the gospel for me? But my hard and impenitent heart could not relent; and now, if it could, it is too late. I am now paft out of the ocean of mercy, into the ocean of eternity, where I am fixed in the midst of endless mifery, and thall never hear the voice of mercy more.

O dreadful eternity! O foul-confounding word! An ocean indeed, to which this ocean is but as a drop; for in thee no foul shall fee either bank or bottom. If I lie but one night under strong pains of body, how tedious doth that night seem! And how do I tell the clock, and with for day! In the world I might have had life, and would not. And now, how fain would I have death, but cannot? How quick were my fins in execution? And how long is their punishment in duration? O! how shall I dwell with everlafting burnings? Oh that God would but vouchsafe one treaty more with me! But alas, all tenders and treaties are now at an end with me. On earth peace, Luke ii. 13. but none in hell. O my foul! confider thefe things; come, let us debate this matter seriously, before we launch out into this ocean.

WHO

The POEM.

THO from fome high-rais'd tower views the ground,
His heart doth tremble, and his head goes round;

Even fo my foul, whilft it doth view and think

On this eternity, upon whose brink

It borders, ftands amazed, and doth cry,
O boundless! bottomless eternity!

The fcourge of hell, whofe very laíh doth rend
The damned fouls in twain: What! never end?
The more thereon they ponder, think, and pore,
The more, poor wretches, ftill they howl and roar.
Ah! though more years in torments we should lie,
Than fands are on the fhores, or in the sky
Are twinkling stars; yet this gives fome relief!
The hope of ending. Ah! but here's the grief!
A thoufand years in torments paft and gone,
Ten thousand more afresh are coming on;

And when these thousands all their course have run,
The end's no more than when it first begun.
Come then, my foul, let us discourse together
This weighty point, and tell me plainly whether
You for these short-liv'd joys, that come and go,
Will plunge yourself and me in endless woe.
Refolve the queftion quickly, do not dream
More time away. Lo, in an hafty ftream

We fwiftly pafs, and fhortly we shall be
Ingulphed both in this eternity.

CHA P. III.

Within thefe fmooth fac'd feas ftrange creatures crawl;
But in man's heart far franger than them all.

I'

OBSERVATION.

was an unadvised saying of Plato, Mare nil memorabile producit: the fea produceth nothing memorable. But furely there is much of the wildom, power, and goodness of God manifefted in thofe inhabitants of the watery region: notwithftanding the fea's azure and fmiling face, ftrange creatures are bred in its womb.“ (O Lord, (faith David) how manifold are "thy works: In wisdom haft thou made them all; the earth "is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, where"in are things creeping innumerable, both small and great "beaits," Pial. civ. 24, 25. And we read, Lam. iv. 3. of Sea-monsters, which draw out their breafts to their young. Pliny and Purchas tell incredible stories about them. About the tropic of Capricorn, our feamen meet with flying fishes, that have wings like a rere-mouse, but of a filver colour; they By in flocks like ftares. There are creatures of very strange forms and properties; fome refembling a cow, called by the Spaniards, manates; by fome fuppofed to be the fea-monster fpoken of by Jeremy. In the rivers of Guinea, Purchas faith, there are tithes that have four eyes, bearing two above, and two beneath the water, when they iwim: both refembling a toad, and very poitonous. How ftrange, both in shape and property, is the fword-fish and thresher, that fight with the whale: Even our own feas produce creatures of ftrange shapes, but the commonnefs takes off the wonder.

66

APPLICATION.

Thus doth the heart of man naturally fwarm and abound with strange and monftrous lufts and abominations, Rom. i. 29, 30, 31. Being filled with all unrighteoufnefs, fornication, "wickedness, covetousness, malicioufnefs, full of envy, mur"der, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, hat"ers of God, defpiteful, proud, boafters, inventors of evil "things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, cove"nant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmer"ciful." O what a swarm is here! and yet there are multitudes more, ia the depths of the heart! And it is no wonder, VOL. VI. li

confidering that with this nature, we received the fpawn of the blackeft and vileft abominations. This original luft is productive of them all, Jam. i. 14, 15. which luft, though it be in every man, numerically, different from that of others, yet it is one and the fame fpecifically, for fort and kind, in all the children of Adam; even as the reafonable foul, though every man hath his own foul, viz. a foul individually distinct from another man's, yet it is the lame for kind in all men. So that whatever abominations are in the hearts and lives of the vilest Sodomites, and most profligate wretches under heaven; there is the fame matter in thy heart out of which they were shaped and formed. In the depths of the heart they are conceived, and thence they crawl out of the eyes, hands, lips, and all the members, Matth. xv. 18, 19. "Thofe things (faith Chrift) "which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart, "and defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,

Puller's Meditations, p. 1.

murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, falle witnefs, blafphemies: even fuch monsters, as would make a graciousheart tremble to behold. What are my lufts (faith one) but fo many toads fpitting of venom, and spawning of poifon; croaking in my 'judgment, creeping in my will, and crawling into my affections?" The apostle in 1 Cor, v. 1. tells us of a fin," not to be named;" fo monstrous, that nature itself startles at it: even fuch monfters are generated in the depths of the heart. Whence come evils? was a queftion that much puzzled the philofophers of old. Now here you may fee whence they come, and where they are begotten.

REFLECTION.

And are there such strange abominations in the heart of man? Then how is he degenerated from his primitive perfection and glory! His freams were once as clear as crystal, and the foun tain of them pure, there was no unclean creature moving in them. What a fately fabric was the foul at firft! And what holy inhabitants poffeffed the several rooms thereof But now, as God fpeaks of Idumea, Ifa. xxxiv. 11. "The line of con"fufion is ftretched out upon it, and the ftones of emptiness. "The cormorant and bittern poffefs it; the owl and the raven dwell in it." Yea, as Ifa. xiii. 21, 22. "The wild beasts of "the defart lie there; it is full of doleful creatures, the fatyrs dance in it, and dragons cry in those fometimes pleasant places." O fad change! how fadly may we look back towards our first state! and take up the words of Job, "O that "I were as in months paft, as in the days of my youth; when

the Almighty was yet with me, when I put on righteouf nefs, and it cloathed me, when my glory was trefh in me," Job. xxix. 2, 4, 5.

Again, think, O my foul, what a miferable condition the unregenerate abide in! Thus fwarmed and over run with hellifh lufts, under the dominion and vaffalage of divers lufts, Tit. iii. 3. What a tumultuous fea is fuch a foul: how do these lufts rage within them! how do they conteft and fcuffle for the throne! and ufually take it by turns: for as all diseases are contrary to health, yet fome contrary to each other, fo are lufts. Hence poor creatures are hurried on to different kinds of fevitude, according to the nature of that imperious luft that is in the throne; and, like the lunatic, Matth. xvii. are fometimes cast into the water, and fometimes into the fire. Well might the prophet fay, "The wicked is like a troubled fea that cannot "reft,' "Ifa. vii. 20. They have no peace now in the fervice of fin, and lefs fhall they have hereafter, when they receive the wages of fin. "There is no peace to the wicked, faith my God." They indeed cry Peace, peace; but my God doth not fay fo.

The laft iffue and refult of this is eternal death; no fooner it is delivered of its deceitful pleafures, but prefently it falls in travail again, and brings forth death, Jam. i. 15.

Once more and is the heart fuch a fea, abounding with monftrous abominations? Then ftand aftonished, O my foul, at that free-grace which hath delivered thee from fo fad a condition; O fall down, and kifs the feet of mercy that moved fo freely and feasonably to thy rescue? Let my heart be enlarged abundantly here. Lord, what am I, that I fhould be taken, and others left? Reflect, O my foul, upon the conceptions and births of lufts in the days of vanity, which thou now blufheft to own. O what black imaginations, hellish defires, vile affections, are lodged there! Who made me to differ? or, how camel to be thus wonderfully feparated? Surely, it is by thy free grace, and nothing elfe, that I am what I am; and by that grace have efcaped (to mine own aftonishment) the corruption that is in the world through luft. O that ever the holy God fhould let his eyes on fuch an one; or caft a look of love towards me, in whom were legions of unclean lufts and abominations. The POEM.

MY foul's the fea, wherein, from day to day,

Sins like Leviathans do fport and play..

Great master lufts, with all the leffer fry,
Therein increase, and ftrangely multiply.

Yet ftrange it is not, fin fo faft should breed,
Since with this nature 1 receiv'd the feed
And spawn of ev'ry fpecies, which was shed
Into its caverns first, then nourished

By its own native warmth; which like the fua
Hath quickened them, and now abroad they come;
And like the frogs of Egypt creep and crawl
Into the closest rooms within my foul.

My fancy fwarms, for there they frisk and play,
In dreams by night, and foolish toys by day.
My judgments clouded by them, and my will
Perverted, every corner they do fill.

As locufts feize on all that's fresh and green,
Uncloath the beauteous fpring, and make it seem
Like drooping autumn; fo my foul, that first
As Eden feem'd, now's like a ground that's curst.
Lord purge my streams, and kill thofe lufts that lie
Within them; if they do not, I must die.

CHA P. IV.

Seas purge themselves, and caft their filth afbore,
But graceless fouls retain, and fuck in more.

:

OBSERVATIO N.

SE EAS are in a continual motion and agitation, they have their flux and reflux, by which they are kept from putrefaction like a fountain it cleanfes itself, Ifa. Ivii. 20. "It can"not relt, but cafts up mire and dirt;" whereas lakes and ponds, whose waters are standing, and dead, corrupt and flink. And it is obferved by feamen, that in the fouthern parts of the world, where the tea is more calm and fettled, it is more corrupt and unfit for ufe; fo is the fea of Sodom called, the dead fea.

APPLICATION.

Thus do regenerate fouls purify themselves, and work out corruption that defiles them, they cannot fuffer it to fettle there, 1 John iii. 3. "He purifieth himself, even as he is pure. "Keepeth himself, that the wicked one toucheth him not," 1 John v. 18. fcil. tanto qualitativo, with a qualitative touch, as the loadftone toucheth iron, leaving an impreffion of its na ture behind it. They are doves delighting in cleanness, Isa. xxxii. 15. "He defpifeth the gain of oppreffion, he shaketh his

hands frem holding of bribes, floppeth his ears.from hearing "blood, and shutteth his eyes from feling evil." See how ail