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LECTURE IX.

ACTS xxvii. 31.

PAUL SAID TO THE CENTURION AND TO THE SOLDIERS, EXCEPT THESE ABIDE IN THE SHIP, YE CANNOT BE SAVED.

We have lately contemplated St. Paul in two of the most striking and impressive situations which occur throughout the whole of his eventful history. We are to-day to behold him in one differing most widely from these, and indeed from all his former trials, and yet affording an example of entire confidence in God, of devotedness to the service of his Lord, of holy contempt of death, which leaves far behind it all

the instances of unsanctified courage with which the history of the world is replete, and is not exceeded by any thing to be met with in the history of the church: I allude to the account of his shipwreck and deliverance, narrated in the chapter from which the text is taken. To introduce the subject, it will only be necessary to remind you that St. Paul, finding he had no certainty of obtaining justice at the tribunal of Festus, exercised the right which he enjoyed, in common with every citizen of the Roman empire, of carrying his cause before the highest court of judicature in the kingdom, and appealed unto Cesar. This appeal having once been made, it appears that no lesser authority had the power of reversing it; and accordingly we find Agrippa, at the close of the examination which we considered in the last lecture, acknowledging, "this man might have been set at liberty, if he had not ap

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pealed unto Cesar." Orders were, consequently, given that St. Paul, together with St. Luke, who was his constant companion, and who relates the story, should be conveyed to Rome, for which purpose they were placed under the immediate command of Julius, one of the centurions of Augustus' band; and a vessel having been prepared for their reception, as well as for that of other prisoners bound to the same city, they sailed for the shores of Italy. The weather, which had been prosperous at the commencement of the voyage, soon became overcast; a violent wind arose, before which they were driven in a state of the greatest helplessness and danger for many days. During this period, the sun was obscured, the stars did not give their light, and in those early times when navigation was wholly dependent upon the observation of the heavenly bodies, such a state of things could not but be one of the greatest

uncertainty, if not of imminent peril. For three days all was darkness and confusion, the "tackling of the ship" was cast out, every thing not absolutely essential to their immediate safety was thrown overboard, and still the storm increased, and the helpless vessel was driven before the wind, her timbers creaking, her masts bent before the gale, every human aid so utterly ineffectual, that the inspired historian himself declares, "All hope that we should be saved was then taken away." Probably none who have not witnessed such a scene, and been partakers of its sufferings, can adequately conceive its horrors. To read of such things, to hear of such things, and to be ourselves partakers of them, are widely different; to stand upon the deck of some distressed and lonely vessel while she struggles in convulsive throes with the overpowering elements; to see her one moment at the top of the wave higher

than the highest point of her mast, at the next, in the hollow below, entombed as it were between those mountain waters; to think of the mere plank between us and eternity, and to calculate upon the fearful prospect that each struggle will be her last, and that she cannot long survive the unequal contest; such a scene, united to all that is most distressing to human nature, the shrieks of the timid, the unavailing shouts for succour, the moans of the desponding, the mingled prayers and curses of those who see the hand of God at such an hour, and of those who see it not, may well be imagined to fill even the heart of a Christian with no ordinary sensations. Precisely such a scene was, in this eventful period of his history, witnessed by St. Paul. For many days he appears to have maintained the silence which became the awfulness of his situation, and the momentary prospect of an opening eternity.