The things about which your expectations are frustrated 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. These disappointments are but for a little while ! but this will be for ever. O therefore be provoked, even by these things to a diligent and seasonable prevention of a far greater misery.
Since these things cannot be secured, 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 purpose. All your thoughts about them are come to nothing ; but had they been spent for your souls, to what a comfortable account would they now have turned ? Friends, I beseech you make sure for eternity, and let these crosses and losses in the world be the happy occasions to awaken you to an earnest and serious diligence for your everlasting interests. Then you are no losers by your losses : nay, you will have great cause to call them prosperous disappointments, and gainful losses to you.
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Inference 4. Then as you would not have the works and labours of your hands blasted, beware of those sins that provoke God to blow upon them. Think not that injustice, oppression, deceit and perjury should ever profit you. God hath cursed all the ways of sin, and you cannot prosper in them. Above all, beware of atheism and irreligion : God will not own them that disown him, and slight his worship. I doubt your profanation of the Lord's day, by drunkenness, idleness, and worldly employments, is not the least cause of those disappoint- ments and losses that have befallen you : the first day of the week, like the first-fruits of the Jews' harvests^ should sanctify the whole lump.
And let none pretend that multiplicity of business will not allow them time and disposition for sabbath-work. If you be too busy to attend the Lord's service, he can quickly give you a writ of ease, and make you keep more resting days from your labours than you are willing to do. The Lord would not excuse the Israelites, no, not in their busiest seasons, the times of earing and harvest, and the very building of the tabernacle ; but all must give way to the sabbath. And I am sure the promise of blessing and success is made to the conscientious observation of it : Isa. Iviii. 13, 14. " If thou turn " away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure upon my '' holy day ; and call the sabbath a Delight, the holy of the Lord, *' Honourable ; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, '• nor finding thine own pleasures, nor speaking thine own words : '' Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord :" There is a recom- pence to the soul. " And he shall cause thee to ride on high places *' of the earth :" There is a reward to the body. Godliness is pro- fitable to all things.
Theij shall call the people unto the mountain, there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness : For they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sand.
A HIS scripture is part of the last words of Moses : a man that in his life was a great blessing to Israel : and when he was to be separated from them by death, he pronounces distinct and suitable blessings upon all the tribes. As Christ parted from his disciples,
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blessing them, so doth Moses from his people ; only with this dif- ference, Moses as God's mouth pronounced, but the great God of heaven and earth alone could confer the blessing. Moses blessed them authoritatively, but could not bless them potestatively, as Christ did. Now these words contain the blessing of the tribe of Zebulun, which was the tribe of seamen. And in them we shall consider these two parts, viz.
Fintt, Their privilege, " That they should suck of the abundance " of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sand." To suck the abundance of the sea isa*metonymical expression, signifying as much as to be enriched and stored with the wares and merchandise import- ed by sea to them. Geographers attribute to the sea, arms and bosoms; and the scripture breasts. The sea, like an indulgent mother, em- braces 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 sucks and depends for its livelihood upon her breasts.
And these breasts do not only afford those that hang upon them the necessaries of life, bread, raiment, &c. but the riches, ornaments, and delights of life also. " The treasures hid in the sand," -f as gold, co- ral, ambergrease, and such like precious and rich treasures which it yields. This was the blessing and privilege of the tribe of Zebulun, whose cities and villages were commodiously situated upon the sea- shore for merchandise and traffic : as you may see Josh. xix. 11.
Secondly^ Their duty to which these mercies and privileges obliged them : " They shall call the people to the mountain, there they " shall offer sacrifices of righteousness." By the mountain, we are here to understand the temple, which Moses, by the spirit of prophecy, foresaw to be upon mount Sion, and mount Moriah; which two were as the shoulders that supported it, ver. 12. Here was the worship of God ; the sacrifices were here offered up to him. And hither Ze- bulun, in the sense of God's mercies to them, should call the people, i. e. say some, their own people, their families and neighbours ; or as others, the strangers that were among them for traffic ; saying, as Isa. ii. 3. " Come, let us go up to the house of the Lord, to the " mountain of the God of Jacob." And here they shall offer the sacrifices of righteousness. By which we are to understand their thank-offerings for the mercies they had received of the Lord. The Jews had not only expiatory sacrifices to procure the pardon of sins committed, but eucharistical sacrifices, or thank-offerings, to testify the sense they had of mercies received. These sacrifices typified moral duties; and when these types were abolished, the apostle shews,
• Affluentiam maris sugere, est marinis bonis, ^ mercibus abundare. Glas. f Referiint ad ea qua enwvare solent marioy soil, ad auri Jodinas. EJfoiient e terra arejwsa aurum. Pol. Synop. in loc.
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" that the calves of our lips, the sacrifice of praise," are in the stead of them, Heb. xiii. 15.
So then the sum of all this is, that when they returned from sea, or had received the blessings thereof from the hand of God, they should repair to the place of his worship, and there acknowledge and praise the God of their mercies. So that the whole verse thus ex- plained, casts itself into this docrinal observation.