NAVIGATION SPIRITUALIZED.

BY

THE REV. JOHN FLAVEL.

ABRIDGED BY THE REV. C. BRADLEY.

CHAPTER I.

The Launching of a Ship.

Observation.-No sooner is a ship built, launched, rigged, victualled, and manned, than she is presently sent out into the boisterous ocean, where she is never at rest, but continually fluctuating, tossing, and laboring, until she is either overwhelmed and wrecked, or, through age, grows leaky and unserviceable, and so is knocked to pieces.

Application. No sooner come we into the world as men or as Christians, by a natural or supernatural birth, than we are thus tossed upon a sea of troubles. "Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards." The spark no sooner comes out of the fire, than it flies up naturally; it needs not any external force, help, or guidance, but ascends from a principle in itself; so naturally, so easily does trouble rise out of sin. There is radically all the misery, anguish, and trouble in the world in our corrupt natures. As the spark lies close hid in the coals, so Div. No. XVII.

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does misery in sin; every sin draws a rod after it. And these sorrows and troubles fall not only on the body, in those breaches, deformities, pains, aches, diseases, to which it is subject, which are but the groans of dying nature, and its crumbling by degrees into dust again; but they fall also on all our employments and callings; Gen. iii. 17. These are full of pain, trouble, and disappointment; Hag. i. 6. We earn wages, and put it into a bag with holes, and disquiet ourselves in vain. All relations too have their burdens, as well as their comforts. It were endless to enumerate the sorrows of this kind; and yet the troubles of the body are but the body of our troubles; the spirit of the curse falls upon the spiritual and noblest part of man. The soul and body, like Ezekiel's roll, are written full with sorrows, both within and without; so that we may make the same report of our lives, when we come to die, that old Jacob made before Pharaoh, "Few and evil have the days of the years of our lives been." "For what hath man of all his labor, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath labored under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh no rest in the night. This also is vanity." Eccl. ii. 22.

Neither does our new birth free us from troubles, though then they are sanctified, sweetened, and turned into blessings. We put not off the human, when we put on the divine, nature; nor are we then freed from the sense, though we are delivered from the sting and curse, of them. Grace does not presently pluck out all those arrows that sin has shot into the sides of nature. “When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side: without were fightings, and within were fears," 2 Cor. vii. 5. "These are

they that come out of great tribulations," Rev. vii. 14. Paul and Barnabas acquainted their new converts, that "through much tribulation they must enter into the kingdom of God." We find the state of the church, in this world, set out by the similitude of a distressed ship at sea; "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not comforted;" tossed, as Jonah's ship was, for the same word is used in both places; tossed, as a vessel at

sea, violently driven without rudder, mast, sail, or tackling. Nor are we to expect freedom from these troubles, until harboured in heaven. O what long catalogues of experiences do the saints carry to heaven with them, of their various exercises, dangers, trials, and marvellous preservations and deliverances out of all! And yet all these troubles without, are nothing to those within them, from temptations, corruptions, desertions. Besides their own, there come daily upon them the troubles of others; many rivulets fall into this channel, and fill, yea, often overflow the bank. 66 Many are the afflictions of the

righteous."

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Reflection. Hence should the graceless heart thus reflect upon itself-O. my soul, into what a sea of troubles art thou launched forth! and what a sad case art thou in! full of trouble, and full of sin; and these mutually producing each other! And that which is the most dreadful consideration of all, is, that I cannot see the end of them. As for the saints, they suffer in the world as well as I; but it is but for a while, and then they suffer no more, "all tears shall be wiped away from their eyes;" but my troubles are but the beginnings of sorrows. continue as I am, I shall but deceive myself, if I conclude I shall be happy in the other world, because I have met with so much sorrow in this; for I read, that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, though consumed to ashes, with all their estates and relations, (a sorer temporal judgment than ever yet befel me) continue still in "everlasting chains, under darkness, in which they are reserved unto the judgment of the great day." These troubles of the saints are sanctified to them, but mine are fruits of the curse. They have spiritual consolations to balance them, which flow into their souls in the same height and degree, as troubles do upon their bodies ; but I am a stranger to their comforts, and "intermeddle not with their joys." If their hearts be surcharged with trouble, they have a God to go to; and when they have opened their cause before him, they are eased, comforted, and their countenance is no more sad;" but I have no interest in, nor acquaintance with this God, nor can I pray unto him in the Spirit. My griefs are shut up like.

fire in my bosom, which preys upon my spirit. This is my sorrow, and I alone must bear it. O my soul, look round about thee. What a miserable case art thou in! Rest no longer satisfied in it, but look out for a Saviour. What, though I am a vile, unworthy wretch ? yet he promises to love freely, and invites such as are heavy laden to him.

Hence also should the gracious soul reflect sweetly upon itself after this manner-And is the world so full of trouble? O my soul, what cause hast thou to stand admiring at the indulgence and goodness of God to thee! Thou hast hitherto had a smooth passage, compared with what others have had. How has divine wisdom ordered my condition, and cast my lot! Have I been chastised with whips? others have been chastised with scorpions. Have I had no peace without? some have neither had peace without or within, but terrors round about. Or have I felt trouble in my flesh and spirit at once? they have not been extreme, either in time or measure. And has the world been a Sodom, an Egypt, to thee ? Why then dost thou thus linger in it, and hanker after it? Why do I not long to be gone, and sigh more heartily for deliverance? Why are the thoughts of my Lord's coming no sweeter to me, and the day of my full deliverance no more panted for? And why am I no more careful to maintain peace within, since there is so much trouble without? Is not this it that puts weight into all outward troubles, and makes them sinking, that they fall upon me when my spirit is dark or wounded?

CHAPTER II.

The Vastness of the Ocean.

Observation. The ocean is of vast extent and depth. It compasses the whole earth; and as for its depth, who can discover it? The sea in scripture is called "the deep," "the great deep," the gathering together of the waters into one place. If the largest mountain were cast into

it, it would appear no more than the head of a pin in a tun of water.

Application. This, in a lively manner, shadows forth the infinite and incomprehensible mercy of our God, whose mercy is said to be over all his works. In how many sweet ways is the mercy of God represented to us in the scripture! He is said to be "plenteous, abundant, rich in mercy." His mercies are "unsearchable;" "high as the heavens above the earth;" yea, they are not only compared to the heavens, but to "the depths of the sea,' Mic. vii. 19, which can swallow up mountains as well as mole-hills; and in this sea God has drowned sins of a dreadful height and aggravation. In this sea was the sin of Manasseh drowned; yea, in this ocean of mercy did the Lord drown and cover the sins of Paul, though a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious. How has mercy ridden in triumph, and been glorified on the vilest of men! How has it stopped the slanderous mouths of men and devils! To "fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners," to such has the sceptre of mercy been stretched forth, on their unfeigned repentance and submission; 1 Cor. vi. 9. In the vastness of the ocean, we have also a lively emblem of eternity. Who can comprehend or measure the ocean, but God? And who can comprehend eternity, but he that is said to inhabit it? Though shallow rivers may be drained and dried up, yet the ocean cannot. And though these transitory days, months, and years, will at last expire, yet eternity will not. O it is a long word! an amazing matter! What is eternity but a constant permanency of persons and things, in one and the same state and condition for ever; putting them beyond all possibility of change? The heathens were wont to shadow it by a circle, or a snake twisted round. It will be to all of us, either a perpetual day or night which cannot be measured by hours or minutes. And as it cannot be measured, so neither can it ever be diminished. When thousands of years are gone, there is not a minute less Suppose a bird were to come once in a thousand years to some vast mountain of sand, and carry away in her bill one grain in a thousand years, O what a

to come.