trust in God neither can there be a greater Cordial in grace then the assurance of Gods love It is like the blessing of a good Conscience a perpetual Feast an abiding Comfort a dwelling Consolation Beza confesseth that when he had left his own Countrey and all that he had one and thirty years that he might more freely serve Jesus Christ it came to pass the first time he entred into the publick assembly that the company did sing this Psalm by the singing whereof as though he had heard God calling him in particular he felt himself so comforted that he kept it ever after engraven in his heart The Soul of man if it be well sanctified might take as much pleasure in reading this Psalm as Adam did in walking in Paradise even in the state of his Innocency when the garden was in her prime and perfection in all her greens and sweetness For the beds of new-blown Roses and banks of morning Violets hills of Frankincense and mountains of Camphire cannot be sweeter to our sense then this Psalm is to the Soul of an afflicted child of God I do confess I do love to read it as an hungry man loves to eat his meat for beside the nourishment and food I receive from it my Soul is satisfied and ravished with divine pleasure For as it is a great Cordial so it is given us in a cup of Gold and this blessed fountain of Consolation runs to us in Silver streams of divine Eloquence Mollerus calls it Pulcherrimum exemplar Eloquentiae a beautiful picture and pattern of divine Eloquence Look over the whole Psalm and you shall find it every where enrich'd with sweet Allegories and adorned with delicious Metaphors which the holy Spirit useth to present the dearness and love of God to his afflicted Children that they might be not only comforted but delighted with his sweetness and enamour'd with his goodness How most elegantly is Gods care of the safety of his children presented to us in divine Rhetorick verse 4. He shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings thou shalt trust The very same Allegory doth our Blessed Saviour sanctifie with his own lips when he bewails the present sin and the approaching ruine of Jerusalem O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children together even as an hen gathereth her chickens under her wings but ye would not The greatest Emblem of love and safety in all Nature And as if this had not been kindness enough God further promiseth vers 11. that he will send his own royal guard the Militia of Heaven his holy and glorious Angels to be our Guardians He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy waies they shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone Even as a tender Mother hath a care of her Sucking child or as a Nurse cherisheth her Children And as if that had been too little he himself will be with them not in their high estate only but in their meanest condition I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him and honour him My Text consists of two parts 1. The Estate and Condition of Gods Children on Earth which is a troubled and afflicted Condition they are in troubles 2. God's care and love to his Children in that condition expressed by a threefold promise First there is Promissum praesentiae a promise of his presence I will be with him and according to the old Translation set down in the present tense yea I am with him in trouble as God's promises are often in the Scripture to shew both the speed and certainty of the things promised Secondly Promissum liberationis a promise of deliverance I will deliver him Thirdly Promissum recompensationis a promise of reward and recompence I will honour him And what can an afflicted soul desire more in his troubles then the Presence of God to comfort him the Power of God to deliver him and the Goodness of God to recompense him Who would not be miserable on such conditions and afflicted on such promises First of the State and Condition of Gods Children here upon earth which is a troubled state an afflicted condition Few and evil have the days of my life been saith good old Jacob and yet he was the chosen and beloved child of God Jacob have I loved saith God but Esau have I hated and yet this chosen one and precious vessel of Election was filled up to the brim with the very gall and bitterness of affliction He was sequestred from all the comforts of this life banish'd from his own house and home forc'd to flee from the knees of his aged and dying Father and likewise from the bosome of his beloved Mother hated of his Brother Esau going on Pilgrimage with his Staff and Scrip only sometimes the cold Earth was his bed a Stone his pillow and after all this which was before it in bitterness he was forced for a meer livelihood and sustenance to serve an Idolater in a strange land many years Nothing sure can be more grievous to a true Child of God And as we have seen this in Jacob in his person so we may behold it in his Posterity for even the Sons of Jacob possess'd their Father's sorrow as well as his substance and were Inheritors of both But to tell you of all their troubles and afflictions were to lead you in a wilderness And yet these people were God's own people his portion and the lot of his inheritance his anointed and chief treasure and as the Prophet Zechary calls them the friends of God There were no people dwelt so near and in the very bosome of God as these people and yet no people felt so much the hand of God not in embraces but chastisements But you will say this was in the time of the Law in the time of the Gospel we shall see better days when the day doth spring from on high and visit us then sure we shall all be clothed with the beams of that Sun of righteousness and shall shine in the bright garments of joy and gladness No in respect of temporal blessings it will be far worse with God's children then in the time of the Law Then they shall meet with days black and dark as death it self for as one says ingeniously Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament Adversity the blessing of the New In the time of the Law the rewards of faith and obedience were wealth and worldly prosperity then God said to Moses I will make of thee a great Nation But in the Gospel our Saviour says My flock it is a little one Again in the time of the Law God blessed faithful Abraham with a promise of plenty and abundance All the land thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy seed for ever But now the
Children as to be and suffer with them we must not understand this secundùm affectum passionis according to any affection or passion which cannot be in the Divine Nature but secundùm effectum according to its effect and operation which is deliverance As a man that doth truly pity his afflicted brother doth not only grieve and suffer with him in his affections but doth ease and deliver him And this is the fruit and excellency of pity and this only is in God I will deliver him God will not leave his Children in endless miseries they may wander many years in the Wildernesse but at length he will bring them to the Land that floweth with Milk and Honey He will not have his Children always dwell in the Vale of Tears but he will bring them to the Mountains of Joy and Gladness He gives them beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning and the garment of gladness for the spirit of heaviness Thus he delivered Joseph from the stocks Jeremy from the prison the common place of his despised Prophets he will bring Jacob banish'd Jacob home again to his Father's house and he shall both enjoy his Father's blessing and inheritance Neither did he return empty but brought his Sheaves with him Wives and Children Men-servants and Maid-servants Sheep and Oxen and in that abundance that he begins to wonder at himself being amazed at his own happiness and astonished at the goodness of God to him as we may guess by that expression For with my staff have I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two Bands But above all is that great example of Jonah who was cast into the Sea and swallowed up by a Whale We are wont to say at Sea when a man is drowned he is not only dead but buried and besides that he was entombed in a new Sepulchre where I believe never man lay so long before and yet behold after three days the Resurrection of Jonah Who would have thought to have seen Jonah again a Preacher of repentance in Nineveh Well cast me into the Sea yea let the Mountains fall upon me put me in any condition I will never despair when I remember Jonah And now this being the first Lord's day after my Anniversary Observation of my great deliverances at Sea give me leave as David says to give thanks unto God in the great Congregation and I shall praise him before much People I have for the testimony of a good Conscience and to preach the Gospel beyond the Seas suffered many adverse things I can say with S. Paul but I speak in all humility of soul only to the glory of God and out of thankfulness to his name for my great and many deliverances I have been in perils of Waters in perils of Robbers in perils by my own Countreymen in perils by Strangers in perils in the City in perils in the Sea in perils amongst false Brethren In weariness and painfulness in watchings often in hunger and thirst in cold and almost nakedness In prison after a strict and close manner in deaths often twice have I suffered shipwrack two nights and two days have I lain upon a Rock in the deep several times all hope of life being taken away Yet blessed be God he hath made me a Preacher of his great mercy and deliverance this day If the Lord himself had not been on our side we may well say If the Lord himself had not been on our side when the waves rose up against us they had swallowed us up quick yea the waters had drowned us and the stream had gone over our head But blessed be his name he hath brought us out of an horrible pit out of the miry clay and established our going So that I may truly say in the words of my text He was with me in my troubles he hath delivered me and I 'le add the other clause he hath honour'd me in making me the meanest of his Servants a Preacher of his Word and a Preacher unto you this day Vse Seeing then we have this assured promise let us wait with patience God's own time for our deliverance as it is said of the Prophet's vision Though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come it will not tarry Yet there is a kinde of peevishness in our nature even in the best of us if God doth not presently ease us of our pain deliver us from those that oppress us and give us all our hearts desire we are weary of our selves and of our lives and will needs dye like that good Prophet Elijah the only relique of piety in his days It is enough now Lord take away my life Thus Rachel could not endure any longer the disgrace of her Barneness Give me Children or else I die And thus Jonah though he lately drank so deep a draught out of the Sea of God's goodness and had seen so many Miracles of God's mercy unto him yet could not with patience endure the affliction of a little Sun-shine but cried out It is better for me to die then to live And thus it is with us in the extremity of any pain or affliction we call for Death and we had rather dye then live but if Death should come for us we should be loth to take him by the cold hand and go with him Like that old man in the Fable who coming from the Wood with a bundle of sticks at his back the Sun beating hot upon him he began to be weary and flung down his burthen and call'd for Death to take him away but when Death appeared to him and asked wherefore he call'd him To help me me on saith he with my burden The old man was then loth to dye It is thus with us in our extream and a verse things we call for Death and had rather dye then live but if God should send Death for us we should say to him as the old man Help us on with our burthen whether it be pain sicknesse poverty nakednesse bonds imprisonment the tortures of the Gout or grindings of the Stone any burthen rather then Death Do not therefore provoke the Lord with intemperate exclamations hopeless language of despair and foolish speeches of bitter passion but possess your souls with patience and wait God's leisure he can and will deliver thee I will be with him in trouble and I will deliver 3. And so I come now to the third thing propounded Promissum recompensationis a promise of reward and recompence I will honour him What could flesh and bloud expect more from Heaven in their troubled condition then the presence of God to assist them and the power of God to deliver them Yet all this had not been enough nor a full satisfaction to our desires had we not had the other part of the promise promissum recompensationis a promise of reward and recompence We think it much to serve God for nought and to suffer for
Messenger but Death it self Had he said nothing we might have read our fate and ruine in his countenance Here was now no room for counsel neither had we time to ask one another what was best to be done But we presently cast out our long Boat and shot off some eight or nine Guns which seem'd to me to be so many tolls of a Passing-bell before our death But it was to give notice to one Bartholomew Cook who was Master of that Ship that came out with us and was but a little before us that he should come to our relief In these fair hopes we leapt into the Boat but it was my sad chance to leap short one leg in the boat alterum in Charontis cymba but not without some danger I scrambled out of the Sea into the boat but was no sooner there but one of the Mariners leapt out of the ship upon me and beat me down with his weight which I took kindly enough being willing to have carried them all upon my back to have saved their lives But there was one and but one left in our sinking ship who made such lamentable moan that his tears prevail'd against the fears of our present danger and we took him into our boat when we expected our ship whose sails lay now flat upon the water should sink immediately which must necessarily have drawn our small boat after it as the greater fished swallow up the less But God be thanked we all came clear off the ship but now were rowing we knew not whither For M. Cook came not to our relief and we began to be severe in language against him as if he had not been kinde enough to us when all that knew him will say he was a man of a soft tender nature and a friend to others rather then to himself But all men are suspicious in adversity and commonly take all things in the worst part and so did we not considering at all how it might fare with this honest Master who poor man was in greater distresse then our selves and drank a deeper draught of affliction for both he and his ship and all his men perished in that hour not a man escaped to tell us the cause manner and method of his fate Now were all our hopes dashed as well as our selves being in despair of humane help for we were left in the North Seas which seldom wear a smooth brow but at this time contending with the wind swell'd into prodigious Mountaines which threatned every moment to fall upon us To speak plainly it blew half a storm and we were now in a small Vessel what credit could we give unto our safety in a small and open Shallop when so stately a Castle of wood which we but now lost could not defend it self against the insolency of the waves we were many leagues from any shore having no Compass to guide us no provision to sustain us being starv'd with cold as well as for want of victuals and the Night grew black upon us having nothing in our Boat but a small Kettle and three bags of Pieces of Eight to the value of 300 li. Sterling But alas what good can money do where there is no Exchange we could not eat nor drink our Silver neither could our Pieces of Eight keep us warm Money in its own nature is but an impotent creature a very cripple inutile pondus a burthen of no value Good God! into what a sad condition hast thou now brought us for which of our sins doest thou thus punish us Teach us O Lord that we may know it and first drown our selves in tears of repentance before the Sea swallow us up that though our bodies be cast away we may save our souls Such language my troubled thoughts spake within me For it was with us now as it with St. Paul All hopes that we should be saved were taken away Nothing could preserve us but a miracle being out of the reach of humane help we were sinful creatures and could not expect that God should go out of his ordinary way to save us Though the waves carried us up to Heaven yet we could not hope or believe that God should put his hand out of the clouds and take us miserable Caitives unto himself from the top of a rising wave we had nothing to help us but our prayers I am sorry that word slipt from my hasty pen. Prayer is a multitude a Troop of succors and many enough to deliver us out of the depth though we were intomb'd in the belly of a Whale as it did Jonah Prayer if it be well qualified is that rod of Moses that can turn the Sea into a wilderness and make us pass through upon dry land Upon this only staff did we all lean and I suppose it was with us as in the case of Jonah The mariners were afraid and every man called upon his God And truly I think I may with modesty confesse I thought on those words of David though after a more imperfect manner Out of the depth have I cried unto thee Lord hear my voice and let thine ears be attentive to my supplication I sink in the deep mire where there is no standing Let not the water-flood overflow me neither let the deep swallow me up But beside our personal devotion I am perswaded the extremity of our condition pleaded for us and our misery cried aloud in the ears of God for pity and compassion It is an usual expression when we see any man extreamly poor and miserable to say his poverty or his misery speaks for him and commonly we are not so much moved with a clamorous Beggar who hunts after our Alms with open mouth and makes Hue and Cry after our Charity as if we had stollen something from him who begs of us I say we are not so much moved with such loud impudence as with the silence of those diseased Cripples and infirm Lazaro's that lie at our doors and in the streets and say nothing but shew only their wounds and sores to those that pass by These beggars speak loudest to our affections their very condition is eloquent quot vulnera tot ora so many wounds so many mouths that cry aloud for pity and cannot chuse but melt us into a charitable compassion This was our case our misery was louder then our prayers and our deplorable condition certainly was more prevalent with Almighty God then our imperfect devotions for we may say with the people of Israel He heard our cry and had compassion on us It is the usual way of God to help in Extremities when we are in absolute despair of all outward means he loves to save us that we may say It is his doing alone For in this moment of death when we were without the least expectation of any deliverance He sent a Ship to us which we must needs confess to be Digitus Dei the finger of God that pointed
as in this that Physitians have been men of most rare parts and eminent learning There are but few of your Colledge but are known to me by their Merit or Courtesie I never come out of their company but I feel my self better both in health and knowledge and I do not think that any Age can boast of so many Monsters of wit and learning for Vertue hath its Monsters as well as Vice as there is now among you And truly if there be no better encouragement made for the study of Divinity the Learning of this Nation will lie in your hands as doth now the welfare and ye will be Patrons of both But then as your Profession is eminent so are you in your Profession I will not say more then others for those Comparative expressions besides their uncharitablenesse and incivility are poor Commendations and I think do rather debase then exalt the credit of a friend For it seems to me to imply that a man hath not merit enough in himself to make him high in the esteem of the world unless we set him upon the head of another Non tali auxilio I shall not need such helps in my addresses to your self for you may stand upon the high Mountain of your own worth and merit and without setting your foot upon another make your self visible and known unto the whole world Besides those rare things in Nature you have discover'd to us many secrets and occult qualities which former Philosophy could not teach us and are so well acquainted with the Body of man that you can un-pin the whole frame take it in pieces as a man doth his Watch set it together again and make it go better I do not mean better then it was created but since it hath been debauched and disordered by several maladies and obstructions Besides the excellent and happy knowledge you have in Physick you are eminent in Mathematical Philosophy you have read over the whole Volume of Heaven and are perfectly acquainted with their motions influences stars and Intelligences as if you had been bred above in that Vniversity Neither doth this precious Iewel of knowledge dwell in a Caskanet of an ill Nature for that would take much off its lustre and brightness but in a sweet disposition as our famous Oughtred saies of you suavissimis moribus ingenio perspicacissimo From this fountain run so many hasty and full streams of love and kindness to all your friends and acquaintance And to this your good Nature do I impute the earnest desire you have had to hear me often discourse of my dangers and disasters at Sea not that you take delight in my sufferings but rejoice in my deliverance You have violently importun'd me many years to write the sad Story of my shipwrack which I thought I should never be brought to For personal things ought to be concealed But there is such Magick in the love of a friend that I can sooner deny my self then him And therefore I shall give you in these few lines a brief and hasty relation of my Second Voyage toward the East But if this sad story make you Sea-sick for good men are not well when they hear the evils and misfortunes of others you may thank your self For the fault is not in my sufferings but in your Virtue and tenderness and you are to blame your own Commands not my love in the performance Your very Friend Will. Johnson A NARRATIVE OF A Great Deliverance at SEA WE went aboard from Harwich on Michaelmas day 29 of September 1648. I confess a dull kind of sadness as a cloud sate upon my spirits so that I could not look out chearfully upon my departing friends But I took my farewel of them as if I had been going not only out of England but out of the world I can give no reason of this deliquium for I was sent on a good Message to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was embarqued in a stout ship with a fair wind and a skilful Pilot so that the understanding and rational part of my soul could not foresee any nor suspect the least danger But sure Nature whose Apocrypha we shall never understand was sensible of some approaching storm for I was no sooner at Sea but I was in a strange Anguish and Propassion so that I suffered shipwrack in my mind and all the terrours thereof before it came I presently fell sick as I usually do at Sea for Water hath always been an unkind Element to me yet that sicknesse hath no specifical name we neither call it Fever nor Ague Palsie nor Gout but I think it is all these with the rest of humane infirmities or at least an Index where we may find them for I was so really sick that to be drown'd had been a punishment indeed but in my thoughts no affliction to me This sicknesse was neither Tertian nor Quartan but Quotidian for I was as sick the next day as before About four of the clock in the afternoon the Master of the Ship came into our Cabin with more haste then he was wont for he was quickned with the sense and apprehension of some sudden and ensuing danger which though he conceal'd from me I saw it in his very countenance written plainly in pale characters of fear and amazement which made me ask him whether all was well And like a loving tender-hearted man who is loth to tell his dying friend that he is so near his end he answered me All is well But when I saw him shift himself and make haste out again in great speed but greater passion I rose from my bed and crawl'd upon the Deck where I saw a sad spectacle The Ship having sprung a Leak or rather a Plank was ready to sink I do not wonder now I was so sick before seeing death was so near Oh how the face of every man was chang'd by this affrightment so that we could not know almost one another having lost our natural complexions through the extremity of passion One was at his prayers another wringing his hands a third his eyes shedding of tears when we had no need of more salt water But after this fit they fell to work and as it is usual in such extreams we were all busie about doing of nothing and we did we knew not what We began one thing sed facti poenitet but we presently fell to another and perfected nothing to our safety The Masters Mate and Brother whom we sent down to search out the Leak quickly return'd to us with a sad countenance though naturally his face was red yet fear had snow'd it into a pale complexion This man with trembling hands gnashing of teeth a quivering tongue and words half-spoken signified to us that the wound was incurable that the Leak could not be stopt and the Water came in so fast upon us that we must perish in this moment I never heard a Death's head speak before for he did look not like a