_I T was an unadvised saying of Plato, Mare nil memorahile produ- cit : the sea produceth nothing memorable. But surely there is much of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God manifested in those in- habitants of the waterv region ; notwithstanding the sea's azure and smiling face, strange creatures are bred in its womb. " O Lord, " (saith David) how manifold are thy works : In wisdom hast thou " made them all ; the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and " wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and " great beasts," Psal. civ. 24, 25. And we read. Lam. iv. 5. of sea-monsters, which draw out their breasts to their young. Pliny and Purchas tell incredible stories about them. About the tropic of Capricorn, our seamen meet with flying fishes, that have wings like a rere-mouse, but of a silver colour ; they fly in flocks like stares. There are creatures of very strange forms and properties ; some resembling &, cow, called by the Spaniards, manates, by some supposed to be the sea-monster spoken of by Jeremy. In the rivers of Guinea, Purchas saith, there are fishes that have four eyes, bearing two above, and two beneath the water, when they swim : both resembling a toad, and very poisonous. How strange, both iu shape and property, is the
JJAVIGATION SPIRITUALIZED. 225
sword-fish and thresher, that fight with the whale : Even our own seas produce creatures of strange shapes, but the commonness takes off the wonder.
Thus doth the heart of man naturally swarm and abound with strange and monstrous lusts and abominations, Rom. i. 29, 30, 31. '•' Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, *' covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, '' malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hatersof God, despiteful, proud, " boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without " understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, im- " placable, unmerciful." O what a swarm is here ! and yet there are multitudes more, in the depths of the heart ! And it is no won- der, considering that with this nature, we received the spawn of the blackest and vilest abominations. This original lust is productive of them all, James i. 14, 15. Which lust, though it be in every man, numericalli)^ different from that of others, yet it is one and the same specifically^ for sort and kind, in all the children of Adam; even as the reasonable soul, though every man hath his own soul, viz. a soul individually distinct from another man''s, yet it is the same for kind in all men. So that whatever abominations are in the hearts and lives of the vilest Sodomites, and the most profligate wretches under heaven ; there is the same 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 mem- bers. Mat. XV. 18, 19- " Those things (saith Christ) which proceed " out of the moutli, come forth from the heart, and defile a man. " For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, *' fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies :'' even such mon- sters as would make a gracious heart tremble to behold. ' What are ' my lusts (saith one*) but so many toads spitting of venom, and ' spawning of poison ; croaking in my judgment, creeping in my ' will, and crawling into my affections ?' The apostle in 1 Cor. v. 1. tells us of a sin, "not to be named;*" so monstrous, that native itself startles at it : even such monsters are generated in the depths of tlie hearts. AVhence come evils ? was a question that much puzzled the philosophers of old. Now here you may see whence they come, and where they are begotten.
And are there such strange abominations in the heart of man ? Then how is he degenerated from his primitive perfection and glory ! His streams were once as clear as crystal, and the fountain of them pure, there, was no unclean creature moving in them. What a
* Faliej's Meditations, p. il.
^26 A KEW COMPASS FOR SEAMEN ; OR,
stately fabric was the soul at first ! And what holy inhabitants pos- sessed the several rooms thereof ! But now, as God speaks of Idumea, Isa. xxxiv. 11. "The line of confusion is stretched out upon it, and " the stones of emptiness. The cormorant and bittern possess it ; " the owl and the raven dwell in it." Yea, as Isa. xiii. 21, 22. " The wild beasts of the desart lie there : it is full of doleful crea- " tures, the satyrs dance in it, and dragons cry in those sometimes " pleasant places." O sad change ! how sadly may we look back to- wards our first state ! and take up the words of Job, " O that I " were as in months past, as in the days of my youth ; when the " Almighty was yet with me, when I put on righteousness, and it " clothed me, when my glory was fresh in me," Job xxix. 2, 4, 5.
Again, think, O my soul, what a miserable condition the unrege- nerate abide in ! Thus swarmed and over-run with hellish lusts, under the dominion and vassalage of divers lusts. Tit. iii. 3. What a tu- multuous sea is such a soul: how do these lusts rage within them ! how do they contest and scufile for the throne ! and usually take it by turns : for as all diseases are contrary to health, yet some contrary to each other, so are lusts. Hence poor creatures are hurried on to different kinds of servitude, according to the nature of that imperious lust that is in the throne ; and, like the lunatic. Mat. xvii. are some- times cast into the water, and sometimes into the fire. Well might the prophet say, " The mcked is like a troubled sea, that cannot rest," Isa. vii. 20. They have no peace now in the service of sin, and less shall they have hereafter, when they receive the wages of sin. " There " is no peace to the wicked, saith my God." They indeed cry Peace, peace ; but my God doth not so. The last issue and result of this is eternal death ; no sooner is it dehvered of its deceitful plea- sures, but presently it falls in travail again, and brings forth death, Jam. i. 15.