vast time would it be ere that immortal bird, after that rate, would carry off the mountain! and yet in time this might be done, for there would still be some diminution; but in eternity there can be none.

There are three things in time, which are not in eternity-In time there is a succession, one generation, one year, and one day passes, and another comes; but eternity is a fixed now. In time there is a diminution and wasting; the more that is past, the less is there to come; but it is not so in eternity. In time there is an alteration of condition and states; a man may be poor to-day and rich tomorrow, sickly and diseased this week and well the next, now in contempt and anon in honor; but no changes pass upon us in eternity. As the tree falls at death and judgment, so it lies for ever; if in heaven, there thou art a pillar, and shalt go forth no more; if in hell, no redemption thence, but the smoke of thy torment ascendeth for ever and ever.

Reflection. And is the mercy of God like the great deep, an ocean that none can fathom? What unspeakable comfort is this to me! may the pardoned soul say. Did Israel sing a song, when the Lord had overwhelmed their enemies in the seas? And shall not I break forth into his praise, who has drowned all my sins in the depth of mercy? O my soul, bless thou the Lord, and let his high praises ever be in thy mouth. Mayest thou not say, that he has gone to as high an extent and degree of mercy in pardoning thee, as ever he did in any? O my God, who is like unto thee, that pardonest iniquity, transgression, and sin? What mercy, but the mercy of a God, could cover such abomination as mine?

But O what terrible reflections will conscience make from hence, unto all despisers of mercy, when the sinner's eyes come to be opened too late for mercy to do them good! We have heard indeed, that the king of heaven was a merciful king, but we would make no address to him, whilst that sceptre was stretched out. heard of balm in Gilead, and a physician there who was able and willing to cure all our wounds; but we would not commit ourselves to him. We read, that the arms of Christ were open to embrace and receive us, but we

We

would not go to him. O unparalleled folly! O souldestroying madness! Now the womb of mercy is shut up, and shall bring forth no more mercies to me for ever. Now the gates of grace are shut, and no cries can open them. Mercy acted its part, and is gone off the stage; and now justice enters the scene, and will be glorified for ever upon me. How often did I hear the bowels of compassion sounding in 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 past out of the ocean of mercy into the ocean of eternity, where I am fixed in the midst of endless misery, and shall never hear the voice of mercy more.

O dreadful eternity! O soul-confounding word! An ocean indeed, to which this ocean is but as a drop; for in thée no soul shall see either bank or bottom. If I lie but one night under strong pains of body, how tedious does that night seem! and how do I count the clock, and wish 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 sins in execution! and how long is their punishment in duration! O how shall I dwell with everlasting burnings? O that God would but Vouchsafe one offer more to me! But alas, all tenders and treaties are now at an end! On earth peace, but none in hell. O my soul, consider these things. Come, let us debate this matter seriously, before we launch out into this ocean.

CHAPTER III.

The Inhabitants of the Ocean.

Observation.-IT was an unadvised saying of Plato, that "the sea produces nothing memorable." Surely there is much of the wisdom, power,and goodness of God manifested in the inhabitants of the watery region. Notwithstanding the sea's azure and smiling face, strange creatures are bred in its womb. "O Lord," says 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 also, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts," Psal. civ. 24. We read, Lam. iv. 3, of sea-monsters, which draw out their breasts to their young. About the tropics, our seamen meet with flying fishes. How strange, both in shape and property, is the swordfish! Even our own seas produce creatures of strange shapes, but the commonness of them takes off the wonder.

Application. Thus does the heart of man naturally swarm and abound with strange and monstrous lusts and abominations. "Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful," Rom. i. 29. O what a swarm is here! And yet there are multitudes more in the depths of the heart. And it is no wonder, considering that with our fallen nature, we received the spawn of the blackest and vilest abominations. This original lust is productive of them all; James i. 14; in the depths of the heart they are conceived, and thence they crawl out of the eyes, hands, lips, and all the members. "Those things," says Christ, which proceed out of the mouth, 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 monsters as would make a gracious heart tremble to behold. Whence 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.

Reflection. 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 stately fabric was the soul at first! and what holy inhabitants possessed the several rooms thereof! But now, as God speaks of Idumea, "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," Isa. xxxiv. 11. "The wild beasts of the desart lie there it is full of doleful creatures; the satyrs dance in it, and dragons cry in those sometimes pleasant places," Isa. xiii. 21. O sad change! How sadly may we look back towards 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 unregenerate abide in! thus under the dominion and vassalage of divers lusts! What a tumultuous sea is such a soul! How do these lusts rage within it! how do they contest and scuffle for the throne! Hence poor sinners 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, are sometimes cast into the water, and sometimes into the fire. Well might the prophet say, "The wicked are like a troubled sea, that cannot rest." 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 does not so. The last issue and result of this is eternal death; no sooner is it delivered of its deceitful pleasures, but presently it falls in travail again, and brings forth death; Jam. i. 15.

Once more; and is the heart such a sea, abounding with such monstrous abominations? Then stand astonished, O my soul, at that free grace which has delivered thee from so sad a condition. Ŏ fall down and kiss the feet of mercy, that moved so freely and seasonably to thy rescue. Let my heart be enlarged abundantly here. Lord, what am I, that I should be taken and others left? Reflect, O my soul, upon the conceptions and bursts of lusts in the days of vanity, which thou now blushest to O what black imaginations, hellish desires, vile affections, were lodged within me! Who made me to differ? or how came I to be thus wonderfully sepa

own.

rated? Surely it is by thy free grace, and nothing else, that I am what I am; and by that grace I have escaped, to mine own astonishment, the corruption that is in the world through lust. O that ever the holy God should set his eyes on such a one! or cast a look of love towards me, in whom were legions of unclean lusts and abominations.

CHAPTER IV.

The purifying Nature of the Tides.

Observation.-SEAS are in continual motion and agitation; they have their flux and reflux, by which they are kept from putrefaction: whereas lakes and ponds, whose waters are standing, become corrupt.

Application. Thus do regenerate souls purify themselves, and work out the corruption that defiles them; they cannot suffer it to settle within them. "He purifieth himself, even as he is pure." "He keepeth himself that the wicked one toucheth him not." "He despiseth the gain of oppression; he shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, stoppeth his ears from hearing blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil," Isa. xxxiii. 15. See how all his senses and members are guarded against sin. But it is quite contrary with the wicked; there is no principle of holiness in them to oppose or expel corruption, It lies in their hearts as mud in a lake or well, which settles and corrupts more and more. Hence their hearts are compared to miry or marshy places, which cannot be healed, but are given to salt: the meaning is, that the purest streams of the gospel which cleanse others, make them worse than before, as abundance of rain will make a miry place. All the means and endeavours used to cleanse them are in vain; all the grace of God they receive in vain; "they hold fast deceit, they refuse to let it go." Sin is not in them as floating weeds upon the sea, which it strives to expel and purge out, but as spots in the leopard's skin, or letters fashioned and engraved in the very substance of marble