19.

in the great deep, and his footfteps are not known," Pfalm lxxvii.

Secondly, Sometimes they shall be caft upon a rock in the fea, where they fhall be preferved until fome other way of deliverance come; yea, preferved ftrangely, God bleffing a fmall matter of provifion which they faved to fuftain them; though they faid of it, as the widow of Sarepta to the prophet, 1 Kings xvii. 12. «I have but ❝an handful of meal, and a little oil, and I am gathering two sticks, "that I may go in and drefs it for me and my fon, that we may eat " it, and die Or if they could fave nothing, yet a few muscles or birds eggs, with God's bleffing, have fuftained them until the time of mercy come. This hath been the cafe of many. Think upon this you that abuse the good creatures of God by drunkenness: how fweet would a cup of fresh water be to you when reduced to such extremity? Oh! if your hearts be not harder than the rocks you lay upon, how would fuch extraordinary mercies melt you into love and thankfulness?

Thirdly, Sometimes they have been wafted to the fhore fafely upon the wreck, or by making a raft of the broken pieces of the fhip, and torn fails, and ropes; and upon this (God knows, a poor fecurity against the boisterous waves) have they ventured themselves: a finking man (as we fay) will catch at a bulruth. Paul, and thofe that fuffered fhipwreck with him, were thus faved; "The centurion com"manded, that they which could fwim, fhould caft themselves first "into the fea, and get to land; and the reft, fome on boards, and " fome on broken pieces of the fhip; and fo it came to pass that they "efcaped all fafe to land," Acts xxvii. 43, 44.

Oh, the miraculous works of the Lord! to fave by fuch contemptible and improbable means! Who can but with great joy fee and acknowledge the finger of God to be here? "Lo, thefe are parts of "his way; but how little a portion is heard of him?" Job xxvi. 14.

1. Ufe of reproof. If your prefervation in ftorms at fea, be the wonderful works of Divine Providence, then divers of you deserve to 7be fharply reproved from this truth. And I beseech you fuffer the word of reproof meekly and penitently. I fhall fpeak nothing to reproach you; no, it is not to reproach, but to reform you: and if you hate reproof, and mock at counfel, God may fhortly speak in fuch thundering language to your confciences, as will be terrible for you to bear. I remember, it is faid of St Bernard, That whilft he was feriously reproving the profaneness of one (and if I mifremember not, it was his own brother) who was a foldier, and observing how he flighted his holy and ferious counfel, his fpirit was greatly grieved at it, and he told him, Brother, God I fear, will thortly make way to your heart with a fword, to which my words can find no access? And the event foon verified the fad prediction. I pray God none of

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you may be taught by captivities and fhipwrecks what it is to reject faithful reproofs and wholefome counfel, feasonably given for your good. You that read these lines, feriously ask your own confciences thefe following queftions.

(1.) Have you not foon forgotten the works and wonders of the Lord, which your eyes have feen? It may be, for the prefent, you have been fenfibly affected with your danger, and the mercy of God in your deliverance, but hath it remained upon your hearts? I doubt thefe mercies have been written in the duft, which fhould have been engraven, as in the rock, for ever. Thus it was with Ifrael, a people that faw as many wonders wrought for them by the immediate finger of God, as ever did any people in the world and yet it is faid of them, even after the Red-fea deliverance, in which "God divided "the fea for them, when the waves thereof roared," Ifa. li. 15. and with which, for the prefent, their hearts were greatly affected; for it is faid, Pfalm cvi, 12. "That they believed his word, and fang his "praifes ;" but in the next verfe you read, that a little time easily wiped out the fenfe of this mercy; for it is faid, ver. 13. "They foon "forgat his works, and waited not for his counfels." I doubt this was not the fin of Ifrael only, but is the cafe of many of you at this day. Well, God did not forget you in the time of extremity, though you fo quickly forgot him. Think not to excuse yourselves from this guilt by faying, you do ftill remember the thing: you may do fo, and yet be faid to forget his mercy: for a deliverance may be remembered by him that received it two ways; namely, fpeculatively and affe ingly A fpeculative remembrance is only to call to mind the ftory of fuch a danger and preservation; this you may do, and yet God ac count himself forgotten, except you fo remember it as still to feel the powerful impreffions thereof upon your hearts, foftening and melting them into thankfulness, love, and dependence upon the God of your falvations.

the

(2.) Have you not walked very unanswerably to your deliverances, yea, and to the folemn engagements you made to God in the day of your diftrefs? I fear fome of you have walked after God hath rescued you by a wonderful immediate hand from the jaws of death, as if you had been delivered to do all these abominations. As it is Jer. vii. 10. It may be the last week or month you were reeling to and fro upon ftormy fea, and staggering like drunken men; and this, reeling and ftaggering along the ftreets really drunken. O horrid abomination! do ye thus requite the Lord, who pitied you in your diftrefs, and, being full of compaffion, faved you when you cried to him? Is this the fruit of your wonderful falvation? If a man should have told you in that day it would have been thus, you yourselves could not have believed it, but would have answered as Hazael did to the prophet, 2 Kings vii 13.What! is thy fervant a dog, that he should do fuch things?" Yet fo it was, and fo it is ftill: the Lord humble you for this great wickedness. If this be all the fruit of mercy and deliverance, it had

been better for you that you had gone down to the bottom then, rather than to live only to treafure up more wrath against the day of wrath, and fill up your measure.

(3.) Are there not a fort of atheistical feamen, who own not providence at all, either in the railing of thefe horrid tempefts, or in their marvellous preservation in them.! but look on all as coming in a natural way, and their escape to be only by good fortune and chance? How wonderful a thing is it in the eyes of all confidering men, that providence should take any notice of them in a way of favour, that fo wickedly difown it, and fo directly disoblige it? How can you poffibly fhut your eyes against such clear light, and ftop your ears against fuch loud and plain language, whereby the power and goodness of God proclaims itself to you in thefe providences! Ah! methinks you should most readily and thankfully subscribe that great truth, Pfalm lxviii. 20. "He that is our God is the God of falvation; and unto "God the Lord belong the iffues from death." But though men fee figns and wonders, they will not believe; yea, though they themfelves become wonders to the world by their miraculous deliverances, yet so brutish and stupid are they, that they will not fee the hand that faves them. Take heed what you do you fet yourselves in the direct way to deftruction by this, and highly provoke the Lord to abandon and caft you out of the care of his providence and if he once do fo, you are loft men.

(4.) And yet more vile (if more vileness can be in fin) than all this: is there not a generation of wretched men among you, that fall a fwearing, curfing, and blafpheming God, even when he is uttering his terrible voice in the tempeft, and every moment threatening to intomb them in the deep? When you should be upon your knees bewailing your fins, and pleading with God for mercy, (as I doubt not but fome of you do) to be yet more and more provoking him, daring him to his face; and yet more incenfing his indignation, which is already kindled against you; who, that hears this can chufe but admire the riches of God's patience and forbearance towards fuch men? The very heathen mariners in a storm called every man upon his god, Jonah i. 5. We fay, extremity will caufe the worst of men to pray, and compofe the vaineft fpirit unto ferioufnefs; but it feems by you-it will not. Is this the frame and temper you will meet death in? What! fpeaking the language of devils and damned fpirits before you come among them; haftening on your own ruin, as if it were too flack and lingering in its motion? The Lord open the eyes of thefe miferable creatures, and convince them, that they are not only going to hell as others are, but that they are the forlorn of all that wretched crew that are bound thither; and proportionably will be their mifery, except they repent.

2. Ufe of Exhortation. This point is yet farther improvable for you by way of exhortation, ferving to prefs you to those proper duties

which God calls you to by his terrible providential voice in the ftorms, and by your wonderful deliverances.

1. And the firft leffon you are to learn from hence is, To adore the power of God. O what a manifeftation of Divine power is here! you are the men that see more than others the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. It is one of God's ends in fhewing you these wonders, "To make his mighty power known," Pfal. cvi. 8. O what a terrible voice doth God utter upon the feas when the heavens are black above you, the furious winds and dreadful thunders rattling about you, the fea and waves roaring beneath you! Is not this voice of the Lord full of majefty? Doth it not awe your hearts, and make them treinble? In three things his infinite power is discovered to you.

Firft, In raising thefe terrible tempefts, and that from fo fmall and weak a beginning as a thin vapour from the earth is: this is the wonderful work of God, Pfalm cxxxv. 7. "He caufeth the vapours to "afcend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the ❝rain, he bringeth wind out of his treasures"

Secondly, In limiting and bounding their force and power: what prodigious effects elfe would follow: The wind is a fierce and boifterous creature, and would (if God did not by his providence restrain it) deftroy and overturn all, both by fea and land; or if Satan, who is ftiled The prince, or power of the air, were left at liberty to execute his malice by fuch an inftrument, not a fhip fhould crofs the feas, nor a house be safe at land; as is evident enough by the furious hafte he made to overturn the house with an horrible tempeft upon Job's children, as foon as he had received a permiffion from heaven to do it.

And, Thirdly, No lefs vifible is the power of God in calming and appeafing the stormy winds, and remanding them into his treasures, Pfalm cvii. 29. "He maketh the ftorm a calm." Yea, he doth fo in the very nick of time, when all is concluded loft. Thus you read in Mark iv. 39. "When the waves beat into the fhip," fo that it was now full, and the difciples cried unto the Lord, "Master, careft thou "not that we perith? He arofe and rebuked the wind, and faid to "the fea, Peace, be ftill; and the wind ceafed, and there was a great

calm." Just as one would hufh a child, Peace, be fill. O the fovereign power of God! how should it be reverenced and adored by all that behold it, in thefe marvellous effects of it?

2. The fecond leflon you are taught by this doctrine is, To admire the mercy of God. Mercy is no lefs difcovered than power; yea, the power of God is put forth to give his mercy a fair occafion to fhine forth in your deliverance. God fometimes permits your dangers to grow to an extremity, and delays your deliverances to the lait moment, till all hopes of fafety are gone, upon the like reafon that Lazarus's refurrection was deferred, that the work of God in your prefervation may commend itself to you under the greatest advantage.

O that you would view thefe mercies in all their endearing circum

frances! I can only hint your duty generally in this cafe ; you may enlarge upon it, if you have hearts fit for fuch a bleffed work. And mark particularly the multitudes of mercies that are complicated and involved in one deliverance. Obferve the feason when, the manner how, the means by which your falvation was wrought. It is a thoufand pities that fo much of God's glory and your comfort, as any one, even the smallest circumftance may contain, fhould ever be lost.

3. Laftly, And above all, See that ye anfaver God's ends in your deliverance: If those be loft, God may fay concerning you, as David did of Nabal, 1 Sam. xxv. 21. "Surely, in vain have I kept all that this "fellow hath in the wilderness; fo that nothing was miffed of all "that pertained to him; and he bath requited me evil for good." So here, in vain I kept this fellow upon the fea, when I fuffered others to fink; in vain have I preferved his life, liberty, and estate so often by an out-ftretched arm of power and mercy to him, feeing he requites me evil for good.

O let me intreat you to be careful to comply with the designs and ends of God in thefe your wonderful prefervations! If you enquire what God's ends or defigns in your deliverance are, I anfwer,

First, It is to lead you to repentance. "The goodness of God "(faith the apoftle) leadeth thee to repentance," Rom. ii. 4. Doft thou not know the voice of mercy? Why, it befpeaks thy return to God. It may be thou haft fpent all thy life, to this day, in the fervice of fin: Thou never redeemed ft one of all thy precious hours to confider thine own eftate, to bewail thy fin and mifery, to seek after an intereft in Chrift. Why, now here is a providence fallen in that doth, as it were, take thee by the hand, and lead thee to this great and neceffary work. The end of God in raising this ftorm was to deliver thee from the more dreadful tempeft of his wrath, which, without repentance, muft fhortly overtake thy foul in the blackness of darkness for ever. Now God hath awakened thy confcience by this fright, made it charge home thy fins upon thee, terrified thee with difmal apprehenfions of death and hell. Owhat a fair opportunity and advantage hath he now put into thy hand for repentance, reformation, and gaining an intereft in Jefus Chrift! If this season be lost, confcience fuffered again to fall into any dead fleep, and thy heart be again hardened by the deceitfulness of fin, thou mayeft never have fuch an opportunity for falvation opened to thee any more.

Secondly, If this end be answered, then a farther defign God hath in thy deliverance, is to engage and encourage thy foul to a dependence upon God in future ftraits and dangers. This is food for faith; and now you are furnished with experience of the power, mercy, and goodness of God, to enable you to rest yourselves upon him when new exigencies befal you. If God exercife you with fuch extremities another time, you may fay with the apoftle, 2 Cor. i. 10. "Who delivered us from fo great a death, and doth deliver; in "whom we truft, he will yet deliver us."