The Bostonian Ebenezer. Some historical remarks, on the state of Boston, the chief town…

My Neighbours, Your Vessels are your Houses; what are your Ships, your Ketches, your Brigantines, and your Sloops, but your Tabernacles? Oh! may Iniquity be Put far from them! Since we have been pressing of that Religion, which may have a Tendency to preserve our Standing Houses a Shore, let us also press that Religion, by which the preservation of your Floating Houses at Sea may be be-friended.

It is a passage, in Psal. 107.23.24. They that go down to the Sea in Ships, that do Business in great Waters, These see the works of the Lord, and His Wonders in the Deep.

In the First place, before ever you Embark in those your Moving Tabernacles, become United unto the Lord Jesus Christ, by Faith in Him, that so you may be prepared for all the Wonders of those Dangers, which you may be Exposed unto. There ⟨p. 78⟩are wonderful Storms, which may Encounter and Endanger those your Feeble Tabernacles: But Calms, may likewise Incommode you worse than Storms. By Numberless Accidents, these Tabernacles may be Sunk and Lost in the Waters; but the Fires especially may more terribly threaten you, than the Waters. Enemies do much prey upon these Tabernacles on the Ocean, as the Greater Fishes in it, upon the lesser ones; but the worst Enemies, are the Pirates of our own Nation, who barbarously butcher all that may discover them. In short, So Sensibly near to Death are you in these your Tabernacles, that, in Truth, Tam prope mors urget, quam prope cernis Aquam: 'tis but the Breadth of a Plank to two. My Friends, That Pitched Box of Plank, what is it, but a larger sort of a Coffin? Our Seafaring Folks, may say with the Psalmist, My Soul is continually in my Hand. But, before it come to this, O man if thou Love thy Soul, effectually put thy Soul, into the Hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, Repairing to Him, and Relying on Him, for thy Righteousness, thy Blessedness, thy Everlasting Life. The Poet