First, A description of the persons about whom this wonderful pro- vidence is exercised : " They that go down to the sea in ships ; that " do business in great waters ;*" the periphrasis of a seaman. These
360 THE SEAMAN IN A STOKM.
are said logo down to the sea in ships, not because the sea is lowertlian the land, but because it is lower than the shore, which is the ram- part raised by providence against its inundations. And their end or design in going down into the sea, is not pleasure and recreation, but to do business, i. e. to export and import such wares and commodi- ties as are necessary, if not to the being, at least to the well-being of the several kingdoms and countries of the world. These are the men here spoken of, who " see (more than any) the works of the " Lord, and his wonders in the deep." Works and wonders by an iv 0!cc duoiv, an usual figure, is as much as his wonderful works ; namely, of creation, in the strange and monstrous productions of the sea ; and of preservation, with respect to themselves, in the dreadful dangers they there encounter. Thus the person or subject is described.
Secondly, The danger is likewise described in which these sea-faring men are sometimes involved : and indeed the Psalmist here gives us a very rhetorical and elegant description of their condition in the stormy sea ; and shews us how deplorable their state and condition is at such a time. Where we are to note both the causes and effects of these tempests.
1. The causes; and they are twofold.
First, The principal cause, the will and pleasure of God. He commandeth and raiseth the stormy winds. This is God^^s preroga- tive : none can raise winds but himself, and if devils or witches do it at any time, yet it is still by his permission ; as you see in Job i. 12, 19- the Lord is said to hold the wind in his fists, Prov. xxx. 4. as a man holds a wild fierce beast in a chain, or by a collar : and when they blow, "He brings them out of his treasuries,"" Psal. cxxxv. 7. There is indeed a natural cause of winds, of whom philosophers give us this rational account, " That it is a hot and dry exhalation raised ' from the earth by the power of the heavenly bodies, which being ' repelled or forced back by the coldness of the middle region, moves ' obliquely or slantingly, and sometimes very violently through the * air."* But though this be the natural cause of the winds, yet this doth not at all restrain the absolute sovereignty of God over them. Itishethat commands and raiseth them, as the text speaks; and though it be said, John iii. 8. " The wind blows where it listeth ;"" yet that expression makes it not an arbitrary creature ; but the meaning is, either thus. It blows where it listeth, for any opposition that man can make to it, though it cannot blow where it listeth in respect to God. Or thus, such is the great variableness and instability of the winds, blowing now this way, now that, that it seems to move with a kind of spontaneity, as a bird doth in the air : though indeed it doth but seem so, for all its motions are ordered of the Lord. And you can- not say in this sense, as 1 Kings ix. 11. " That God is not in the " wind.*" Now when it pleaseth the Lord to shew his power upon the great deeps, he sends forth these winds out of his treasure. Thia is the principal cause. Then next,
THE SEAMAN IX A STORM. S61
!^. We have the mstrumental, subordinate and next cause of the storm ; and that is, the ' winds hfting up the waves of the ocean.' There is naturally in the sea a continual agitation and rolling of its waters hither and thither ; it cannot rest^ as the prophet speaks of it ; but when a violent wind blows upon it, the ocean is incensed and enraged ; and the winds roll moving mountains of water before them. Then, like wild beasts, the waves seem to break loose and rage ; not only to be latrantes undas^ as Virgil calls them, barking waves, but xufjjciTct ay ^ia, raging zcaves, as Jude speaks, ver. 13. Yea, 7'oaring waves, as our Saviour stiles them, Luke xxi. 25. Thus of the causes of the storm principal and subordinate. Next we have.
Secondly, The terrible effects of the tempests, and that both upon their bodies and their minds.
(1.) External upon their bodies ; it tosses them up and down in a dreadful manner, which the Psalmist elegantly expresses in the text, " They mount up to heaven, they go down to the depths," a lofty hyperbolical expression ; very near unto it is that of Virgil :
ToUimur in ccelum, curvato gurgite ; et iidem,
Subducta, ad manes imos descendimus, unda ! - Mi\. 3.
They seem to mix with the very clouds, and then open deep graves for them in the bottom sands. Yea, it moves them not only per- pendicularly, lifting them up, and casting them down, but obliquely and circularly also. " They reel to and fro, and stagger like a ** drunken man," or, as some translate, agitantur ingyrum, they run round : they are, indeed, moved according to the unstable motion of the waves, on whose proud backs they are mounted. This is tlie ex- ternal effect of the storm upon their bodies.
(2.) The internal effect of it upon their minds, which is far more terrible. For it is said here, Their soul is melted because of trouble, and they are at their wifs end. Both which expressions do import a greater commotion and storm in the passions of the mind, than that is in the waves of the sea. The stoutest spirit quails and melts when it comes to this ; and the wisest artist is at his wit's end. Thus you have the description of the persons, and of their danger, both in the cause and effects upon the body and mind. Next,
(3.) We have their deliverance by the wonderful hand of Divine Providence, in ver. 27. " Then they cry unto the Lord in their trou- " ble, and he brings them out of their distress." Their usual cry in such extraordinary exigencies, is, mercy! me?ry ! Now they can pray that could not pray before. Extremity drives them to their knees, not only with cries, but vows to the Lord, and he delivers them out of their distresses : some delivered one way, and some ano- ther, but all in a stupendous way, which cannot but astonish them that are so delivered, and make them acknowledge the finger of God was in it.
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From all this we observe,
Doct. That the preservations and deliverances of seamen in the dreadful stoi'ms and tempests at sea, is the wondei^ul work of Divine Providence.
** The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that " have pleasure therein ;" Psal. cxi. 2. And, among his providential works, none greater and more admirable than those which seamen daily behold in their great and marvellous protections upon the sea.