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NAVIGATION

SPIRITUALIZED:

Or, A NEW COMPASS for SEAMEN,

Of

Confifting of XXXII. POINTS;

Pleasant OBSERVATIONS,
Profitable APPLICATIONS, and
Serious REFLECTIONS.

All concluded with so many Spiritual POEM S.

What good might feamen get, if once they were
But heavenly minded? If they could but steer
The Chriftian's course, the foul might then enjoy
Sweet peace, they might like feas o'erflow with joy.
Were God our all, how would our comforts double
Upon us! thus the feas of all our trouble
Would be divinely fweet: men should endeavour
To fee God now, and be with him for ever.

To all Mafters, Mariners, and Seamen; especially fuch as belong to the Borough of Clifton, Dartmouth, and Hardness, in the county of Devon.

I

SIRS,

Find it ftoried of Anacharfis, that when one asked him whether the living or the dead were more? He returned this answer, You must first tell me (faith he) in which num⚫ber I must place feamen: Intimating thereby, that seamen are, as it were, a third fort of perfons, to be numbered neither with the living nor the dead; their lives hanging continually in fufpenfe before them. And it was anciently accounted the moft defperate employment, and they little better than loft men that used the seas. Through all my life (faith Aristotle) three things do especially repent me: 1. That ever I revealed a fecret to a woman. 2. That ever I remained one day without a will, 3. That ever I went to any place by fea, whither

I might have gone by land.' Nothing (faith another) is • more miserable, than to fee a virtuous and worthy perfon upon the fea.' And although custom, and the great improvement of the art of navigation, have made it lefs formida ble now, yet are you no further from death than you are from the waters, which is but a remove of two or three inches. Now you that border fo nigh upon the confines of death and eternity every moment, may be well supposed to be men of fingular piety and seriousness: For nothing more compofes the heart to fuch a frame, than the lively apprehenfions of eternity do; and none have greater external advantages for that, than you have. But, alas ! for the generality, what fort of men are more ungodly, and stupidly infenfible of eternal concernments? living, for the most part, as if they had made a covenant with death, and with hell were at agreement. It was an ancient saying, Qui nefcit orare, difcat navigare, He that knows not how to pray, let him go to fea. But we may fay now, (alas! that we may fay fo in times of greater light) he that would learn to be profane, to drink and fwear, and difhonour God, let him go to fea. As for prayer, it is a rare thing among feamen, they count that a needlefs business: they see the profane and vile delivered as well as others; and therefore, what profit is there if they pray unto him? Mal. iii. 4. As I remember, I have read of a profane foldier, who was heard fwearing, though he flood in a place of great danger; and when one that stood by him warned him, faying, Fellow-foldier, do not fwear, the bullets fly;' he anfwered, They that fwear come off as well as they that pray.' Soon after a shot hit him, and down he fell. Plato diligently admonished all men to avoid the fea; For (faith he) it is the fchoolmaster of all vice and difhonefty.' Sirs! it is a very fad confideration to me, that you who float upon the great deeps, in whose bottom so many thousand poor miferable creatures lie, whofe fins have funk them down, not only into the bottom of the fea, but of hell alfo, whither divine vengeance hath purfued them; That you, I fay, who daily float, and hover over them, and have the roaring waves and billows that fwallowed them up, gaping for you as the next prey, should be no more affect ed with thefe things. Oh what a terrible voice doth God utter in the storms! "It breaks the cedars, shakes the wilder-` "ness, makes the hinds to calve," Pfal. xxix. 5. And can it not shake your hearts? This voice of the Lord is full of majefty, but his voice in the word is more efficacious and powerful, Heb. iv. 12. to convince and rip up the heart. This word is exalted above all his name, Pfalm cxxxviii. 3. and if

it cannot awaken you, it is no wonder you remain secure and dead, when the Lord utters his voice in the moft dreadful forms and tempefts. But if neither the voice of God uttered in his dreadful works, or in his glorious gospel, can effectually awaken and rouze, there is an Euroclydon, a fearful storm coming, which will fo awaken your fouls, as that they shall never fleep any more, Pfal. xi. 6. "Upon the wicked he fhall "rain fnares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempeft: "This is the portion of their cup." You that have been at fea in the most violent storms, never felt such a storm as this, and the Lord grant you never may; no calm fhall follow this ftorm. There are fome among you, that, I am perfuaded, do truly fear that God in whose hand their life and breath is; men that fear an oath, and are an honour to their profeffion; who drive a trade for heaven, and are diligent to secure the happiness of their immortal fouls, in the infurance-office above; but for the generality, alas! they mind none of these things. How many of you are coafting to and fro, from one country to another? But never think of that heavenly country above, nor how you may get the merchandize thereof, which is better than the gold of Ophir. How oft do you tremble to see the foaming waves dance about you, and wash over you? Yet confider not how terrible it will be to have all the waves and billows of God's wrath to go over your fouls, and that for ever. How glad are you after you have been long toffed upon the ocean, to defcry land? And how yare and eagerly do you look out for it, who yet never had your hearts warmed with the confideration of that joy which fhall be among the faints, when they arrive at the heavenly rand, and fet foot upon the fhore of glory.

O Sirs! I beg of you, if you have any regard to thofe precious, immortal fouls of yours, which are also imbarked for eternity, whither all winds blow them, and will quickly be at their port of heaven or hell, that you will feriously mhind these things, and learn to fteer your courfe to heaven, and improve all winds (I mean opportunities and means) to waft you thither.

Here you venture life and liberty, run through many difficulties and dangers, and all to compass a perishing treasure; yet how often do you return disappointed in your defign? Or if not, yet it is but a fading fhort-lived inheritance, which like the flowing tide, for a while, covers the fhore, and then returns, and leaves it naked and dry again: and are not everlasting treasures worth venturing for? Good fouls be wife for eternity: I here prefent you with the fruit of a few spare hours, redeemed for your fakes, from my other ftudies and employ

ments, which I have put into a new dress and mode. I have endeavoured to cloath spiritual matters in your own dialect and phrases, that they might be the more intelligible to you; and added fome pious poems, with which the feveral chapters are concluded, trying by all means to affault your feveral affections, and as the apostle speaks, "to catch you with guile." I can fay nothing of it; I know it cannot be without its manifold imperfections, fince I am confcious of fo many in myfelf; only this I will adventure to fay of it, that how defective or empty foever it be in other refpects, yet it is stuffed and filled with much true love to, and earnest defires after the falvation and profperity of your fouls. And for the other defects that attend it, I have only two things to offer, in way of excufe; it is the first effay that I ever made in this kind, wherein I find no precedent: and it was haftned for your fakes, too foon out of my hands, that it might be ready to wait upon you, when you undertake your next voyage: fo that I could not revife and polifh it. Nor indeed was I folicitous about the ftile; I confider, I write not for critical and learned perfons; my design is not to please your fancies any further, than I might thereby get advantage to profit your fouls. I will not once queftion your welcome reception of it: if God fhall blefs these meditations to the converfion of any among you, you will be the gainers, and my heart shall rejoice, even mine. How comfortably fhould we fhake hands with you, when you go abroad, were we perfuaded your fouls were interested in Chrift, and fecured from perifhing, in the new covenant? What life would it put into our prayers for you, when you are abroad, to confider that Jefus Chrift is interceding for you in heaven, whilft we are your remembrancers here on earth? How quiet would our hearts be, when you are abroad in storms, did we know you had a special intereft in him whom winds and feas obey? To conclude, what joy would it be to your godly relations, to see you return new creatures? Doubtless more than if you came home laden with the riches of both Indies.

Come, Sirs! fet the heavenly Jerufalem upon the point of your new compass; make all the fail you can for it; and the Lord give you a profperous gale, and a safe arrival in that land

of reft.

So prays

Your most affectionate friend to ferve

you in foul concernments,

JOHN FLAVE!

To every SEAMAN failing Heaven-ward.

Ingenious Seaman,

THE art of navigation, by which iffands efpecially are enriched, and preferved in fafety from foreign invafions; and the wonderful works of God in the great deep, and foreign nations, are moft delightfully and fully beheld, &c. is an art of exquifite excellency, ingenuity, rarity, and mirability : but the art of fpiritual navigation is the art of arts. It is a gallant thing to be able to carry a fhip richly laden round the world; but it is much more gallant to carry a foul (that rich loading, a pearl of more worth than all the merchandize of the world) in a body (that is as liable to leaks and bruises as any fhip is) through the fea of this world (which is as unstable as water, and hath the fame brinifh tafte and falt guft which the waters of the fea have) safe to heaven (the best haven) so as to avoid fplitting upon any foul-finking rocks, or ftriking upon any foul-drowning fands. The art of natural navigation is a very great myftery; but the art of fpiritual navigation is by much a greater myftery. Human wifdom may teach us to carry a fhip to the Indies; but the wisdom only that is from above can teach us to fteer our course aright to the haven of happiness. This art is purely of divine revelation. The Fruth is, divinity (the doctrine of living to God) is nothing elfe but the art of foul-navigation, revealed from heaven. A mere man can carry a ship to any defired port in all the world, but no mere man can carry a foul to heaven. He must be a faint, he must be a divine (fo all faints are) that can be a pilot to carry à foul to the fair haven in Emanuel's land. The art of natural navigation is wonderfully improved fince the coming of Chrift, Before which time (if there be truth in hiftory) the use of the loadfone was never known in the world; and before the vir tue of that was revealed unto the mariner, it is unfpeakable with what uncertain wanderings feamen floated here and there, rather than failed the right and direct way. Sure I am, the art of fpiritual navigation is wonderfully improved fince the coming of Chrift; it oweth its clearest and fullest discovery to the coming of Chrift. This art of arts is now perfectly revealed in the fcriptures of the old and new teftament; but the rules thereof are difperfed up and down therein. The collecting and methodizing of the fame cannot but be a work very useful unto fouls: though, when all is done, there is an abfolute neceflity of

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