View source for Meditation LXV.

====Meditation LXV.====

'''AN HIGH WIND PREFERABLE TO A CALM.'''

Under sail, Feb. 15, 1759.

Among the wonders of navigation, this is one, that through opposing waves which dash on every side, and amidst winds so strong that they seem rather a tempest than a moderate gale—the ship should pursue her voyage with greater speed, and reach her port sooner, than in a profound calm. Indeed he that never had his foot on salt water before, and adventures only on the glassy lake to take his pleasure, will bless the serenity, and congratulate the calm. But the spirited sailor who minds his business, and has other climates in view, will rather wish a brisk gale to waft him to the distant shore, than to roll about in a dead calm until his vessel grow rottens in the water, and sinks.

Even so, Christian, it fares with you. Believe it, the calmest weather does not make the best voyage heavenward. It is better for you to proceed on your course through the rolling waves of affliction, attended by the ruffling winds of adversity—than to be calmed into inactivity—by affluence, ease, and prosperity. The one, through 'seeming difficulty' and threatened danger, shall at last bring you safely to your desired haven; while he other detains you to your eternal ruin. God, who sits as king on the swelling flood—rules also all the afflictions of his people. Though sometimes they complain, "All your waves and your billows have gone over me," yet not one can attack them, but by his permission, nor swell beyond the given bounds.

Covenant-mercy has established the kind decree, "Thus far you shall go—but no further; and here shall your perplexing waves be stayed." Why then should the Christian mariner on the flood of time, so cry out against the boisterous wind, afflictive wave, and foaming billow—which only hasten the journey to the pacific shore? 

Have not some, by the thorny cross, been startled out of their delusive dreams, and awakened to the concerns of a world to come? Have not some, by the loss of a child, found the Son of God? Have not some, by the death of an earthly father, been brought into subjection to the heavenly Father, and so made to live? And have not some, while unjustly deprived of a small part of the petty inheritance in this world, been made to look out for an inheritance in the better country—a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?

To say no more, will not the experience of the saints agree in this—that while their outward man seems to decay through the lashes of daily affliction, their inward man is renewed day by day; so that in the year of drought, their soul is as a watered garden?


[[Meditation LXVI.]]


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