MEDITATION XXVII.
MEDITATION XXVII.
ON A FINE FLEET.
Spithead, May 23, 1758.
What is the purpose of this splendid fleet, this expensive navy? No doubt, to deal destruction to our foes, and ride triumphant over the sea. Had the world been inhabited in different parts, with people from other planets—we would not wonder much to see fierce contests. But the matter is not so, for we have all one father, and are all of one blood. All mankind are brethren. So why are empires filled with anarchy, kingdoms with rebellion, families with terror and tears, while the brother butchers the brother, the son the father, the husband the wife, and the person that is driven into despair, rises in rebellion against his own life? It is because we are all in a state of rebellion against God. What a shame is it for men to massacre one another, or depopulate whole nations, for a few miles of earth, which, in a few years hence, their eyes shall see in flames—an agonizing sight to their ambition!
We think much of nation rising against nation—but, since Adam turned rebel, the whole universe is up in arms against God—with a few humble supplicants in all ages excepted, who, having made peace through the King's Son, are again received into favor. But what are they to the many millions that are under the command of Satan, the god of this world, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience! What pity to see serving in the devil's wretched army—the statesman and the general, the soldier and the farmer, the merchant and the mariner, the master and the servant; yes, and woman who, in other wars, tarry at home!
Moreover, besides this general insurrection against Heaven, there is a war in the bosom of all believers, some of the old principles of rebellion rising up against the laws of their rightful Lord and King: "A law in our members warring against the law of our mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin."
This is the army of Gog and Magog, which covers the face of the whole earth, and makes war with the Lamb; whom the Lamb shall overcome, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings. There is a day of slaughter coming, when the sword of God's justice shall be drunken with the blood of his enemies; when those who would not have him to reign over them in the spirituality of his government—shall be slain before his face, and cast into the lake of fire and brimstone!
Would the princes of the earth submit to the Prince of peace, soon would they beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and every man sit under his vine, and under his fig-tree. Were they more careful to extend the Christian religion, than to extend their conquest and commerce, more to grow in grace than in riches, and to improve more for eternity than time—how would our world be Hephzibah, and our earth Beulah, and the general contention between crowned heads and their subjects, through every land, be—who could live most like angels, and love most like seraphim!