in his return out of Scythia by the faithful counsel and assistance of Hysteus the Milesian hee was so taken with this kindness that to reward him hee sent for him to the Court to praefer him to one of his Privy Councel gave him this commendation