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and deep apprehenfions of the greatness of that good that thou fhalt mifs of, and of that evil which thou fhalt procure unto thyself; and then thou shalt not be able to chufe, but to apply all thy lofs, all thy mifery to thyfelf, which will force thee to roar out, O my lofs! O my mifery! O my inconceivable, irrecoverable lofs and mifery! yea, for the increafing of thy torments, thy affections and memory fhall be enlarged. O that, to prevent that loss and misery, thefe things may now be known, and laid to heart! O that a blind understanding, a ftupid judgment, a bribed confcience, a hard heart, a bad memory, may no longer make heaven and hell to feem but trifles to thee! thou wilt then easily be perfuaded to make it thy main business here, to become an artift in fpiritual navigation. But to fhut up this preface, I fhall briefly acquaint Jeamen, why thy fhould, of all others, be men of fingular piety and heavenlinefs, and therefore more than ordinarily ftudy the heavenly art of Spiritual navigation. O that Seamen would then confider,

1. How nigh they border upon the confines of death and eternity every moment; there is but a step, but an inch or two between them and their graves, continually: the next gust may over-fet them, the next wave may fwallow them up. In one place lie lurking dangerous rocks, in another perilous fands, and every where ftormy winds, ready to deftroy them. + Well may the feamen cry out, Ego craftinum non habui; I have not had a morrow in my hands these many years. Should not

they then be extraordinary serious and heavenly, continually! Certainly (as the reverend author of this new compass well obferves) nothing more compofeth the heart to fuch a frame, than the lively apprehenfions of eternity do; and none have greater external advantages for that, than feamen have.

2. Confider (feamen) what extraordinary help you have by the book of the creatures; "The whole creation is God's "voice; it is God's excellent ‡ hand-writing, or the facred * fcriptures of the moft High," to teach us much of God, and what reasons we have to bewail our rebellion against God, and to make conscience of obeying God only, naturally, and continually. The heavens, the earth, the waters, are the three great leaves of this book of God, and all the creatures are so many lines in thofe leaves. All that learn not to fear and ferve

+ Terror ubique tremor, timor undeque, & undique terror. Ovid. Mundi creatio eft Scriptura Dei.. Clemens. Univerfus mun dus eft Deus explicatus.

God by the help of this book, will be left inexcufable, Rom. i 20. How inexcufable then will ignorant and ungodly feamen be! Seamen fhould, in this refpect, be the best scholars in the Lord's school, seeing they do, more than others, see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the great deep, Pfal.

cvii. 24.

3. Confider how often you are nearer heaven than any people in the world. "They mount up to heaven," Pfal. cvii. 26. It has been faid of an ungodly minister, that contradicted his preaching in his life and converfation, that it was pity he should ever come out of the pulpit, because he was there as near heaven as ever he would be. Shall it be faid of you, upon the fame account, that it is a pity you should come down from the high towering waves of the fea? Should not feamen that in stormy weather have their feet (as it were) upon the battlements of heaven, look down upon all earthly happiness in this world but as bafe, waterish, and worthlefs? The great cities of Campania feem but small cottages to them that stand on the Alps. Should not feamen, that so oft mount up to heaven, make it their main business here, once at last to get into heaven? What (feamen) fhall you only go to heaven against your wills? When feamen mount up to heaven in a ftorm, the pfalmift tells us, That "their fouls are melted because of trouble." O that you were continually as unwilling to go to hell, as you are in a ftorm to go to heaven!

4. And lastly, Confider what engagements lie upon you to be fingularly holy, from your fingular deliverances and falvations. They that go down to the fea in fhips, are sometimes in the valley of the fhadow of death, by reafon of the fpringing of perilous leaks; and yet miraculcufly delivered, either by fome wonderful ftopping of the leak, or by God's fending fome fhip within their fight, when they have been far out of fight of any land; or by his bringing their near-perishing ship fafe to fhore. Sometimes they have been in very great danger of being taken by pyrates, yet wonderfully preferved, either by God's calming of the winds in that part of the fea where the pyrates have failed, or by giving the poor purfued ship a ftrong gale of wind to run away from their purfuers, or by finking the pyrates, &c. Sometimes their fhips have been caft away, and yet they themselves wonderfully got fafe to fhore upon planks, yards, mafts, &c. I might be endless in enumme rating their deliverances from drowning, from burning, from flavery, &c. Sure (feamen) your extraordinary falvations lay more than ordinary engagements upon you, to praife, love,

fear, obey, and truft in your Saviour and Deliverer. I have read that the enthralled Greeks were fo affected with their liberty; procured by Flaminius the Roman general, that their thrill acclamations of Eamp; Ene, a Saviour, a Saviour, made the very birds fall down from the heavens aftonished. O how thould feamen be affected with their fea-deliverances! many that have been delivered from Turkish flavery, have vowed to be fervants to their redeemers all the days of their lives. Ah! Sirs, will not you be more than ordinarily God's fervants all the days of your lives, feeing you have been so oft, fo wonderfully redeemed from death itfelf by him? Verily, do what you can, you will die in God's debt. "As for me, God forbid that I fhould fin "against the Lord in eeafing to pray for you," 1 Sam. xii. 23, 24. That by the perufal of this fhort and fweet treatife, wherein the judicious and ingenious author hath well mixed utile dulci, profit and pleasure, you may learn the good and right way, even to fear the Lord, and ferve him in truth, with all your hearts, confidering how great things he hath done for you. "This is the hearty prayer of

Your cordial friend, earnestly defirous of a profperous voyage for your precious and immortal fouls,

The AUTHOR to the READER.

W

HEN dewy-cheek'd Aurora doth display

Her curtains, to let in the new-born day,
Her heav'nly face looks red, as if it were
Dy'd with a modest blush, 'twixt shame and fear.
Sol makes her blush, suspecting that he will
Scorch some too much, and others leave too chill.
With fuch a blush, my little new-born book
Goes out of hand, fufpecting fome may look
Upon it with contempt, while others raife
So mean a piece too high, by flatt'ring praife,
Its beauty cannot make its father dote,
'Tis a poor babe, clad in a fea-green coat.
It's

gone from me too young, and now is run To fea, among the tribe of Zebulun.

Go, little book, thou many friends wilt find
Among that tribe, who will be very kind;
And many of them care of thee will take,
Both for thy own, and for thy father's fake.

T. M.

Heav'n fave it from the dang'rous ftorms and gufts
That will be rais'd against it by men's luft s.
Guilt makes men angry, anger is a ftorm;
But facred truth's thy shelter, fear no harm.
On times, or perfons, no reflection's found!
Though with reflections few books more abound.
Go, little book, I have much more to fay,
But feamen call for thee, thou must away:
Yet e're you have it, grant me one request,
Pray do not keep it pris'ner in your cheft.

À

NEW COMPASS

FOR

SEAME N.

O R,

NAVIGATION SPIRITUALIZED.

СНАР. I.

The launching of à fhip plainly fets forth
Our double fate, by firft and fecond birth.

No

OBSERVATION.

O fooner is a fhip built, launched, rigged, victualled, and manned, but fhe is presently fent out into the boisterous ocean, where she is never at reft, but continually fluctuating, toffing, and labouring, until fhe be either overwhelmed, and wrecked in the fea, or through age, knocks, and bruifes, grows leaky, and unferviceable; and fo is haled up, and ript abroad. APPLICATION.

No fooner come we into the world as men, or as Chriftians, by a natural or fupernatural birth, but thus we are toffed upon a fea of troubles. Job v. 7. "Yet man is born to trouble, as Vol. VI. H h

"the sparks fly upwards." The fpark no fooner comes out of the fire, but it flies up naturally; it needs. not any external force, help, or guidance, but afcends from a principle in itself; fo naturally, so easily doth trouble rife out of fin. There is radically all the mifery, anguifh, and trouble in the world in our corrupt natures. As the fpark lies close hid in the coals, fo doth misery in fin; every fin draws a rod after it. And these forrows and troubles fall not only on the body, in those breaches, flaws, deformities, pains, aches, diseases, to which it is fubject, which are but the groans of dying nature, and its crumbling, by degrees, into duft again; but on all our employufents and callings alfo, Gen. iii. 17, 18, 19. These are full of pain, trouble, and difappointment, Hag. i. 6. We earn wages, and put it into a bag with holes, and difquiet ourselves in vain; all our relations full of trouble. The apoftle speaking to thofe that marry, faith, 1 Cor. vii. 28. " Such fhall have "trouble in the flesh." Upon which words one gloffeth thus: Flesh and trouble are married together, whether we marry or no; but they that are married, marry with, and match into new troubles: All relations have their burdens, aswell as their comforts: It were endless to enumerate the forrows of this kind, and yet the troubles of the body are but the body of our troubles; the fpirit of the curfe falls upon the fpiritual and nobleft part of man. The foul and body, like to Ezekiel's roll, are written full with forrows, both within and without. So that we make the fame report of our lives, when we come to die, that old Jacob made before Pharaoh, Gen. xlvii. 9. "Few "and evil have the days of the years of our lives been." Eccl. ii. 22, 23. "For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vex"ation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the fun ? "For all his days are forrows, and his travel grief, yea, his "heart taketh no reft in the night: This is alfo vanity."

See Mr. Whate ley's Care-cloth.

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Neither doth our new birth free us from troubles, though then they be fanctified, fweetned, and turned into bleffings to We put not off the human, when we put on the divine nature; nor are we then freed from the fenfe, though we are delivered from the fting and curfe of them. Grace doth not prefently pluck out all thofe arrows that fin hath shot into the fides of nature. 2 Cor. vii. 5. "When we were come into Mace"donia, our flesh had no reft, but we were troubled on every "fide: Without were fightings, and within were fears." Rev. vii. 14. "Thefe are they that come out of great tribulations." The first cry of the new-born Chriftian (fays one) gives hell an

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