case with me alone and how sweetly hath it expostulated with me? How clearly hath it convinced of fin, danger, duty, with strong demonstration? How terrible hath it menaced my foul, and let the point of the threating at my very breaft? And yet my head-Atrong affections will not be remanded by iç. I have obeyed the voice of every lust and temptation, Tit. iii. 3. but conscience bath lost its apthority with me. Ah Lord ! what a fad condition am I in, both in respect of fio and misery? My fin receives dreadful aggravations, for rebellion and prefumption are hereby added to it. I have violated the ftrongest bonds that ever were laid upon a creature. If my conscience had not thus conviaced and warned, the lin had not been fo great and crimloo-coloured, Jam. iv. 17. Ah! this is to fin with a high hand, Numb xv. 30. to come near to the great and uopardonable transgression, Psalm xix. 13. O how dreadful a way of fioning is this, with opened eyes! and as my fia is thus out of measure finful, so my punithment will be out of meafure dreadfui, if I per filt in this rebellion. Lord! thou haft laid, Such fhall be beaten with many ftripes, Luke xii. 48. yea, Lord, and if ever my conscience, which by rebellion is now growa filent, should be in judgment awakened in this life; O! what an hell Thould I have within me ! how would it thon. der and roar upon me, and surround me with terrors? .

Thy word asfures me, that no length of time can wear out of its memory what I have done, Geo. xlii. 21. no violence of force cap fupprefs it, Mat. xxvii. 4. no greatness of power can Stifle it ; it will take the mightieft monarch by the throat, Exod. X. 16. Dao. v. 6. no music, pleafures, or delights, can charm it, Job. xx. 22. O conscience ! thou art the sweetest friend, or the dreadfulleft enemy in the world ; thy confolations are in. comparably sweet, and thy terrors insupportable. Ah ! let me stand it out no longer against conscience ; the very ship is which I fail, is a confutation of my madoels, that rash greedily joto fiæ against both season and confcience, and will not be commanded by it; furely, O my foul, this will be bitterness in the end.

The PO E M.
Ship of greatest burthen will obey

The rudder; he that fits at helm, may sway
And guide its motion : If the pilot please,
The ship bears up, against both wind and feas.
My soul's the ship, affections are its fails,
Conscicoce the rudder. Ah! but Lord, what ails

A

My daughty heart, to shuffle in and out,
When its convictions bid it tack about?
Temptations blow a counter blast, and drive
The veffel where they please, tho' conscience strive.
And by its strong persuasions it would force
My stubborn will to steer another course.
Lord, if I run this course, thy word doth tell
How quickly I must needs arrive at hell.
Theo rectify my conscience, change my will;
Fan in thy pleasant gales, my God, and fill
All my affections, and let nothing carry
My soul from its due course, or make it vary ;
Then if the pilot's work thou wouldst perform,
I should bear bravely up against a form.

1

W

Thro' many fears and dangers seamen run,
Yet all's forgotten when they do returna

OBSERVATION.
E have an elegant aod lively description of their fears

and dangers, Psal. cvii. 25, 26, 27. “He commandeth
" aod raiseth the stormy winds, which lifteth up the waves
" thereof; they mount up to heaven, they go down again to
" the depths; their foul is melted because of trouble ; they
" reel to and fro, they ftagger like a drunken man ; they are at
* their wits end." Or, as it is in the Hebrew, “ All wisdom
" is swallowed up." Suitable to which is that of the poet *

“ The Pilot knows not what to chuse, or flee ;

“ Art stands amaz'd in ambiguity."
O what a strange and miraculous deliverance have many fea-
men had? How often have they yielded themselves for dead
mea, and verily thought the next fea would have swallowed
them up? How earnestly then do they cry for mercy? and,
like the Corinthians, caó pray in a storm, though they regardı
it dot at other times, Psal. cvii. 28. Jogah i. 5, 61

APPLICATION.
These dreadful storms do at once discover to us the mighty

2

* Rector in incerto eft : nec quid fugiat petat

wi Invenit s ambiguis ars fuper ipfa malis. Ovid. K k 2

LJ

power of God in raising them, and the abundant goodaefs of God ia preferviog poor creatures in thein.

1. The power of God is graciously manifested in railing them; the wind is one of the Lord's wonders, Pfal. cvii. 24, 25. “They that go down to the sea, see the works of the “ Lord, and his (wonders] in the deep; for be commandeth. « and raifeth the stormy winds." Yea, ver. 18. God appropropriates it as a peculiar work of his ; “ He caufet, his [wind “ to blow.]”Hence he is faid, in Scripture, "s to briug them “ forth out of his treasury," Plal. cxxxvii. 7. there they are Jocked up, aod reserved, not a guft can break forth, will be command and call for it to go and execute bis pleasure : Yea, he is said to “ hold them in his Gift," Prov. XXX. 4. What is more incapable of holding than the wind ? yet God holds it ; although it be a strong and terrible creature, he controuls and rules it: yea, the Scripture sets forth God, “ as riding upon “ the wings of the wind,” Plal. xvii. 10. It is a borrowed speech from the mapper of men, who when they would shew their pomp and greatness, ride upon fome fately horte, or chariot; so the Lord, to manifeft the greatness of his power, rides upon the wings of the wind, and will be admired in fo terrible a creature.

And no less of his glorious power appears in remanding them, than in raising them. The heathens afcribe this power to their god Aeolus, but we know this is the royalty, and fole preroga. tive of the true God, who made heaven and earth; it is he that “ makes the form a calm,” Pfal, çuri. 29. and it is he that thifts and changes them from point to point, as he plealeth'; for he hath appoioted them their circuits, Ecclef. i. 8.“ The wind “ goeth towards the fouth, and turneth about upto the north ; it “ whirleth about continually, and returneth again according to • its circuits.”

2. And as we shoold, adore his power in the winds, fo ought we to admire his goodness in preserving men in the height of all their fury apd violence. what a marvellous work of God is here! that men should be kept in a poor weak veffel, upon the wild and stormy, ocean, where the wiod hath its full froke upon them, and they are driven before it, as a wreck upon

the feas; yet, 1 say, that God should preferve you there, is a work of infinite goodness and power. That those winds wbich do Tend the very earth, mountains, and rocks, 1 Kings xix. 11. “ Breaks the cedars, yea, the cedars of Lebanon, thakes the « wilderness, and makes the hinds to calve," Pfal. xxix. 5, 8, 9. which naturalists say bring forth with greatest difficoley; fure

In your preservation, in such tempests, is an astonibing work of mercy. O how dreadful is this creature, the wind, fome. times to you! and bow doth it make your hearts shake within you ? If but a plauk spring, or a bolo give way, you are all loft. Sometimes the Lord, for the magoifying of the riches of bis goodness upon you, drives you to tuch exigencies, that, as Paul speaks, in a like case, Acts xxvii. . 20. “ All hope of « being faved is taken away;" aothing but death before your eyes. The Lord commaqds a wind out of his treasury, bids it go and lift up the terrible waves, lock you io upon the fhore, and drive you upon the rocks, fo that do art can fave you; and then fends you a piece of wreck, or some other mcans, to land you safe : And all this to give you an experiment of his goodacfs and pity, that you may learn to fear that God in wbofe haad your foul and breath are.

? And it may be, for the prefest, your hearts are much af. fected; conscience works strongly, it smites you for fios fora merly committed, fuch and such counfels of ministers, or relations llighted. Now, faith conscience, God is come in this storm to reckon with thee for these things. But, alas ! all this is but a morsing dew; no sooner is that form without allayed, but all is quiet within 100. How little of the goodness of God abides kindly, and effectually upon the heart?

REFLECTION.. How often hath this glorious power and goodness of God passed before me in dreadful forms aod tempelts at fea! He hath uttered his voice in these stormy winds, and spoken in a terrible manner by thein ; yet how little have I been affected with it ? " The Lord hath his way in the whirlwiod, and in “ the storm," Nah. i. 3. To fome he hath walked in ways of judgment and wrath, sending them down in a moment to hell; but to me, ia a way of forbearance and mercy. Ah! how of teo have I been upon the very brink of eternity ! had not God thifted, or allayed the wind, in a moment, I had gone down into hell. What workings of conscience were at present upon me ? Aod what terrible apprehensions had 'I tbeo of my eternal condition ? What vows did I make io chat distress? And how carnestly did I then beg for mercy? But, Lord, though thy vows arc upon me, yet have I been the fame; yea, added to, and filled up the meafure of my fios. Neither the bonds of - mercy thou hast laid upon me, nor the facred and solemn vows

I have laid upon myself, could restrain me from those ways of iniquity, which the appeared so dreadful to me.'

Ah Lord, what an heat have 1? What love, pity, and

goodnefs, have I fioned against ? If God had bot respited judge meat so long, what a mercy were it. Sure I am, the damned would account it fo; but to give me such a space to repent, ah! what an iavaluable mercy is this? And do I thus requite the Lord, Deut. xxxii. 6. apd pervert and abuse his goodness thus ? Surely, O my soul, if this be the fruit of all thy pretervations, they are rather reservations to some farther and forer judgments. How dreadfully will justice at last avenge the quarrel of abused mercy, Josh. xxiv. 20. How grievously did God take it from the Israelites, that they provoked him at the fea, aven at the red-fea ? Psal. cvi. 7. where God had wrought their deliverance in such a miraculous way. Even thus have I sipoed after the fimilitude of their transgreflions ; not only agaioft the laws of God, but against the love of God. In the last storm he shot off his warping piece, in the next, he may discharge his murdering piece against my soul and body. O my foul! hath he given thee “ fuchi deliverances as these, and darest thou “ again break his commandments,” Ezra ix. 13, 14. O let me pay the vows that my lips have uttered in my distress, left the Lord recover his glory from me in a way of judgment.

The POE M.
THE ship that now fails trim before a wiod,

E’er the desired port it gaios, may find
A redious passage; gentle gales a while
Do fill its fails, the flatt'ring feas do smile,
The face of hear'n is bright, on ev'ry side
The wapton purpoice, tumbles on the tide.
loto their cabins now the seamen go,
Aod then turns out again, with, What chear, ho?
All on a sudden darken'd are the skies,
The lamp of heav'n obscur'd, the winds doth rise ;
Waves fwell like mountaios : Now their courage flags,
The masts are crack'd, the canvas torn to rags.
The vessel works for life ; anon one cries,
The main mast's gone by th’ board; another plies
The pump, until a third does Itrike them blapk,
With, Sirs, prepare for death, we've sprung a plank.
Now to their knees they go, and on this wise
They beg for mercy, with their loudest cries :-
Lord, fave us but this once; and thou shalt fee
What persons, for the future, we will be:
Our former time's mif-speor, but with a vow,
We will

engage, if thou wilt save us DOWY