is a very pleafing fight, and it is ftill more flattering to our pride, if our hearers are of the reputable clafs, if they cut a refpectable figure; but yet how much better if we can fay in humility," the feal of our miffion are ye in the Lord." Yes, my brother, to have one poor finner to own thee as an inftrument in God's hands, of plucking him as a brand from the burning, will be of greater comfort to thy glorified fpirit in the Day of the Lord, than if thou hadft been the greatest orator that ever engaged the attention of an audience. To fpeak with the tongue of men or angels, is nothing; but to be wife to win fouls, is a matter of everlasting importance. To this great end, we must have our Mafter with us; for without him, we can do nothing. But in this refpect, faithful minifters have reafon to expect the fulfilment of his gracious promife, feeing he has promifed, who cannot lie; he hath faid it, and it fhall furely come to pafs. Gracious Promife! Yes, let each of us cry out, If thy Prefence go not with me, carry me not hence. 5. He will be with them to give them the final victory, to give them their own fouls for a prey at laft. To preach to others, and to become in the end caft-aways, would be dreadful indeed! It has been hinted above, that the great enemy has a particular antipathy to those who are making conftant war against him; and furely if all the powers of hell can ruin them, ruined they fhall be: But the Captain of their Salvation will ftand by them, and he declares, "No weapon formed against them fhall profper;" and, "none fhall pluck them from his hand." They are called ftars, and these ftars he holds in his right hand. Happy for them that it is fo. To finish well, is the crowning article! To receive the end of our faith the falvation of our fouls, is a circumstance which may encourage us to go through the fire and through the water unto the wealthy place! To meet many of you, my dear hearers, in our Father's Kingdom, what a ravishing thought! O pray for us, that having guided others through the forms of life we may find the port of eternal Reft ourselves! Oh happy preachers! Oh happy hearers! I would finish well, I would wish to preach well, in my laft hour to say with him of old, "Though I walk through the valley of the fhadow of death, yet will I fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy ftaff they comfort me❞t. or as the apoftle fpeaks, "I have fought a good fight, I have finifhed my courfe; I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, fhall give me in that day; and not to me only. but unto all them alfo who love his appearing"§. Gracious Lord! ftand by thy fervants, and bring them off more than conquerors! From hence we fee the honour God puts upon his ministers, What are the honours that even an Ahafuerus can confer upon the most darling favorite, in comparison of the honour which the great Head of the Church confers upon worms raised out * Rev, i. 20. + Pfalm xxiii. 4 § 2 Tim, iv. 7, 8. of of the duft! Nay what was the honour of Ahafuerus himself, or even Solomon in all his glory, to this high vocation! It made an apoftle exclaim in pleafing extafy, "To me who am lefs than the leaft of all faints, is this grace given, that I fhould preach among the Gentiles the unfearchable Riches of Chrift:" and again, fays he, "I thank Chrift Jefus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry." Thus this tall cedar bows his reverend head to his great Mafter and Lord, owning the honour and power which he had conferred upon him. Here I need not call you to make the proper application. But then we must remember, we have this treasure in earthen veffels, and therefore are liable to many difafters, fo that we muft not be high minded but fear. Left an apoftle fhould be lifted up above measure, a painful thorn was given him in the flesh; fo it will be with the minifters of Chrift in the prefent day. They must expect their tribulations in this world; it is a world which hated their Mafter, and it will hate them for the very fame reason, namely, they teftify that its deeds are evil. Chrift's minifters cannot fhape their doctrines to fuit the times and customs of the world. No; they muft declare the whole counsel of God; and whether men will hear or forbear, whether they will receive it or rage against it, they must speak the words of the living God; this will expose them to perfecution, fcorn, and contempt. And they would come pretty well off, if their difficulties were only from that quarter; but often times they fpring from those they are miniftering to, and spending their lives for, and yet will treat them as enemies, because they fpeak the truth unto them. This goes very hard, and yet we fee it verified even in St. Paul, as appears from his Epiftles to the Corinthians and Galatians: even false, félfish teachers, and defigning men, had the address to supplant the apoftle; yea, men who were making merchandize of them, to whom they tamely yielded; "Ye fuffer (fays he) fools gladly, feeing ye yourselves are wife. For ye fuffer if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man fmite you on the face"*. That is, you will fuffer all kind of infults and oppreffions from thofe who are making a prey of you; but defpife your best friends. We fee fomething of this daily, and we feel it too, but cannot help it. St. Paul's perils among falfe brethren, appeared more grievous to him than all the rest. And don't we fee fometimes a very erroneous miniftry pleaded for and preferred, by numbers, to the pure Gofpel? I might fay to fuch, "this perfuafion namely, the preferring Darkness to Light, "cometh not of him who calleth you." But courage my fellow-foldiers! Our Mafter is with us, and will be with us; and while we are favoured with his prefence, what need we fear? Our work is with the Lord, and our judge * 2 Cor. xi. 19, 20. 4 K 2 ment ment with our GOD. Is St. Paul's reward the less, because false teachers were preferred, and held in much higher refpect than himfelf? Nay: Do not these very cutting trials, which arose from the contempt of fuch as he had been inftrumental of great good unto, rather brighten his crown? I have no doubt of it. Then let us be faithful to our calling, and leave our reputation with our Mafter. Let us ftill be willing to spend and be spent, if by any means we can save fome poor finners. Our caufe is good, and our gracious Mafter is with us; He ftill fhares in our pain, reproach, and labour. If we are despised, so is he. Nay, if even our own children fhould prove ungrateful, they are much more ungrateful to God than to us. When Samuel was displeased, that the Ifraelites wanted a king, the Lord obferved to him "They have not rejected thee, but me they have rejected, that I fhould not reign over them."* So in the prefent cafe, it is not the fervant that is so much rejected, as the Mafter; and if he will bear it, let us not make ourselves uneafy. Rather let us confider, how unfaithful we have been in our Lord's service, and that it is of his goodness that he has not fent us out of the Vineyard with difgrace. May we be more warm and zealous in his cause, than we have hitherto been. Remember, foldiers fight with the greateft courage under the eye of their general. His eye is upon us, his prefence. is with us, and let us beware of going into the pulpit without him. Let us ufe every means to come forth as workmen which need not be afhamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth; but let us be fure of the Prefence of our Mafter, and truft, our character, caufe, and fuccefs, with him; feeing he hath declared that the wife fhall fhine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever. Therefore my much honoured Brethren, let us be ftedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, feeing our labour is not in vain in the Lord. Capt. INGLEFIELD'S Narrative, concerning the Lofs of his Majefty's fhip the CENTAUR, of 74 guns; and the miraculous prefervation of the Pinnace, with the Captain, Master, and ten of the crew, in a traverse of near nine hundred miles on the great Western Ocean. "THE HE Centaur left Jamaica in rather a leaky condition. But I had no apprehenfion that the fhip was not able to encounter a common gale of wind. In the evening of the 16th of Sept. 1782, when the fatal gale came on, the fhip was prepared for the worst weather ufually met with in those latitudes. Towards midnight it blew a gale of wind, and the fhip made so much water that I was obliged to turn all hands up to spell the pumps. The leak ftill increafing, I had thoughts to try the fhip before the fea. * 1 Sam, viii. 7. 1 Happy Happy I should have been, perhaps, had I in this been determined. The impropriety of leaving the convoy, except in the last extremity, and the hopes of the weather growing moderate, weighed against the opinion that it was right. About two in the morning we had much thunder and lightning from the S. E. with rain, when it began to blow ftrong in gufts of wind, which obliged me to haul the mainfail up, the fhip being then under bare poles. This was fcarcely done, when a guft of wind, exceeding in violence every thing of the kind I had ever feen, or had any conception of, laid the fhip upon her beam ends. The water forfook the hold, and appeared between decks, fo as to fill the men's hammocks to leeward: the fhip lay motionlefs, and, to all appearance, irrecoverably overfet. I gave immediate directions to cut away the main and mizen-mafts, hoping, when the fhip righted, to wear her. The mizen-maft went first upon cutting one or two lanyards without the fmalleft effect on the fhip; the main-maft followed, upon cutting the lanyard of one fhroud; and I had the disappointment to fee the foremaft and bowfprit follow. The fhip upon this immediately righted, but with great violence; and the motion was fo quick, that it was difficult for the people to work the pumps. Three guns broke loofe upon the main deck, and it was fome time before they were fecured. Several men being maimed in this attempt, every moveable was destroyed, either from the fhot thrown loose from the ockers or the wreck of the deck. The officers who had left their beds (when the ship overset) naked, in the morning, had not an article of clothes to put on, nor could their friends fupply them. The mafts had not been over the fide ten minutes, before the tiller broke short in the rudder-head; and before the chocks could be placed, the rudder itself was gone. At day-light I faw two line-of-battle fhips to leeward; one had loft her fore-maft and bowfprit, the other her main-maft. It was the general opinion on board the Centaur, that the former was the Canada, the other the Glorieux. The Ramilies was not in fight, nor more than fifteen fail of merchant-fhips. About feven in the morning I faw another line-of-battle fhip a-head of us, which I foon diftinguished to be the Ville de Paris, with all her mafts ftanding. I immediately gave orders to make the signal of diftrefs, and had the fatisfaction to fee the Ville de Paris wear and stand towards us. Several of the merchant-fhips also approached us, and offered their affiftance: but depending upon the King's fhip, I only thanked them. I had not the fmalleft doubt but the Ville de Paris was coming to us, as the appeared to us not to have fuffered in the leaft by the ftorm, and having seen her wear, we knew was under government of her helm: but approaching within two miles, fhe paffed us to wind-ward; this being obferved by one of the merchant fhips, fhe wore and came under our ftern, offering to carry any meffage to her. I defired the the Mafter would acquaint Capt. Wilkinson, that the Centaur made a great deal of water, and that I defired he would remain with her, until the weather grew moderate. I faw this merchantman approach afterwards, near enough to speak the Ville de Paris, but I am afraid that her condition was much worse than it appeared to be, as the continued upon that tack. As the evening came on it grew hazy, and in fqualls blew ftrong. We loft fight of the Ville de Paris, but thought it a certainty that we should fee her in the morning. The night was paffed in conftant labour at the pumps. Sometimes the wind lulled; the water diminished; when it blew ftrong again, the fea rifing, the water again increased. On the 18th, there was feven feet water upon the Kelfon; and the hand pumps were choaked. These circumftances were fufficiently alarming, but upon opening the afterhold we found our condition much more fo. It will be neceffary to mention, that the Centaur's after-hold was inclosed by a bulk-head at the after part of the well; here were all the dry provifions and fhip's rum ftowed upon 20 chaldron of coals, which had been started in this part of the fhip, and by them the pumps were continually choaked. The chain pumps were fo much worn, as to be of little use, and the leathers, which had the well been clear, would have lafted 20 days or more, were all confumed in eight. All the rum, 26 puncheons; all the provifions, of which there were two months, in cafks, were ftove; having floated with violence, from fide to fide, until there was not a whole cafk remaining: fhould the fhip swim, we had no water but what remained in the ground-tier, and over this all the wet provisions and butts filled with falt-water were floating, and with fo much motion, that no man could with fafety go into the hold. There was nothing left for us to try, but bailing with buckets at the fore-hatchway and fish-room; on opening the fifh-room, we were fo fortunate as to difcover that two puncheons of rum which belonged to me had efcaped. They were immediately got up, and ferved out at times in drams; and had it not been for this relief, and fome lime-juice, the people would have dropped. We foon found our account in bailing; the fpare pump had been put down the fore-hatchway, and a pump fhifted to the fifhroom; but the motion of the fhip had washed the coals so small, that they had reached every part of the fhip, and the pumps foon choaked. However, the water by noon had confiderably diminished by working the buckets; but there appeared no profpect of faving the fhip if the gale continued. The labour was too great to hold out without water; yet the people worked without a murmur, and indeed with chearfulness. We had feen nothing this day, but the fhip who had loft her main-maft, and the appeared to be as much in want of affiftance as ourselves, having fired guns of distress; and before night I was told her foremaft was gone. The Centaur laboured fo much, that I had fcarce a hope the could |