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When I again grow greedy to be poor,
I'll with for you.

Welcome, my credit, this difgrace is glory.
Honours adieu.

When for renown and fame I fhall be forry,
I'll with for you.

Welcome content, this forrow is my joy.
Pleafures adieu.

When I defire fuch griefs as may annoy,
'I'll with for you.

Health, ftrength, and riches, credit, and content,
Are fpared best sometimes when they are spent.
Sickness and weakness, lofs, difgrace, and forrow,
Lend most sometimes, when most they seem to borrow.

And if by these contrary and improbable ways the Lord preferves our fouls in life, no marvel then we find fuch ftrange and feemingly contradictory motions of our hearts, under the various dealings of God with us, and are still restless, in what condition foever he puts us; which reftlefs frame was excellently expreffed in that pious epigram of the reverend Gataker, made a little before his death.

Ithirst for thirstinefs, I weep for tears,
Well pleas'd I am to be difpleased thus:
The only thing I fear, is want of fears,
Sufpecting I am not fufpicious.

1

I cannot chufe but live, because I die;
And when I am not dead, how glad am I?
Yet when I am thus glad for fense of pain,
And careful am left I fhould carelefs be;
Then do I grieve for being glad again,
And fear, left carefulness take care for me.
Amidst these restless thoughts this reft I find,
For those that reft not here, there's reft behind,
Jam tetigi portum, valete.

NAVIGATION

SPIRITUALIZED:

OR,

A NEW COMPASS FOR SEAMEN,
CONSISTING OF 32 POINTS,

Of pleasant Obfervations, profitable Applications, and ferious Reflections:

All concluded with so many spiritual POEMS.

What good might Seamen get, if once they were
But heavenly-minded, if they could but fteer
The Chriftian's courfe, the foul might then enjoy
Sweet peace, they might like feas o'erflow with joy.
Were God our all, how would our comforts double
Upon us! thus the feas of all our trouble
Would be divinely fweet: men fhould endeavour
To fee God now, and be with him for ever

To all Mafters, Mariners, and Seamen; efpecially fuch as belong to the Borough of Clifton, Dartmouth, and Hardness, in the county of

I

Devon.

SIRS,

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FIND it ftoried of Anacharfis, that when one afked him whether the living or the dead were more? He returned this aufwer, You must first tell me (faith he) in which number I must place feamen Intimating thereby, that feamen are, as it were, a third fort of perfons, to be numbered neither with the living nor the dead; their lives hanging continually in fufpenfe before them. And it was anciently accounted the most desperate employment, and they little better than loft men that used the feas. Through all my life (faith Aristotle) three things do especially repent me: 1. That ever I revealed a fecret to a woman. 2. That ever I remained one day ⚫ without a will. 3. That ever I went to any place by fea, whither I might have gone by land. Nothing (faith another) is more miferable, than to fee a virtuous and worthy person upon the fea.' And although cuftom, and the great improvement of the art of navigation, have made it lefs formidable now, yet are you no further from death than you are from the waters, which is but a remove of two or three inches. Now you that border fo high upon the confines of death and eternity every moment, may be well fuppofed to be men

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of fingular piety and ferioufnefs: For nothing more compofes the heart to fuch a frame, than the lively apprehenfions of eternity do; and none have greater external advantages for that, than you have. But, alas! for the generality, what fort of men are more ungodly, and ftupidly infenfible of eternal concernments? living, for the most part, as if they had made a covenant with death, and with hell were at agreement. It was an ancient faying, Qui nefcit orare, difcat naviHe that knows not how to pray, let him go to fea. But we may fay now, (alas! that we may fay fo in times of greater light) he that would learn to be profane, to drink and fwear, and difhonour God, let him go to fea. As for prayer, it is a rare thing among feamen, they count that a needlefs bufinefs: they fee the profane and vile delivered as well as others; and therefore, what profit is there if they pray unto him? Mal. iii. 4. As I remember, I have read of a profane foldier, who was heard fwearing, though he stood in a place of great danger; and when one that ftood by him warned him, faying, Fellow-foldier, do not fwear, the bullets fly he anfwered, They that fwear come off as well as they that pray. Soon after a fhot hit him, and down he fell. Plato diligently admonished all men to avoid the fea; For (faith he) it is the fchoolmaster of all vice and 'dishonesty.' Sirs! it is a very fad confideration to me, that you who float upon the great deeps, in whose bottom fo many thousand poor miferable creatures lie, whofe fins have funk them down, not only into the bottom of the fea, but of hell alfo, whither divine vengeance hath pursued them: That you, I fay, who daily float, and hover over them, and have the roaring waves and billows that fwallowed them up, gaping for you as the next prey, fhould be no more affected with these things. Oh what a terrible voice doth God utter in the storms! "It breaks the cedars, fhakes the wildernefs, makes the hinds to " calve," Pfal. xxix. 5. And can it not shake your hearts? This voice of the Lord is full of majesty, but his voice in the word is more efficacious and powerful, Heb. iv. 12. to convince and rip up the heart. This word is exalted above all his name, Pfalm cxxxviii. 3. and if it cannot awaken you, it is no wonder you remain fecure and dead, when the Lord utters his voice in the most dreadful storms and tempefts. But if neither the voice of God uttered in his dreadful works, or in his glorious gofpel, can effectually awaken and rouze, there is an Euroclydon, a fearful storm coming, which will so awaken your fouls, as that they fhall never fleep any more, Pfal. xi. 6. "Upon "the wicked he fhall rain fnares, fire and brimftone, and an horrible "tempeft: This is the portion of their cup." You that have been at sea in the most violont storms, never felt such a storm as this, and the Lord grant you never may; no calm fhall follow this ftorm. There are fome among you, that, I am perfuaded, do truly fear that God in whofe hand their life and breath are; men that fear an oath, and are an honour to their profeffion; who drive a trade for heaven, and are diligent to fecure the happiness of their immortal fouls, in the

infurance-office above; but for the generality, alas! they mind none of thefe things. How many of you are coafting to and fro, from one country to another? But never think of that heavenly country above, nor how you may get the merchandize thereof, which is better than the gold of Ophir. How oft do you tremble to fee the foaming waves. dance about you, and wash over you? You confider not how terrible it will be to have all the waves and billows of God's wrath to go over your fouls, and that for ever. How glad are you after you have been long toffed upon the ocean, to defcry land? And how yare and eagerly do you look out for it, who yet never had your hearts warmed with the confideration of that joy which shall be among the faints, when they arrive at the heavenly firand, and fet foot upon the fhore of glory.

O Sirs! I beg of you, if you have any regard to those precious, immortal fouls of yours, which are alfo imbarked for eternity, whither all winds blow them, and will quickly be at their port of heaven or hell, that you will ferioufly mind thefe things, and learn to fteer your course to heaven, and improve all winds (I mean opportunities and means) to waft you thither.

Here you venture life and liberty, run through many difficulties and dangers, and all to compafs a perifhing treafure; yet how often do you return difappointed in your defign? Or if not, yet it is but a fading fhort-lived inheritance, which like the flowing tide, for a while, covers the fhore, and then returns, and leaves it naked and dry again and are not everlafting treafures worth venturing for? Good fouls be wife for eternity: I here prefent you with the fruit of a few fpare hours, redeemed for your fakes, from my other studies and employments, which I have put into a new drefs and mode. I have endeavoured to clothe fpiritual matters in your own dialect and phrafes, that they might be the more intelligible to you; and added fome pious poems, with which the feveral chapters are concluded, trying by all means to affault your feveral affections, and as the apoftle speaks, "to catch you with guile." I can fay nothing of it; I know it cannot be without its manifold imperfections, fince I am confcious of fo many in myself; only this I will adventure to fay of it, that how defective or empty foever it be in other refpects, yet it is stuffed and filled with much true love to, and earnest defires after the falvation and profperity of your fouls. And for the other defects that attend it, I have only two things to offer, in way of excufe; it is the first effay that I ever made in this kind, wherein I find no precedent: and it was haftened for your fakes, too foon out of my hands, that it might be ready to wait upon you, when you undertake your next voyage: fo that I could not revife and polish it. Nor indeed was I folicitous , about the ftile; I confider, I write not for critical and learned perfons; my defign is not to please your fancies any further, than I might thereby get advantage to profit your fouls. I will not once queftion your welcome reception of it: if God shall blefs thefe meditations to

the converfion of any among you, you will be the gainers, and my heart fhall rejoice, even mine. How comfortably thould we fhake hands with you, when you go abroad, were we perfuaded your fouls were interested in Chrift, and fecured from perithing, in the new covenant? What life would it put into our prayers for you, when you are abroad, to confider that Jefus Chrift is interceding for you in heaven, whilst we are your remembrancers here on earth? How quiet would our hearts be, when you are abroad in ftorms, did we know you had a special intereft in him whom winds and feas obey? To conclude, what joy would it be to your godly relations, to fee you return new creatures? Doubtlefs more than if you came home laden with the riches of both Indies.

Come, Sirs! fet the heavenly Jerufalem upon the point of your new compafs; make all the fail you can for it; and the Lord give you a profperous gale, and a safe arrival in that land of reft.

So prays

Your most affectionate friend to ferve you

in foul-concernments,

JOHN FLAVEL.

Το every SEAMAN failing Heavenward.

Ingenious Seamen,

THE

HE art of Navigation, by which iflands efpecially are enriched, and preferved in safety from foreign invafions; and the wonderful works of God in the great deep, and foreign nations, are moft delightfully and fully beheld, &c. is an art of exquifite excellency, ingenuity, rarity, and mirability; but the art of fpiritual navigation is the art of arts. It is a gallant thing to be able to carry a fhip richly laden round the world; but it is much more gallant to carry a foul, (that rich loading, a pearl of more worth than all the merchandize of the world) in a body (that is as liable to leaks and bruifes as any fhip is) through the fea of this world (which is as unstable as water, and hath the fame brinifh tafte and falt guft which the waters of the fea have) fafe to heaven (the best haven) fo as to avoid fplitting upon any foulfinking rocks, or ftriking upon any foul-drowning fands. The art of natural navigation is a very great mystery; but the art of fpiritual navigation is by much a greater mystery. Human wisdom may teach us to carry a fhip to the Indies; but the wifdom only that is from above can teach us to fteer our courfe aright to the haven of happiness. This art is purely of divine revelation. The truth is, divinity (the doctrine of living to God) is nothing elfe but the art of foul-navigation,

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