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
out their hearts do exceedingly fail them and there is nothing else then but crying weeping wailing and wringing of the hands for that lamentable and deplorable condition that they see themselves irremediably involved in now are they in a confusion ransacking and running to and again to throw the ponderousest of their goods over bord that their Vessel may bee the lighter What Dolor cordis is there amongst the Sea-men when the ship is dangerously leaky yea what animi molestiae and what Suspiria flebilia ab imo pectore one while they work and another while they weep to see themselves irrecoverably at deaths door Undique facies pallida mortis Death is now on every side them and with David they cry Psal 39.13 O spare mee that I may recover strength before I go hence and bee no more Being once in a dangerous and leaky Vessel in which the hearts of the Mariners were greatly daunted in respect that wee were very far from Land when wee arived safe on shore I could not but turn about and in the first place look up unto my God with a thankful feeling of heart and in the second look back upon the Sea from whence wee were delivered and write down this upon his undeserved mercy Psal 56.13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death and now doe they unloose every knot of sail that they can make to run unto the nearest shore that they can get unto to save their lives and ever and anon are they sending up one or other unto the top-mast head to see if hee can descry either Land or ships in the Seas which if they can but espy towards them they will make with the greatest cheer that can bee I have known some that have been seven or eight dayes in this very praecedent case and condition that I am now speaking off wherein they have most laboriously pumped and sailed as for their lives and at the last when they have been both despairing and desponding of life in respect that all their strength has been spent with hard working and the ship they sailed in filled even half full of water the Lord has looked down upon the travel of their souls and sent them one ship or other within the sight of them when they have been far out of sight of any Land towards which they have made with all the speed that in them lay and by firing of Guns which is commonly a signal of that ships distress that fires they steered their course directly towards her and taken out the men that would have been lost in her and in a little time the ship that they sailed in has sunk into the bottom Again others in leaky ships when that they have been denyed the sight of any ship in the Seas to flye to have got safe to Land notwithstanding that dreadful distress But now to look back upon and over this deliverance permit mee to move these two questions and they will magnifie it 1. Who is it that sends the Sea-man a ship out of the Seas to take him up when there is no possibility of keeping the ship that hee is in on flote and above water is it not the Lord 2. And who is it also that gives the Leakship leave to arrive safe on shore whereas in the eye of reason shee might rather have perished in the Seas having so far to sail before shee could come to any port and besides could see no support nor succour from ships in her way Is it not the Lord 2. They that go down to the Sea in ships in their passage and re-passage from Country to Country and Nation to Nation have been oftentimes most sadly set at and assaulted by the Turk and other Pyrats insomuch that when the enemy has come up very near unto them almost within the reach of his Ordinance God has most wonderfully many a time appeared for them either by calmning of the winds in that part of the Sea their pursuing enemies have been in or by giving of them a strong gale of wind to run away from them when the enemy has lain in a calm with his sails flat to his Masts God has many and many a time calmed the winds for the English when they have been pursued with the Turk c. insomuch that the Seas have layn to admiration like a Mare mortuum de quo antiqui feruns sine vento sine motu By which means God has kept them from unmerciful thraldom and captivity And the enemy for want of wind has not been able to come up with and to his desired prize or otherwise by granting them a stiff gale until the going down of the Sun by which they have made their escape from the Pyrat in the black of the evening for then has not the enemy been able to see his chase nor to cast for the best because the chased very gladly alters his course This has the Lord Almighty done for many a Merchant ship blessed and for even blessed bee his sweet Name hee has denyed to fill the enemies sails with wind when they have had strong intentions to make spoil and prey of them Oh the many Sea-men that have been thus delivered 3. They that go down to the Sea in ships often and sundry times when they have been surrounded with way-lying Pyrats and Robbers I sometimes with two or three for one which is contrary to that well known rule Ne sit Hercules contra duos notwithstanding in their hot disputes and exchange of Ordnance one against the other even when shot has flown like hail on every side them some striking their Hulls I say no more but this Good Lord how bold and witty men are to kill one another what fine devices have they found out to murther a far off to slay many at once and to fetch off lives at pleasure what honour do many place in slaughter the monuments of most mens glory are the spoils of the slain and subdued enemy whereas contrarily all Gods titles sound of mercy and gracious respects to man some their Shrouds and othersome their men and though they have been most desperately beset both on head and on stern they have most couragiously by the assistance of the Lord cleered themselves out of their hands with very little and small damage I and other sometimes got the victory in their quarrels by sinking of the enemy and sending him down into the bottoms Oh the many Sea-men that have been thus delivered 4. They that go down to the Sea in ships many times when they are in chase of a pestilent enemy this I have seen satis superque satis and when wee have come almost up with him within Demi-culverin distance so that Ordnance has been levelled upon him and the shot has flown over and beyond him the Sea has presently layn all on a calm and as it were the winds have been called off from filling our sails insomuch that there has been a stop put
e quovis bibunt fonte Jejunus stomachus raro vulgaria temnit Lapsana called of the Arabians Wilde Colewort and of Physicians Cera with the roots of this herb lived the host of Cesar a long time when far off any refreshments and this was at Dyrrachium from whence came that Proverb Lapsana vivere to live wretchedly and hardly which they cannot come to by reason of their great distance from any land or harbour they are constrained out of an impulsive necessity to lay their lips unto the same water the ship swims in now the water of the Sea wee all know is inutilis potui though good alere pisces servire navigantibus the drinking of which water throws many of them into irrecoverable sicknesses and diseases Again it is the special care of Mariners in these long voyages when grown short of water to hang out all the sail that ever they have that it may bee in readiness to receive all the showers of rain that falls upon the ship and this they will wring out of the Canvass to quench their thirst withall And this is sweet water in their mouthes although it run down the Tarry shrouds and Roaps about the ship which doth exceedingly imbitter it Against Rain Sailors are like Spiders in providence who hang their Nets in windows where they know Flyes do most resort and work most in warm weather because Flyes are then most abroad buzzing and stirring in every corner Prov. 27.7 To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet 17. Others are oftentimes most sadly endangered in rugged and violent storms I will write thus much upon this remarkable deliverance Ps 142.4 I looked on my right hand and beheld but there was no man that would know me refuge failed me no man cared for my soâ—â— insomuch that the Rudder is forced off its bands by their being thrown upon ground or sands and then is their case to the eye of reason so impossible of being remedied that they have no more command of the ship than the driver hath of the wilde Ass spoken of in Job 39.7 Who scorneth the multitude of the City c. Now will not neither can the ship bee got to go by the Card at this and that Point as formerly shee would I have known some that have been many dayes in this condition driving too and again upon the Seas Vers 5. I cried unto thee O Lord I said thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living not able to help themselves and though they have made great and vast recompencing promises unto ships that have seen them and comm'd by them in this distress yet would they not take them in a tow nor afford them any relief and yet notwithstanding when they have been thus forsaken in all their hopes and no eye hath pittied them nor no help from man hath come unto them yet hath the Lord looked out of the heavens upon their sorrows and beat down the waves of the Seas and the raging winds over their heads and then by weak and poor means they have got themselves safe to land Oh the many Sea-men that are yet living and can tell of this very mercy I may write thus much upon this deliverance In communi rerum acervo plurima videmus saepe inter Scyllam Charydim pofita I may further say of this memorable mercy Psal 34.18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such us be of a contrite spirit Vers 15. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry 18. Some are many times by and through the violence of storm and tempest exceedingly hazzarded in their being overset insomuch that the ships Masts have been seen to lye in the very Sea and the ships decks covered all over with water which is one of the dreadfullest and heart-bleedingest conditions that can bee seen They that fall into this predicament of misery there is small hopes of their recovery or rising up again because when a vessel is or comes once to bee foundered there is no possibility of her being helped up insomuch that where one recovers five goes to the bottome 19. Many times when they are riding at an Anchor they are very dolorously hazzarded by violent gusts and stormy blasts of wind insomuch that Cables oftentimes break and their Anchors give way and so are most dreadfully put upon the drift and that which is the saddest circumstance in this unparalleld misery is the propinquity and nearness of sands upon which they are many times likely to perish I may write upon this remarkable deliverance Tria talia poma quadrante cara sunt Three other such Apples are too dear of a farthing I leave the Application It is with Mariners in this case as it was with the Egyptians when they had the Israelites amongst them Exod. 12 3â— Wee bee all dead men I may say of Sailors as the Spirit of the Lord saith of the Church Lamentat 5.9 Wee get our bread with the peril of our lives if there were not a singular providence stepping betwixt and to prevent the fatal stroak of such like stormy consequences Many through the undeserved kindness of the Lord have escaped when their Cables have broke in storms and others have gone to the bottome Is not this a mercy worth perpetual boxing and recording in the heart 20. It falls out oftentimes in rugged and blustering weather that they are forced both when they are at an Anchor and also when under sail to lay violent hands upon their masting and yarding and cut down all by the Board for the safe-guarding of their lives and vessel Being once in this condition when upon the coast of Norway I observed that there was not a little terrour and affrightment of being cast away among the Sailors for the wind failed us and the current heavâ—d us into the shore and the Rocks lay round about us and the Sea was so deep that there was no anchoring for us so that all hopes of being saved was taken away yet casting our selves upon our God he provided deliverance and sent out his breezes some from the Land and some out of the Sea some on Head and some on Stern making all the haste that ever they could as if they had been resolved to tell us that they strave who should bee the first at us to fill our sails and carry us back from dying upon the Rocks and oftentimes before they can take the leasure to hew them down the strongness of the winds breaks them down now in this most dreadful and heart-affrighting and soul-amazing weather when the Seas run Mountain-high as if resolved to swallow them up alive the Lord doth wonderfully preserve them they live in this hard stormy time and others perish in it 21. Others are oftentimes becalmed in the Seas when that they are in the dangerousest and perillousest of places and when that there
unforgiven None but men that are out of their wits and men that are voyd of the fear of God would run such an hazzard and foolishly play such a card how many of you are killed when you go to Sea and divers others drowned and cast upon the Rocks and Sands and art thou sure that thou shalt escape take my word for it your unpardoned sins will bee as a thousand holes in the bottom of your Vessels to sink you into the bottoms The very Heavens even blush at the gracelesness of those men that go down into the Seas in these daies and are ashamed of this Age in which wee live that men can or should bee able to take that boldness in that employment which is one of the dangerousest ones that is under the Heavens with so much confidence of safety and security as if they were on firm and solid Land when alas they are in no favour at all with God but God is a dreadful enemy unto them and they no friend to him 2. Make up your peace with God before ever thou goest off the Land on board any ship whatsoever bee shee in the Merchant or States service and if thou wilst so do the God of Heaven go along with thee I will not fear thy perishing in the Seas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is good to begin your voyages in God and end them with your God It was a good saying of one Nullius est faelix conatus utilis unquam Confilium si non de◠que juvetqu◠Deus Whilst the ship is out in the Sea none can tell whether shee may ever or no come to the Land again take this sweet Scripture along with thee and get thee going there is no danger Isa 41.14 Fear not thou worm Jacob and yee men of Israel I will help thee saith the Lord and thy Redeemer the Holy one of Israel To encourage every poor Sea-man now unto the thing in hand bee perswaded upon this ground of Truth that if thou wilt seriously and sincerely treat with thy God hee will treat with thee all the scruples and objections that ever thou canst make are no hindrances to thy peace the Prodigal had no sooner a returning thought in his heart but the Lord very readily owned it and ran to meet him Si impius es cogita publicanum si immundus attende meretricem si homicida prospice latronem si iniquus cogita blasphemum peccasti paenitere millies peccasti milles paenitere If thou beest wicked and hast a mind to leave thy wickedness think of the Publican if unclean consider the Harlot if a man-slayer look upon the Thief if unjust think on the Blasphemer hast thou sinned Sailor repent hast thou sinned Sea-man a thousand times repent a thousand times Heaven gates were never shut upon crying and knocking Paenitents To put you now upon this good and needful work I will present unto you three serious considerations that will take with men that have the tincture of grace in them 1. Consider the uncertainty of your lives whilst you are in the Sea there is not an uncertainer thing upon the face of the Earth than the life of man is and although you cannot command one hour to live and breathe in how prodigal are you of your daies and years whilst in the Seas as if you had time in a string The Spirit of the Lord would gladly bring men into the Faith and belief of the shortness of their daies and lives by its comparing it with the brittlest ingredients that can be reckoned up in the world viz. a vapour grass a post a Weavers-shuttle c. yet who so void of Faith as you that use the Seas in this very particular Are not your lives poor souls ten thousand times in greater danger of being spilt and lost than those that live upon the Land Hee that went into the wars of old Qui ad bellum proficisceretur necesse est testamentum condere usually made his will before hee went as doubtful of his return But our Sea-men are far from this temper and harder hearted are they in this Age than in former I may say of them as it was once said of a graceless Sea-man Nec mergi nec damnari metuo I am neither affraid of drowning nor damning It may bee that you have escaped many storms and com'd off with life and limb in many a fight but are you sure you shall do so in the next 2. Together with the uncertainty of your lives I would have you consider and lay to heart the uncertainty of Gods tender of Grace grant thou hadst a lease of thy life and that thou shouldest go in the Seas many years and never perish art thou sure after all that long life and good success in the Sea that God will give thee grace and that God will give thee that which now thou undervalues Gen. 6. The Spirit of the Lord will not alwaies strive The tides of Gods Grace and Mercy are not like to your Sea-tides which come at set and certain times and hours so that hee that has no mind to go to Sea in the morning may go towards or in the evening I have read that Bernard having a younger brother brought up a Souldier being a riotous miserable and wretched young man sought earnestly with the best and sweetest arguments that ever he could use to put him upon the leading living a better course of life but the young gallant took snuff at it as most of your Sailors will do when reproved for evil and counselled for good well said Bernard time may come when God may let in my words into your heart by a hole in your side this yongster shortly after received a wound in the wars of which hee lay a long time sick and then his brothers words sprang in upon him to his amazement and affrightment Sea-men slight nor good counsel now if you do the time will come when your so doing will make you a Magor Missabib unto your selves In what an hurly-burly is the Sea-man in when he sees a gallant warlike ship making toward him with all the sail that ever shee can make Hostium repentinus adventus magis aliquando conturbat quam expectatus This is but a confused time to ask the Lord the forgiveness of all your sins in and to prepare for death in Isa 9.5 Every battel of the wariour is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood 3. Death is no fit time to learn the making up of your peace with God in Who would not count it a very absurd and ridiculous part in any Commander to have his ship to trim and to set in a fighting posture when the enemy is coming upon him But surely though there bee that wisdom in you to provide and to have your ships trimed for the fight I dare bee bold to say it there bee thousands of you at those times whose hearts and souls are not trimmed for death and for
far nimbler for your good than thought it self Who so is wise will observe these things 10. Minde how the Lord does very frequently in the time of dark misty foggy and uncomfortable weather when you are in a labyrinth and know not what way to steer take off and unbare the Sea-buyes by pulling off from their heads those night-caps of dismal squallour that they have been dressed and trimmed up withall by which means you have been enabled to pick out your way and to glean up your praeinformations how the Sands have lain and if the Lord had not thus favoured you you had assuredly perished Who so is wise will observe these things 11. Minde how wonderfully God appears for you at such times Me thinks you should receive these deliverances at Gods hands with more thankfulness to him contentedness with them than ever the Paphos Queen did the golden fruit that was sent her for a present This mercy came to you as the Italian says a buóna luna in a good hour or happy time when both foggy weather and also contrary winds arrest you in the Seas and detain you as their prisoners for many daies together insomuch that you are confounded in your Navigations not kenning where you are wishing continually that you could behold one sail or other that thereby you might bee informed how your way lay and in what propinquity or interval you might bee of Rocks or Sands Has not the Lord now when you have been thus puzzeled many and many a time given you the sight of a Vessel after which you have made and so received directions from them how to set and shape your courses Who so is wise will observe these things 12. Minde how the Lord does oftentimes direct you when you are coming in into Harbours that you are accustomed to and well acquainted withall there commonly arises great debats and various disputes about your steerage into them my heart has often aked to see your contentions and also that diversity of judgment that has been amongst you some protesting this and some that that your course lies by the bringing of such a light house The Graecians being delivered but from bodily servitude by Flaminius the Roman General called him their Saviour and so rang out Saviour Saviour that the very fouls of the air fell down dead with the cry thereof Plutarch What cause have you that are now and then delivered from drowning to bee oftentimes in the high praises of the Lord God gives you hold of an Ariadne's thread to wind you out of the perplexed mazes of the Sea a subtil Daedalus or such an hill or such a mark upon the Land upon such a point and in the midst of all contrary to the minds of many that would have had the ship navigated upon such a point or sailed by such a mark the Lord has established the mind of the Master Pilot or Commander of the ship to sail upon such a point by which means the ship has come safe into the difficultest Harbours Who so is wise will observe these things 13. Minde how Providence is at work for you in the forein parts of the world it may bee that you have good cleer and serene weather all or the most part of your Voyage till your arrival within sight of the Country where your business and Harbours lye and then upon a sudden it grows black cloudy and foggy and also stormy insomuch that you are put to an anxious extremity and dare not approach or advance any nearer either to the Land or the Harbour you would bee at that then upon the fiering of some pieces of Ordnance boats come off that promise to undertake the Pilotage of your Vessels by which means you are freed from abundance of care and trouble Corrupt blood must be drawn forth before the Leech fall off and carnal filthiness parted with in your ships before the storm ends Who so is wise will observe these things 14. Minde Whether the Lord does not bring storms shipwrack terrible and heart-daunting dangers upon you for your good yea or no. Look upon every blast that blows every storm that befalls you in the Sea as a messenger sent from the Lord to humble you Humility is not unlike to the low-lying Land in Holland but pride is like the Hogen and the Mogen in it and to better you This was the method that God walked in of old and also the course that hee took with Israel Deut. 8.16 That hee might humble thee and that hee might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end This was Davids experience Psal 119.67 71. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy word This was the experience of a well-educated Scholar to his Tutor when upon a dye Istae manus mihi portant ad Paradisum by your correcting and instructing of mee I am now going to Heaven The Walnut-Tree is evermore most fruitful when most beaten and flowers do evermore smell sweetest after a shower I would it were thus with all our Sailors after their storms Good hearts in storms like Vines bear the beter for bleeding 15. Minde whether the Lord does not send tempestuous storms upon you in the Seas to fit prepare and dispose you for mercies calms and peaceable weather Good and comfortable weather will not neither is it valued by you Although I wander now in the America and untravelled parts of truth and experience yet may I if minded prove advantagious to those that use the Seas As soon may I collect the scattered wind into a bag or from the vvatery surface scrape the gilt reflections of the Sun as tell you of all the Lords appearings for you in your inevitable perils till you have been a long time tossed in Neptune's cradle-rocking surges and in the roaring blasts of Boreas then serene weather is valued and highly prized and cried up for a mercy amongst you Who so is wise c. 16. Minde how apparently Gods goodness and infinite Wisdom is visible to any seeing and observing eye in this respect that hee lays not on storms upon some parts of the world and not upon other some and that some harbours are blockt up with them and not other some Storms come not alwaies out of the South nor alwaies out of the West nor alwaies out of the North and East but sometimes they are in one quarter and by and by in another every part of the world that is traded into hath their share as well as another Who so is wise c. 17. Minde whether or no the winds bee not many times unwilling to serve such wicked wretches as you mostly are that use the Seas by reason of their long tarriance in a quite contrary quarter to your courses Are you not oftentimes wind-bound or wind-blockt and fettered Look out for the reason of it some sin or God-provoking iniquity or other is amongst you Who so is wise c.
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
most high God for delivering mercies is not onely a very acceptable duty with God but also the readiest way to obtain mercy in the like exigency and necessity again Oh that men would praise the Lord Psal 50.23 Who so offereth praise glorifieth mee and then it follows Hee that orders his conversation aright to him will I shew the salvation of God Munera crede mihi placant hominesque Deosq This Scripture now proves it to bee an acceptable performance in the sight of God and that such as give God the most and best of praises they shall have the greatest and the sweetest salvations Improve Neptunum accusat iterum qui naufragium fecit Hee is very injurious to Neptune that complains of being shipwracked when unthankfulness is the cause Alexander the Great by burning Frankincense frankly and freely to the gods gained by conquest the whole Kingdome of Arabia where all the sweet Aromatick trees do grow Ah Sirs you do not know how you might prosper at Sea would you but bee liberal in your praisings of God and thanksgivings to him The people in the Low Countries by giving the Stork leave to build and nest it in their houses to requite the house-keepers shee comes every year at her appointed time Wee read of small or no rain that falls many times in divers parts of Africa and the grand cause is supposed to bee the sandy nature of the soil from whence the Sun can draw no vapours or exhalations which ascending from other parts in great abundance resolve themselves into kinde benign showers refreshing and helping of the earth that yeeldeth none and this is the reason many times why God poures not down his blessings and benefits in such an abundance as sometimes hee hath been wont to do because your hearts are as dry and barren as the barren grounds and sands of Africa for if vapours of melting prayers tears prayses and thanksgivings go not up to heaven mercies will soon bee stopt in their passage down If Sea-men were not so much behinde hand with God in the tribute of praise and good life God would soon lay a charge upon all his creatures both in heaven and in earth that they should pay their tribute unto man the Sun his heat Ah Sirs I am afraid that many in the Sea do vitam gentilem agere sub nomine Christiano live even Turks under the name of Christians The Sailor sometimes is like a Rubrick or Sunday letter very zealously red and all the week after you may write his deeds and his unthankfulness unto his God for Sea deliverances in black the Sea his calmness the Winds their gentleness the Moon her light the Stars their influences the Clouds their moysture the Sea and Rivers their Fish the Land her Fruits the Mines their Treasures c. And when neglected God shuts up the windows of heaven and locks up the treasuries of his bounty and so lets Winds and Seas rage and roar and the creatures gnash and grin their teeth at a people for their ingratitude Ingratitude is a sin supposed to taint the very influences of the Stars it dries up the Clouds infects the very Air makes Winds terrible and boysterous blasts the very fruits of the earth Cyprian attributes the great dearth in his time to the want of thankfulness and truly I shal attribute the many ships that are cast away unto their unthankfulness unto their God for had they been more thankful more holy and humble for those storms God delivered them out of they had never gone so sadly to the pot as they have done Here is quoth Cyprian a very great and general sterility or barrenness of the fruits of the earth and what is the reason of it because there is such a sterility of righteousness and purity Men complain now a dayes that springs are not full Sea-men deal with God as the Heathen who would when they had served their torns upon their gods as Prometheus c. put them off with beasts skins stuffed with straw If they get but out of the storm they never look behinde them who sate upon the floods all the time to deliver them themselves not so healthfull nor the Seas so calm as formerly they have been nor the Winds so quiet and peaceable nor the showers so frequent the earth so fruitful nor the heavens so obsequious unto them as they have been to serve their pleasure and natural profit to God the creatures are obedient and on his errands they go Deu. 28.38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field and shalt gather but little in for the locust shall consume it It is sin that makes the Sea so dangerous and so dreadful sin that makes the heavens as iron over head and the earth to grow so full of thorns and brambles But to proceed I shall not adventure pluribus morari but rather bee tanquam Canis ad Nilum in a restless Sea where I can neither hold my pen in my hand nor keep my paper and ink upon board scarce The Arguments why Sea-men should praise God are briefly these 1. Because God had such a special Reason 1 eye and provident care over you in the preserving of you in all the unlikeliest and irrecoverablest dangers and calamities that you have been exercised withall in the Seas 2. Because God did so much for Reason 2 you which hee would not do for others That when God hath delivered men out Observ 4 of their Sea-streights and calamities Sceva told all his friends that at the siege of Dyrrachium where he so long resisted Pompeys Army that he had two hundred and twenty Darts sticking in his Shield Densamque tulit in pectore Sylvam Ah set your deliverances before people it is their duty not onely to praise God for his goodnesses towards them but also to set the fruit of those mercies before others to taste of Oh that men would praise the Lord c. Vers 37. Let them exalt him in the Congregation Portus Olympiaca vocem acceptam septies reddit If any knock or speak at the Gate or Portal of Olympus it returns a sevenfold Eccho of the knock or speech Your mercies should make you speak Sirs Observ 5 That although a man hath nothing to speak of Gods wonderful deliverances in the Seas but what is known unto others as well as to himself yet is it a part of Gods praise and of his thankfulness to make Gods works known and the continual matter of his talk and discourse Oh that men would praise the Lord Psal 105.2 Talk yee of all his wonderful works Talk not of one or two of some of them but of all of them which you have seen and known done and wrought for you in the Seas Observ 6 That freedome from perils in the Seas and injoyment of life are two mercies that call for many thanks at the hands of those that go down into them He that hath but a subjects purse may have
I have read of a young prodigal Londoner who had a great longing to give all his five Senses a pleasure at once and allowed to the delight of every sense a several 100 l. by which and such like practices within the space of three years he wasted an estate of 30000 l. in mony left him by his father besides land plate jewels and houses furnished very richly to a great value I bring but this in as an instance to tell you that he that w ll feast his eye with the sight of the Creation it will both cost him penny and pains by which hee sees his works withall and then I will lay-down the promised particulars of what Mariners do see 1. Very wonderful is the sense of hearing tasteing smelling feeling but far more wonderful is the sense of seeing If it should bee demanded of mee what definition may bee given of the eye and what it is I think it may bee said truly that the eye is a little globe that is very full of visory spirits which do exceedingly resemble the round animatedness of the world The visory spirits have their generation from the Animal which flows from the brain to the eye by the nerve Optic and from those proceed the visible and reflected rayes in the eye as in a glass which will soon form any image that it beholds and so is received into the Chrystalline humour and by the visory spirits through the Nerve Optic is conveyed to the brain the object to bee considered of and by the internal senses as imagination memory and the common sense Observ 3 That good and perfect eye-sight is a singular mercy and special blessing from the Lord. These see the works of the Lord c. If it were not for this comfortable sense that God hath bestowed upon man his works could not bee seen nor discovered and viewed as to this day they are to his everlasting praise glory and honour I would exhort all the Sailors in the Seas now to consider how favourably God hath dealt with them in giving them eyes and perfect sight without which their lives would bee but a burden to them as his was that was brought to our Saviour Christ Mat. 12.22 Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil blinde and dumb and hee healed him in so much that the blinde and dumb both spake and saw Are you not bound and much engaged to God that hee hath given you eyes to see withall whilst other men wanting sight better deserving it than you are like to go without it and so are forced and must go groping and groveling in the dark all their dayes till they come to lye down in their graves with what suspicion and fear walks the blinde up and down in the world how doth their hands and staves examine their way with what jealousie do they receive every morsel and every draught how do they meet with many a poast and stumble upon many a stone fall into many a ditch and swallow up many a flye to them the world is as if it were not or were all rubs gins snares and miserable downfalls and if any man will lend him an hand hee must trust to him and not to himself Consider but the blinde in the Gospel how they lay in the high wayes and roads that lead unto the City of Jerusalem and also amongst us here in England in every high way Towns end or Bridge and you will finde reason enough of your blessing of the Lord for his goodness unto you more than unto others Mark 10.46 47. And when hee heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth hee began to cry out and say Jesus thou Son of David have mercy on mee 2. The eyes in number are two the better to give direction to us Oculists observe that whereas other creatures have but four muscles to turn their eyes about with which is the main reason that they cannot look upwards but altogether downwards now man hath a fifth whereby he can look upwards into the Caelum Empyraeum Os homini sublime dedit caelumque tucri Oculus ab oculendo I may say as God hath set 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the great world both the Sun and Moon as instruments of light to serve it so hath he most wisely wonderfully placed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in man the little world two eyes in the highest part of the body as Organs to serve him This is the sense by which the Sailor or the Traveller turns over and over that Volumen magnum Creationis Elephantinam And though this be a very quick and nimble sense and one that is never weary of seeing yet is there work enough for it in the Creation to behold and more than it can ever run thorow and range over should it do nothing else but travel the whole Creation over and information unto the internals in figure round and thereby they are the more capable of all objects by their motion Their situation is placed very high above the rest of the senses to direct our motion and to foresee our dangers 3. The necessity of this Organ is very great if wee do but seriously ponderate for the welfare of our outward being and the government of our selves and our affairs without which sense the life of man would but bee a very toylsome and wearisome thing unto him in the world 4. By this Organ man sees and foresees that which is good or evil helpful or hurtful and that at a distance The Mariners Proverb is Praevisa saxa minus feriunt Rocks but seen before-hand will never hurt us The first circumstance then that I will a little run on in is those creatures that are Aquatical live in the element of water which are some of the principal and wonderful works of God which Sea-men or men that go down into the Seas do behold And these I will a little set out in view to the end it may the cleerlier appear that they see most or the greatest part of the works of the Lord in and thoughout the Creation 1. They that go down to the Sea in ships c. They often times have a frequent sight of that strange and prodigious sort or kind of fish called the Flying-fish Flying-fish whom God out of wisdom has given wings unto like a foul for the preservation of its life in the great waters This poor creature is often hunted chased and pursued by the Boneto Porpise and other ravenous fish which follow it with as much violence as the hungry hound does the poor silly and shelterless Hare Insomuch that it is forced one while to fly and another while to swim and although nature has provided for it in giving it two strings for its bow yet is all little enough to carry him cleer of the snatching chaps and jaws that make after him This fish whilst in the water I have observed in the Mediterranean is exceedingly exposed to irrecoverable danger and when
preserve them and to carry them away from the fire for it is a common thing amongst the Mariners in such cases to run away with the boat and leave all the rest to the mercy of the fire yet notwithstanding boats have been sent off from shore with all speed and their lives have been saved 49. Others have been delivered after this miraculous manner when the ship hath sprung a dangerous and an incurable leak which could in no manner art Now have the Sea-men trembled within themselves and their inward desires have been like those of Moses Deut. 3.25 I pray thee let me go over and see the good Land that is beyond Jordan that goodly Mountain and Lebanon The Lord has given them leave to come safe on Land when that they thought that they should have drowned in the Sea and skil bee stopped their lives being greatly hazarded the Lord has sent unto them a fish that has gone into the leak and made it up with its own body as firm and as tite as ever the ship was before to the admiration of all that were in the Vessel insomuch that when they have brought the ship on shore they have found the fish lying in the leak as fast as any planck about the Vessel 50. Others for want of victuals in their long voyages in the Seas have been forced to put into strange and uninhabited places into which they have come thinking to find relief yet could they not see with their eyes neither man beast nor foul yet in some time tarriance there the Lord has to admiration provided for them insomuch that great flocks of fouls have been seen to come out of other parts I may say of this wonderful preservation as it is said of Israels manna Joshua 5.12 Neither had the children of Israel manna any more but they did eat of the fruit of the Land of Canaan that year and light in those inhospitable places where the poor people were like to starve and lay them eggs in great abundance and thus they did for many daies till at such times they got supplies and then the fouls went away and left them but not till then 51. Others have been no less wonderfully delivered when sprung great and dangerous leaks in time of dreadful storms they have been thrown upon the sands and when thinking themselves past all hopes of being saved God has turned all for good by calming of the Seas and winds The sight of this truth appeared to bee no small mercy in my eye Seems not this to be the language of those many Sands that ly up and down in the Seas that sin has filled the great deeps with them and many other unequal shallows by which ships are most dreadfully perplexed and ruined many and many a time If mankind had not sinned nothing should have lain in his way to harm him in the Seas As that curse at mans unhappy fall fell upon the whole world Gen. 3.18 to this day all grounds are cumbred with Thorns and Thistles and so the Sea with thousands of Rocks and Sands and also stoping of the leak and to boot besides both their ship and lives again 52. Others again have wonderfully been preserved when in boats that have been towing at a Friggots stern the ships way being so furious and violent through the Seas the boats bows has been pulled out and all the men thrown into the naked Sea some lying here and some lying there in a most dreadfull condition insomuch that hee that is a spectator of these lamentable accidents would think that never a one of them should bee saved and besides it is a long time ere a ship can bee put upon the stayes when shee has her freshest way 53. Others again have been most wonderfully preserved when storms have come down upon them in the dreadfullest rage that ever was seen or heard insomuch that their cables break and are thereby forced from their anchors and that which ponderates and proves the greatest inconveniency in the circumstance is their propinquity unto Sands being thus put to it in a Moonless and Starless evening This seems also to be the language of all the in-Sea-lying Rocks We know that the Mariner would have us to depart the deeps and lye in the bowels of the Earth with the rest of our fraternity but truly here we are ordered for to lye and to be a trouble unto mankind that he might not have all the sweetnesse safety and security in his trading it is something terrible in respect that they are thrown upon them and at every held the ship has laid her very hatches in the water and the poor men looking at every rowl that the Vessel should overset upon them I have known some in this condition that have lived and got off again both with ship and lives 54. Others have been very admirably preserved when sailing in the Seas without any mistrust or jealousy of Sands or runing on ground yet has it pleased the Lord to put into the hearts of some or other in the ship and given them secret hints to sound the Sea and no sooner have they fadomed their depth but the ship has struck and by a speedy handling of the Helm through the blessing of the Lord they have very narrowly escaped 55. Others again have been wonderfully preserved in this respect when they have unawars come on ground or upon a Sand-bank it has but been upon a smal point of it I cannot look upon any of these prementioned deliverances but my soul tels me that there is the visible finger of the Lord in them Psal 92.6 A brutish man knoweth not neither doth a fool understand this whereas had the ship run directly upon it shee had been lost without all recovery The often sight of this pretious deliverance I hope will lye warm upon my heart as long as I live But to break off what shall I now say of all and after all these remarkable and notable deliverances My thinks I cannot pass by the point that was laid down without one short word or two of use 1. Of Reprehension 2. Of Exhortation Use 1. Of Reprehension If it bee thus That the Sea-man of all the men under the whole heavens none excepted is one that is both a partaker and a seer of the greatest and remarkablest of temporal deliverances How are such to bee checked that out of blinde eyes hard hearts and sottish spirits never look upon these pre-mentioned mercies and deliverances as either mercies or deliverances but hurl them at their heels and value them no more than they do their old shooes The end of my gathering up these your mercies and deliverances is only to stir up your hearts unto thankfulness and to let the people that live on land both see and know what God doth for you in the deeps the truth of it is these are buried mercies that I have been telling of and such mercies as have lyen in the
grave of oblivion where few have taken any notice of them many of these I have gleaned up both from my own experience and from the mouthes of others that have been both good and pious I never knew any one that ever undertook to write any thing upon this subject nor to gather up the sea-Sea-mercies that I have done If they bee not savoury unto thee or any that reads them let me tell you thus much it is an argument of a carnal heart Did Jacob Gen. 33.10 undervalue his deliverance from the hand of his brother Esau as you do Did David look upon it as a small mercy that hee had so good a friend as Jonathan 1 Sam. 20.36 Did the Apostle Paul and the rest of those passengers that escaped that dreadful storm and shipwrack look lightly and think lightly of that deliverance Act. 27. God knows you are men that are at this day trampling these mercies under your feet Swine tread not corn nor trample Acorns under feet more brutishly than many do their deliverances at Sea Use 2. Of Exhortation Bee perswaded to bee much in thankfulness and more than ever you have been Ah souls consider what you owe unto your God you are in so great a debt to him that do what you can you will never bee able to come out of it I may say unto you in the words of Job 33.29 Thanks laid out this way are laid up non percunt shall I say of them sed parturiunt Is 32.8 The liberal man deviseth liberal things and by liberal things he shall stand One would think that he would the rather fall by being so bountiful but indeed he takes the right course to thrive Giving is the only way to an abundance God looks not that mens thankfulness should come from them â— as drops of blood from their hearts or that it should be squeezed out of them as wine out of the grape but that it flow from us as water out of a spring as light from the Sun and as hony from the Comb. Lo all these things worketh God oftentimes with man Even all those deliverances that I have been telling you of Let mee press these things upon you 1. Acknowledge that it is the Lord and hee alone that hath wrought all these deliverances both for you and for others and that not for your merits or for theirs but his own mercies sake 2. Praise his most glorious Name with your tongues and call upon others so to do 3. Obey God the more in your lives and intreat every Sea-man so to do 4. Love him intirely in your hearts and beseech every Sea-man so to do 5. Depend wholly upon him in all your distresses for the time to come and bid other Sea-men so to do 6. Bee evermore in a diligent circumspection and godly fear of provoking of the Lord unto anger and beseech other Sea-men so to do But to proceed Exod. 9.30 I know that yee will not yet fear the Lord God 4. And lastly If it bee demanded of mee What is meant and understood by the Lords Wonders in the deeps I shall give you my most humble thoughts in brief before you had it Works of the Lord and now his Wonders why his Works which wee have spoken of before are wonderful works and works and wonders in this place are both relatives and concomitants and as they go and may bee taken together I shall say of them Deus conjunxit nemo separet Such excellency and eminency is there in the works of the Lord that a seeing eye cannot but look upon the meanest of them as matter of wonderment and astonishment All the deliverances that have been presented and now stand in view upon the Stage before the whole world are nothing else but Gods wonders in the deeps and all those fishes in the Seas of which I have run upon and told you of are Gods Wonders in the deeps viz. the Whale the Sea-horse the Granpisce and the Sea-monster c. Again every wave is a wonder and he that hath a seeing eye in a storm may see ten thousand wonders how one mountainous wave rowls and follows in the heels of another which make most dreadful and amazing downfalls and hollows in so much that it is a terrible thing for a strong brain to look out of a ship into them and amongst them When the Seas are congregated into mountainous heaps rowling tonanti voce ships are jetted up unto the heavens and this is matter of wonderment Yonder is a wave a coming sayes the Sea-man that will bee with us by and by yea and break in upon us and in it comes over the ships waste and when that is over yonder is another a coming that will rowl over our Poops and Lanthorns and when delivered from that a while they sail and by and by rises another billow that threatens to run over the Main-yard arm which is four or six Fathom higher and above the ship insomuch that the Mariner is exceedingly affrighted lest that the ships decks should bee broke with that intolerable weight of water and also of being run down into the bottome But thus much shall serve for an account of those Works and Wonders that Sea-men do see in the Seas and so I proceed Vers 25. For hee commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof IN our handling of these words I will not stand upon that curious quaint and fine-spun division that might bee made of them beleeve mee the Sea will not permit it onely thus much I shall promise to give you all that this Scripture will afford us and that which is materially in it In the words then you have these two things 1. Gods Sovereign and Supreme power 2. The creatures ready and willing obedience The Seas like the Heliotrope or your solsequii flores Sun following flowers which stand constantly gazing and opening unto the Sun from whom they draw their life and nourishment even follow the blowing blustring winds if they be stiff and strong they make the Seas for to rage and roar For hee commandeth c. The particle for in this verse is used as a note of the effect or sign and in our common speech when wee would express our selves in something that others are either ignorant of or desirous to know we then take an occasion to proclaim it and say yonder 's ships in the Offin of the Sea for I see their white sails and yonder 's Guns fired to wind-ward for I see the smoak flying and ascending so that wee may read the word thus Because hee commandeth the winds to blow therefore is it that the waves are lifted up When the winds have blown hard in the remote parts of the Seas whether in the East West North or South the effects thereof are usually seen in far distant parts of the Seas that that storm never light upon for the winds disturb the Seas by blowing upon one part when they travel not
impower and commissionate for services of the bloodiest severity that may be as one of the worlds great wonders but it could not bee such was the fury of the fire and the rage of the Souldiers both of them undoubtedly set on by God so that the fire would not bee extinguished when they threw in both water and the blood of the slain into it Josephus tells us that Herod the King had for eight years together before the ruine of it imployed ten thousand men at work to beautifie it This was a very glorious thing yet how quickly brought down for the sinfulness of a people 1 Cor. 10.11 Now if these things came upon them for sin and security my application is this in short to you that use the Seas Take heed that your sins bring not storms shipwracks and fires upon you when you are in the Seas far from any land If you ask the reason why such a famous City was destroyed the answer is easily returned It was for sin And if you ask what is the reason of such and such Towns and Cities in the world have been fired the answer will bee That sin was the cause of it and so consequently of the ruine of all your ships 2. Because God will shew his power Reason 2 and let nothing-man know what a bubble a flower a helpless creature man is in the hands of his Maker Matth. 8.24 And behold there arose a great tempest in the Sea insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves but hee was asleep and his Disciples came to him and awoke him saying Lord save us wee perish Proud man is very prone to ascribe that to himself which is absolutely and properly due unto the Lord Proud man is oftentimes priding of himself with high thoughts of himself what he is in point of wisdome parts art and skill but when God puts him to the trial hee is a meer nothing Bulla vitrum glacies flos fabula faeuum Vmbra Cinis punctum vo◠sonus aura nihil and therefore God would undoubtedly teach man thus much in storms that there is no wisdome art skill or strength can carry him out of his dangers but it must be God alone that must do it for them But many Sea-men are like to Aprogis that Egyptian Tyrant in many of their storms and dangers of whom it is said that hee was grown to such an height of pride and impiety and contempt of God that hee professed that hee held his Kingdome so safe Ut à nemine Deorum aut hominum sibi eripi possit Behold what a weakling the Sailor is in a storm Isa 33.23 Thy tacklings are loosed they could not well strengthen their Mast they could not spread the sail that neither God nor men could take it from him but hath not God let you see an end of your vain thoughts and imaginations many and many a time and have you not run upon sands when you have purposed to come well home and have you not at other times run on rocks and gone into the very bottome amongst the dead when you have both confidently thought and said you would come safely to your Ports God oftentimes sufficiently convinces you what you are in your own strength and wisdome without him But to proceed 3. Because God would have some Reason 3 humbled God was forced to send a storm after Jonah before hee could get him to buckle to his work Jon. 2.1 Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the Fishes belly Nulli rei natus es nauta nisi paenitentiae Sailor thou and every one is born for no other thing but for repenrance and the Lord knows there is none in the world or under the whole heavens that repents less than thou doest Rugged storms will both dissolve men and cause their eyes to run down in rivulets of tears yea it is an argument of a good heart to bee afraid of Gods righteous judgements when the stormy winds are out upon the Seas Good people look upon them as no other but the sword of the Lord that is drawn out of the Scabberd of his indignation which hee waves to and again over and upon the face of the great deeps which puts them upon begging and praying upon the bended knees of their hearts that God would put it up again 4. Because God would have some Reason 4 converted It is very probable and apparent Jonah 1.16 that that storm that came down upon the Mariners proved their conversion Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows Now they feared God whom they never owned knew nor feared before Storms have been the first converting Sermons that many a man ever met withall Yea God hath met with them in a storm Truly God is forced to do and deal with Sea-men many times as Land-men do with unruly Jades and unbacked horses when they have a minde to take them they must drive them up against some hedge gate or bank where they can neither get forwards nor backwards or else they can never halter them If God do not send down rowsing storms upon the Sailors heads that even threaten to rend both heaven and earth I fear they wil I never return nor come home to God whom a Sermon out of the Pulpit could never take nor reach I many have been caught in a storm that have stood at as great a distance and in as much opposition to God and his word as Ataliba that Indian Prince once did to Fryar Vincents book which hee presented to him withall telling him that it was a small Treatise of all the mysteries of salvation heaven and hell hee looked upon it and told the Gentleman that hee saw no such thing in it asking him withall how hee knew it Many who have heard the word and have said in effect they saw no such matter in it as the Preacher tells them of have been taken napping in a storm God sometimes takes here one and there one napping in a storm that could never bee catched in a calm The word converts but few at Sea but a dreadful storm may fetch in them whom a Sermon could not reach All ground is not alike some must have a shower some a clodding neither is all wood to be used alike some will plain and other some must be taken in the head with wedge and beetle Truly one would think that one of those fearful and most dreadful storms that fall now and then upon the Seas were and should bee sufficient to turn the heathenest Sailor that is in them into a very good and gracious Christian Quaedam fulmina aes ac ferrum liquefaciunt Some Thunders will soften both Brass and Iron and that is an hard heart surely that is not melted and converted before the Lord in those loud thundring claps of storm and tempest Reason 5 5. Because Sinners Swearers and Drunkards are in ships It is nothing but the
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
in this verse as the Taches and Loops were amongst the Curtains of the Tabernacle The Taches put into the Loops did couple the Curtains of the Tent and sew the Tent together that it might be one Exod. 26.10 11. So doth this very particle couple with the other phrase In the words you have these two things 1. An act of mercy 2. An object of misery And hee brings them out of their distresses Here is transcendent mercy shewed to them that are oftentimes drowned and plunged into irrecoverable misery There is nothing difficult in the words but the view of them is very obvious unto the meanest capacity that is Observ 1 That God loves not to give deliverance till it bee welcome Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and he bringeth them out of distresses When the ship is upon the sand rapping and knocking as if at every blow shee takes upon the ground would make her flye into a thousand peeces then and not till then comes deliverance Act. 27.44 And the rest some on boards and some on broken peeces of the ship and so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land When the ship is half full of water with dangerous leaks then and not till then doth the Lord many times appear for them by sending some ship or other into their sight unto which they will make and thereby miraculously they are delivered from drowning by flying out of theirs into that When the ship that Christ and his Disciples were imbarked in was covered all over with waves then and not till then did Christ appear to abate and asswage the storm even but then when there was in the very eye of reason little or no possibility of being saved When Israels Bricks were doubled then and not till then was Moses sent and this is Gods usual time and method to deliver when there is no visible helps or hopes within sight for deliverance 1. Because mercy will not be valued if men should not be thus dreadfully put to it The sound man cryes puff Reasons a fig for the Physitian the Souldier a rush for his enemy when in a strong hold and so the Mariner a straw for storms when in a good harbor but when in the hazards of their lives the mercy then is highly prized 2. Because God would have the glory of his power wisdome and free goodness clearly beheld Act. 27.30 31. And as the ship-men were about to flee out of the ship when they had let down the boat into the Sea under colour as though they would have cast Anchors out of the fore-ship Paul said to the Centurion and to the Souldiers Except these abide in the ship yee cannot bee saved God is tender of his glory power wisdome and honor he would have it seen by the eyes of men 3. Because hee will have the tribute of praise out of every salvation and this is one reason why mercy and deliverance is so oftentimes delayed in the Seas Observ 2 That God in his providence hath a special hand a seeing eye and a prudent care in and over all his creatures for good And hee bringeth them out of their distresses Psal 104.10.21 Psal 107.6 Beasts of the field Fowls of the air Fish in the Sea and all crawling and creeping things upon the face of the earth are preserved and cared for by him If God stept not out of heaven may I so speak to fetch poor souls out of the griping talons of the stormy Seas where no succour and relief can come unto them from the land except it come out of heaven When God would express the tenderness of his love and care to to his people he makes it out by naming the very tenderest part that is in the body Zach. 2.8 Every little thing you know will offend the eye that which wee call the eyes Apple Philosophers call the Chrystalline humour Isbon in Hebrew Ish in Latine Pupilla of pupa because within there is the pretty resemblance of man or otherwise because man is prized and preferred before and above all the creatures besides Heb. 13.5 the Seas and the winds would tear them and their ships to peeces They would soon take down the proudest high decked ships that ever came upon the Seas if God watched not over them both by night and by day How soon would the Sea drink them up even as that great water-drinking Behemoth in Job 33. who drinks up a River I could abundantly inlarge my self in and upon this point but it is such tedious writing in the Sea that I shall bee short and give you in a few inductions to the bargain 1. I would have Sea-men to minde how undeservedly God is with them in their distresses even many wayes A gracious soul spoke on this wise when in a storm and tempestuous night Surely I shall not perish there be so many stars eyes of providence over my head because it was a bright and clear night one while strengthening of you and another while comforting of you Act. 27.22 And now I exhort you to bee of good cheer for there shall bee no loss of any mans life among you but of the ship This was the Apostles experience This was Davids experience Psal 23.4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with mee thy rod and thy staffe they comfort mee 2. Minde how God doth deliver you out of storms and also the manner and means thereof and the very nick of time that God appears for you and works it in All which circumstances well heeded and observed will make your Sea-deliverances the more wonderfully Sea-men may well say of their deliverances as Moses said of the burning Bush Exod. 3.3 I will now turn aside and see this great sight Ah turn about souls and look with a thankful eye upon all your preservations and the more marvellously glorious in your eyes Paul was a great observer of the deliverance that hee and those that sailed with him partaked oâ— Act. 27.44 And the rest some on boards and some on broken peeces of the ship and so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land Call to minde the times when you were shipwracked in Italy Spain or France c. and observe the manner of your deliverances 3. Minde how God delayes and defers sometimes to abate violent storms and to deliver you till that your wills bee conquered into a conformable contentment and obedience unto Gods will to bee delivered or not delivered This was Peters experience Matth. 14.30 31. that Christ reached him not his hand till he was a sinking And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him This was Abrahams experience Gen. 22.12 13 14. That God was not seen but in the Mount and Isaac was not delivered from being made a sacrifice of till the knife was at his throat Have you not found it many times that
Omnium possessionum pretiosissimum esse amicum fide Corda bonorum aliquando concussa melius solidantur The hearts of good men are best setled after they have been well shaken with a dreadful storm the fitter to serve God prudentia praestantem Great kindnesses Sirs are greatly to be regarded and serious things ought to bee seriously minded Ah Sirs be affected with what God does and has done for you 2. Make a profitable use of all your deliverances for your own good 1. For Obedience Sirs I wish you all that use the Seas when in violent blustring storms a bottle of the Queen of Thebes rich Nepenthe which she upon a time sent to a great Graecian beauty incomparable Lady of the world by name Helena the vertue of which was such that it would over-power all griefs sorrows troubles fears cares and dangers and make one cheerful though never so miserable If you want this at Sea you have a good God that is all this and much more 2. For Comfort 3. For Holiness 1. For confidence in God in the time of storms and dangers Former Experiences of Gods deliverings of you should sinnew and strengthen future confidence in God it was so with David 1 Sam. 17.37 The Lord that delivered mee out of the paw of the Lion and out of the paw of the Bear hee will deliver mee out of the hand of this Philistin Conclude Hee that preserved mee in the last storm and carried mee out of those perils that beset mee about on every side will do so still 2 Cor. 1.10 Who deliverd us from so great a death and doth deliver in whom wee trust that hee will yet deliver us 2. For comfort in bitter storms and heart-striking blasts evermore compare your present condition but with the former and that will make it the more comportable and fordable unto thee hast thou not been in the same or in the like or in as great or greater yet God comforted thee and bore thee out of it and is not this God the same God still yesterday to day and for ever his arm is not shortened Canst thou not Nay dost thou not experience that God has been with thee in six troubles and also in seven No better refuge in the world It was a good saving of one when in a dreadful storm at Sea quoth he I shall not certainly perish there be so many eyes of Providence over my head meaning the Stars in the night than to flye to the strong Tower of a good old Experience in the time of distress Psal 143.4 5. When David was in a great storm in his Kingdom hee flies to experience I remember the dayes of old I remember what thou didst formerly And here hee cast anchor and found much comfort 3. For holiness your daily summerly and winterly experiences of your hardships and difficulties in the Seas should bee carefully spiritualized and improved to the amendment of your hearts and lives 3. And lastly for the good of others bring out your experiences and delivering-delivering-mercies upon the Seas and set that savoury dish upon the table for pious gracious and tender hearts to feed on It is reported that sorrow and pleasure and pleasure and sorrow were at strife and variance one with the other insomuch that Jupiter was sent for from Heaven to come and reconcile them and seeing that neither of them would yeeld to one another in respect they referred themselves to Jupiters arbitration quoth he since this is your resolution you shall for ever hereafter go together You have not all hony in your imployments It is reported of a ship that shee spoke on this wise in the commendation of one that had been instrumental to carry her well out of a dangerous place in the Sea which was full of rocks and sands in a dark night Nauta bonus qui manum ad clavum oculos ad astra habet My Helmsman kept one eye upon the Stars and another upon the Card and thereby I escaped And will not you bring forth your experiences Ah Sirs in this case you are too much like Joshuahs Sun that stood still or Hezekias Sun that went backward whereas you should bee as Davids Sun that rejoyceth as a Giant to run his race and turns not again till hee hath finished it I would have Sea-men in this case to resemble that sort of Fish in the Sea that is called an Aspidochelon which is a Sea-monster and when hee opens his mouth there issues out such an aromatick savour that all the by-standing spectators are allured to swim near unto him whereupon hee makes a prey of them Ah Sirs I would have your mouthes to pour out the sweet aromatick perfumes of the Lords deliverances of you in the Seas even in all companies and societies you converse with Ah! you might very much ravish the hearts of all that should hear you would you but undertake to bring forth your Sea-experiences how might you set your souls on a burning flame and heat of love unto your God again Your experiences at Sea are not like Numa Pompilius's feast where there were spectandae dapes non gustandae But every one that hath a gracious frame of spirit may relish them Ah Sirs May not you say to all that know you Deut. 3.24 Oh Lord thou hast began to shew thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand for what God is there in heaven or in earth that can do according to thy works and according to thy might you do not think what good you might do in this case People that live on land will bee glad to hear them 4. I could wish that all our Sea-men would put all their experiences of Gods delivering-delivering-mercies into a method 1. Consider the greatness of them both for number and measure how many deliverances and mercies God hath given and doth give unto you hee even gives unto you whole loads Psal 68.19 Blessed bee the Lord who daily loadeth us with his benefits even the God of our salvation Selah When God had done great things for Israel as hee hath done for you that go in the Seas hee bad them 1 Sam. 12.14 Consider what God had done for them The word comes of Con and Sydus which signifies a company of Stars and not one bare simple Stella denoting that many give more lustre than one shewing thereby that it is not a transient view of Gods mercies that do affect the heart I may say of your perilous imployment as one sayes of Teneriff they that will go to the top of it must go by night and not by day for as soon as the day begins once to break and come upon the world it is high time to be gone lest that the tenuity of the air as is supposed should dissolve suffocate and stifle their spirits You get your living as if you stole it This is your Proverb as a man that rides Post cannot well make a true Map of a Country
upon them but they are neither affected with them nor one jot the better for them Beleeve it this is a foul blot in the Sailors Scutchion Gods kindnesses and your amendment should alwayes go together yet I do confess that both the back and also the bones may bee broken in many a man and yet the heart bee too whole and unbroken Ahaaz sinned the more hee was punished Plentiful showers leave both Heaths Forrests and wilderness places unfruitful The generality of Sea-men are not unlike to Pharaohs seven ill favoured Kine which eat up the well-favoured tag and rag and although every one in the dream eat up a whole Cow a peece yet looked they still as leanly and as ill favouredly on it as they did before You devour the Lords mercies in the Seas and are not bettered by them but look as ill favouredly on it as ever you did Nine Plagues would not prevail with Pharaoh What do you think then how many storms will with Sailors 2 Chron. 28.22 And Sea-men swear and tear more when Gods judgements fall upon them in the Seas than they did before insomuch that all good people that live in the ships with them may even say as the Voyce that was heard in the Temple of Jerusalem a little before the destruction of it Migremus hinc Migremus hinc Migremus hinc Let us bee gone or else wee shall have the ships fired from heaven about our ears there is such swearing and cursing in them May I not say of such that they are able to scare all that are ought out of ships What Monica Austins mother said in one case I may say to the godly that go to Sea amongst prophane wretches Quid hic faciemus cur non ocyus migramus cur non hinc avolamus What do wee here in the Sea why depart wee not out of it why make wee no more haste from it A word or two to you Gentlemen and that of Terrour 1. It is an argument of extream hardness and naughtiness of heart not to be wrought on by storms 2. When storms work not upon men I pray God it bee not a dreadful sign of their reprobation and of Gods utter renouncing of them It is a black sign certainly of Gods displeasure when judgements better not a people 3. Such as are not bettered by storms they are very near to a curse Gentlemen If you will abuse your Sea-deliverances to serve your lusts swear whore drab and drink God will rain hell out of heaven upon you rather than not visit you for such sins Salvian Heb. 6.7 8. What will become of you Sirs you that have all means of reformation the Lords mercies and deliverances in the Seas judgements strive with you and mercies have attempted to allure you storms have called upon you and have been as Ambassadors sent from heaven to bid you amend and turn holy and yet all will not do do you think that God will strive with you long Is not that man in a sad and fearful case think you when all means leaves him meat nourishes not physick works not Ingentia beneficia flagitia supplicia good turns will aggravate the Sea-mans unkindnesses nor the Patient sleeps not all give him up for a gone man Let mee tell you that if you grow not better you are at the very next door to bee cursed Abused sea-Sea-mercies will bring upon you sure certain speedy ponderous and inevitable judgements Quaento gradus altior tanto casus gravior the higher Sea-man thou art in mercy Nay others shall sport in hell when you shall fry in it the more grievous will bee thy fall and misery for thy abusing of it If Babylon bee destroyed shee may thank her self for it her pride If Sodome bee destroyed and burned into ashes shee may thank her wantonness for it If Jerusalem bee inhabited by Turks and Infidels Deus noluit punire ipsi extorquent ut pereant God takes no delight in the shipwracking of Sailors but they wrest judgements perforce out of his hands shee may thank her infidelity and Idolatry for it If woe bee to Capernaum and Bethsaida they may thank their contempt of the Gospel If ships bee destroyed in storms they may thank their abuse of Gods mercies to them in the Seas Mutet ergo vitam qui vult accipere vitam Let him turn to God betimes that would have God to favour him in the time of need I know that many a Sea-man will not bee born down but that hee is very godly It is true God in his judgements upon the Seas oftentimes remembers mercy But he will not do so alwayes and he abuses not the Lords mercies either to swearing or drinking but behold I have obeyed God as Saul said 1 Sam. 15.14 If thou hast done so then what means this bleating of the Sheep and the lowing of the Oxen in mine ears so that the bleating of the Sheep and the lowing of the Oxen proclaimed Saul a disobedient person If you will say that you have given God thanks and that you fear him and love him for all that hee hath done for you then what means the crying of the sands against you after you escaped off them And if you will say that you have not abused your Sea-mercies what then means the crying of the Rocks which you escaped in the Seas against you And what means the loud cryes of the winds and Seas which God hath delivered you from Give mee leave to lay down a few serious considerations and I will shortly and succinctly winde up my discourse and bid farewel unto you The Lord is merciful as it is said of Octavius Vtinam nescirem literas would I knew not my letters when he was put upon the assigning of a mans death God will not alwayes be so When Bacchus turned himself into a Lion he made all the Mariners in the ship leap overboard What think you of God then It was the language of a ship in a storm when ready to perish O crudelem Oceanum O volucrem fortunam O Caecos Nautas O praeposteros viros You may bless God that it hath not been so with you 1. Consider that you are mercied so as none are mercied and will you that live every day upon mercy bee no better for mercy 2 Consider that none are so near to death every day as you are there is but a three or four Inch plank betwixt you and death and will not you grow better 3. Consider that your sins go nearer to the heart of God than others do 4. Consider that the sin of swearing is a very unbeseeming thing in Sea-mens mouths in respect they live upon mercy 5. How unbeseeming Sea-men is the sin of drunkenness you live upon mercy and are Gods Hospitals in the Seas hee looks after you 6. Consider that more depends upon you than doth upon others that lies upon your backs look how you will discharge your selves than doth upon others The
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