Chapter 8: The Navigator Shifts His Sails — But Shifts Not for His Soul

The Navigator shifts his Sails, to take All Vvinds, but that which for his Soul does make.

OBSERVATION.

THE Mariner wants no Skill and wisdom to improve several Winds, and make them serviceable to his eud; A bare side-wind, by his skill in shifting and managing the Sails, will serve his turn: He will not lose the advantage of one breath or gale that may be useful to him, I have many times wonder'd to see two Ships failing in a direct countermotion, by one and the same wind. Their skill and wisdom herein is admirable.

APPLICATION.

Thus prudent and skilful are Men in secular and lower matters, and yet how ignorant and unskilful in the great and everlasting affairs of their Souls! All their Invention, Judgment, Wit, and Memory seem to be prest for the service of the flesh. They can learn an Are quickly, and arrive to a great deal of exactness in it; but in soul-matters, no knowledge at all. They can understand the Aequator, Meridian, and Horizon: By the first they can tell the Latitude of any place, South or North, measuring it by the degrees in the Meridian; by the second, they can tell you the Longitude of a place, East and West, from the Meridian, measuring it by the degrees of the Aequator: And by the third, they can discern the divers risings and settings of the Stars. And so in other Arts and Sciences, we find men endowed with rare abilities, and singular sagacity. Some have piercing Apprehensions, solid Judgments, stupendious Memories, rare Invention, and excellent elocution: But put them upon any spiritual pernatural matter, and the weakest Christian, even a babe in Christ, shall excel them therein, and give a far better account of Regeneration, the Work of Grace, the Life of Faith than these can. 1 Corinthians 1:26. Not many wise men after the flesh, &c. But God has chosen the [•]oolish things of this world, &c.

REFLECTION.

How inexcusable then are you, O my Soul! and how mute and confounded must you needs stand before the bar of God, in that great day? You had a Talent of natural parts committed to you, but which way have they been improved? I had an Understanding indeed, but it was not sanctified; a Memory, but it was like a Sieve, that let go the Corn, and retain'd nothing but Husks and Chaff; Wit and Invention, but alas none to do my self good. Ah! how will these rise in judgment against me, and stop my mouth! What account shall I give for them in that day?

Again: Are men (otherwise prudent and skillful) such sots and fools in spiritual things? Then let the poor weak Christian, whose natural parts are blunt and dull, admire the riches of God's Free grace to him. O what an astonishing consideration is this! That God should pass by Men of the profoundest Natural parts, and chuse me, even poor me, whose Natural Faculties and Endowments, compared with theirs, are but as Led to Gold! Thus under the Law he past by the Lion and Eagle, and chose the Lamb and Dove. O, how should it make me to advance Grace, as Christ does upon the same account, Matth. 11. 25. I thank you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that you hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes. And let it ever be an humbling consideration to me; For who made me to differ? Is not this one principal thing God aims at, in calling such as I am; that boasting may be excluded, and himself alone exalted?

THE POEM.

One thing does very much affect my mind,

To see the Sea-man husband every Wind;

With exc'llent Are he shifts the Sails and knows

How to improve the barest Vvind that blows.

If a direct or fore-right gale he want,

A side-wind serves his turn, tho' ne'r so scant,

And will not this one day in judgment rise

Against your Soul? Ah! can you be so wise

In smaller matters; what, and yet not know

How to improve fresh gales of Grace that blow?

Fast mor'd in sin your wind-bound Souls can lie,

And let these precious gales rise, blow, and die.

Sometimes on your Affections you may feel

Such gracious breathings: Ab, but hearts of steel,

They move you not, nor cause you to relent,

Though able, like Elijah's Vvind, to rent

The Rocks asunder: If you do not prize

Those breathings, other Vvinds will shortly rise,

And from another quarter; those once gone,

Then next look out for an Euroclydon.

A dreadful storm: how soon no Man can tell;

But when it comes, 'twill blow such Souls to Hell.