And when your inordinate hopes are crofled, as it is very probable they will be, how will your forrows be aggravated in proportion to them? Thofe things that feemed to promife us moft comfort, are the things that give us moft forrow. Strong affections make strong afflictions. Our forrows ufually rife from what was our hope, and our .comforts from that which was the leaft regarded.

Inference 3. If it be fo, then labour to make fure of things eternal, left you be eternally disappointed there alfo. O what a fad cafe is that man in, whofe expectations fail from both worlds! If your hopes from this world fail, yet you may bear it comfortably, if you fail not in your better hopes; but if thefe fail too, you are of all men the most miferable. You know by experience how fad it is to have your hopes cut off in these smaller concerns; to go forth in expectation of a profitable voyage, and to return in a worse case than you went out : it may be you thought to get an eftate, but the illue is to lose that little you had. You thought to go to fuch a place, and there meet with a good market, and poflibly yourfelves may be carried as flaves, to be fold in the fame market. Thefe difappointments are very fad and cutting things, but nothing to an eternal disappointment in your great

concern.

For a man to hope he is in Chrift, and in a pardoned ftate, and at last find himself deceived, and that all the fins of his nature, heart, and practife, lie upon him: to hope for admiffion into heaven, when he is turned out of this world by death, and find the door shut against him; to cry with those poor disappointed wretches, Matth. xxv. II. "Lord, Lord, open to us;" and receive fuch an unexpected return from Chrift as they did, "Depart from me, I know you not:" Lord, how intolerable is such a defeat of hope as this! O! who can think of it without horror !

The things about which your expectations are fruftrated in this world, are small things; you may be happy in the want of them: but the frustration of your hopes from the world to come, is in things of infinite weight. Thefe difappointments are but for a little while! but this will be for ever. O therefore be provoked, even by these things to a diligent and feasonable prevention of a far greater mifery.

Since these things cannot be fecured, labour to secure those things that may. O that you were but as full of thoughts, cares and fears for heaven as you are for the world! you have spent many thousand thoughts about these things to no purpofe. All your thoughts about them are come to nothing; but had they been spent for your fouls, to what a comfortable account would they now have turned? Friends, I beseech you make fure for eternity, and let thefe croffes and loffes in the world be the happy occafions to awaken you to an carneft and ferious diligence for your everlafting interefts. Then you are no lofers by your lofles: nay, you will have great caufe to call them profperous difappointments, and gainful loffes to you.

Inference 4. Then as you would not have the works and labours of your hands blafted, beware of those fins that provoke God to blow upon them. Think not that injuftice, oppreffion, deceit and perjury fhould ever profit you. God hath curfed all the ways of fin, and you cannot profper in them. Above all, beware of atheism and irreligion: God will not own them that disown him, and flight his worship. I doubt your profanation of the Lord's day, by drunkenness, idleness, and worldly employments, is not the leaft caufe of those disappointments and loffes that have befallen you: the first day of the week, like the first-fruits of the Jews harvests, should fanctify the whole lump.

And let none pretend that multiplicity of bufinefs will not allow them time and difpofition for fabbath-work. If you be too busy to attend the Lord's fervice, he can quickly give you a writ of ease, and make you keep more refting days from your labours than you are willing to do. The Lord would not excufe the Ifraelites, no, not in their busiest seasons, the times of earing and harveft, and the very building of the tabernacle; but all muft give way to the fabbath. And I am fure the promise of bleffing and fuccefs is made to the conscientious obfervation of it: Ifa. lvi. 13, 14. "If thou turn away "thy foot from the fabbath, from doing thy pleasure upon my holy "day; and call the fabbath a Delight, the holy of the Lord, Ho"nourable; and fhalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasures, nor speaking thine own words: Then "fhalt thou delight thyfelf in the Lord:" There is a recompence to the foul." And he fhall caufe thee to ride on the high places of the "earth" There is a reward to the body. Godliness is profitable to all things.

THE

SEAMAN'S RETURN.

SERMON VI.

DEUT. xxxiii. 19.

They hall call the people unto the mountain, there they fall offer facrifices of righteousness: For they fhall fuck of the abundance of the feas, and of the treafures bid in the fand.

T

HIS fcripture is part of the last words of Mofes: a man that in his life was a great bleffing to Ifrael: and when he was to be feparated from them by death, he pronounces diftinct and fuitable bleffings upon all the tribes. As Chrift parted from his difciples,

bleffing them, fo doth Mofes from his people; only with this difference, Mofes as God's mouth pronounced, but the great God of heaven and earth alone could confer the bleffing. Mofes bleffed them authoritatively, but could not blefs them poteftatively, as Chrift did. Now thefe words contain the bleffing of the tribe of Zebulun, which was the tribe of Seamen. And in them we fhall confider these two parts, viz.

1. Their privilege.
2. Their duty.

First, Their privilege, "That they fhould fuck of the abundance To fuck the "of the feas, and of the treasures hid in the fand." abundance of the fea is a metonymical expreffion, fignifying as much as to be enriched and stored with the wares and merchandise imported by fea to them. Geographers attribute to the fea, arms and bofoms; and the fcripture, breafts. The fea, like an indulgent mother, embraces those that live upon it in her bosom, and with full flowing breasts nourisheth them, and feeds them as a mother doth the infant that fucks and depends for its livelihood upon her breasts.

And these breafts do not only afford those that hang upon them the neceffaries of life, bread, raiment, &c. but the riches, ornaments, and delights of life alfo. "The treasures hid in the fand," + as gold, coral, ambergreafe, and fuch like precious and rich treasures which it yields. This was the bleffing and privilege of the tribe of Zebulun, whofe cities and villages were commodiously fituated upon the feashore for merchandise and traffic: as you may fee Jof. xix. 11.

Secondly, Their duty to which these mercies and privileges obliged them: "They fhall call the people to the mountain, there they "fhall offer facrifices of righteoufnefs." By the mountain, we are here to understand the temple, which Mofes, by the spirit of prophecy, forefaw to be upon mount Sion, and mount Moriah; which two were as the shoulders that supported it, ver. 12. Here was the worship of And hither ZeGod; the facrifices were here offered up to him. bulun, in the fenfe of God's mercies to them, fhould call the people, i. e. fay fome, their own people, their families, and neighbours; or as others, the ftrangers that were among them for traffic; faying, as Ifa. ii. 3. "Come, let us go up to the house of the Lord, to the "mountain of the God of Jacob." And here they fhall offer the Jacrifices of righteoufnefs. By which we are to understand their thankofferings for the mercies they had received of the Lord. The Jews had not only expiatory facrifices to procure the pardon of fins committed, but euchariftical facrifices, or thank-offerings, to teftify the fense they had of mercies received. These facrifices typified moral duties; and when these types were abolished, the apoftle fhews, that

• Affluentiam maris fugere, eft marinis bonis, & mercibus abundare. Glas.

+ Referunt ad ea quæ emovere folent maria, fcil. ad auri fodinas. Effodient e terra arenosa aurum. Pol. Synop. in loc.

"the calves of our lips, the facrifices of praife," are in the ftead of them, Heb. xiii, 15.

So then the fum of all is this, that when they returned from fea, or had received the bleflings thereof from the hand of God, they fhould repair to the place of his worship, and there acknowledge and praise the God of their mercies. So that the whole verfe thus explained, cafts itself into this doctrinal obfervation.

Doct. That it is the fpecial duty of feamen, when God returns them to their habitations in peace, thankfully to acknowledge and bless his name, for all the prefervation and mercies they have received from

his hand.

These are mercies indeed which are obtained from God by prayer, and returned to him again by praife. When we have received our mercies, God expects his praifes: After the Pfalmift had opened the hazards and fears of feamen upon the stormy ocean, and the goodness of God in bringing them to their defired haven, Pfal. cvii. 30. he prefently calls upon them for this duty, ver. 31. "O that men would "praife the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men !"

O that men would! why, how is it imaginable they should not? He hath the heart of a beaft, not of a man, that will not. Did I fay the heart of a beaft? Give me that word again. There is a kind of gratitude, even in beasts, to their benefactors. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," Ifa. i. 3.

Now the method into which I will cast the discourse, shall be, First, To open the nature of the duty, and to fhew you what it is to praise God for his mercies.

Secondly, To give you the grounds and reafons of the duty, why God expects it, and you ought to give it to him. And then,

Thirdly, To apply it in the feveral ufes it is improveable unto. 1. The nature of the duty needs opening; for few understand what it is. Alas! it is another manner of thing than a cuftomary, formal, cold God be thanked. Now, if we fearch into the nature of this duty, we fhall find that whoever undertakes this angelic work, muft,

First, Be a heedful obferver of the mercies he receives. This is fundamental to the duty. Where no obfervations of mercies have been made, no praifes for them can be returned. God was never honoured by his unobferved mercies. When David had opened the providences of God to the feveral degrees and orders of men, in its various adminiftrations, and called upon them diftinctly to praise God for them; he adds, in the close of all, "Whofo is wife, and will ob"ferve these things, even they fhall understand the loving-kindness " of the Lord," Pfal. cvii. ult. It is God's charge againft Ifrael, Hofea ii. 8. "She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, "and oil, and multiplied her filver:" i. e. She did not obferve and take notice of thefe mercies, as coming from my hand; but only

looked at the next caufe. Thus it is with many, they think not upon their own mercies; others can obferve them, but they cannot; they can quickly observe what troubles befal them, but take little notice of their own mercies. Such men can never be thankful.

Secondly, The thankful man must not only obferve what mercies he hath, and from whom they come; but must particularly confider them in their natures, degrees, seasons, and manner of conveyance; there is much of God's glory, and our comfort loft for want of this. "The "works of the Lord are great, fought out of all them that have "pleasure therein," Pfal. cxi. 2. And indeed, there is no employment in all the world, that yields more pleasure to a gracious foul, than the anatomizing of providence doth. How fweet is it to obferve the mutual refpects, coincidences, and introductive occafions of our mercies! every minute circumstance hath its weight and value. here. He hath little pleasure in his meat, that fwallows it whole without chewing.

Thirdly, The thankful person must duly estimate and value his mercies. It is impoffible that man can be thankful for mercies he little efteems. Ifrael could not praife God for that angels food with which he fed them, whilft they defpifed it in faying, There is nothing but

this manna.

And furely it fhews the great corruption of our nature, that those things which should raise the value of mercies with us, caufe us the more to flight them; yet thus it falls out. The commonnefs, or longcontinuance of mercies with us, which should endear them the more, and every day increase our obligation to God, causes them to seem but cheap and fmall things. And therefore doth God so often threaten them, yea, and remove them, that their worth and excellency may thereby be acknowledged.

Fourthly, The thankful perfon must faithfully record his mercies, elfe God cannot have his due praise for them. "Blefs the Lord, O "my foul, and forget not all his benefits," Pfal. ciii. 2. Forgotten mercies bear no fruit: a bad memory in this cafe, makes a barren heart and life.

I confefs the mercies of God are fuch a multitude, that a memory of brass cannot retain them. "I will come before thee in the mul❝titude of thy mercies," faith David, Pfal. v. 7. They are called "fhowers of bleffings," Ezek. xxxiv. 26. And as impoffible it is diftinctly to recount all our mercies, as to.number the drops of rain that fall in a fhower. Nevertheless, it hath been the pious care and endeavour of the people of God, to preferve and perpetuate his mercies, by using all the helps to memory they could. Therefore they have kept registers, Exod. xvii. 14. endited Pfalms, to bring to remembrance, Pfal. Ixx. title; denominated places from the mercies received there. Thus Jacob called the place where he found fo much mercy, Bethel. Hagar named the well, where God unexpectedly relieved