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.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them
out of their distresses.
THESE are days in which there is much dispute about religion and
science—how far they agree with each other; whether they contradict or
interfere with each other. Especially there is dispute about Providence.
Men say, and truly, that the more we look into the world, the more we
find everything governed by fixed and regular laws; that man is bound to
find out those laws, and save himself from danger by science and
experience. But they go on to say,—‘And therefore there is no use in
prayer. You cannot expect God to alter the laws of His universe because
you ask Him: the world will go on, and ought to go on, its own way; and
the man who prays against danger, by sea or land, is asking vainly for
that which will not be granted him.’
Now I cannot see why we should not allow,—what is certainly true,—that
the world moves by fixed and regular laws: and yet allow at the same
time,—what I believe is just as true,—that God’s special providence
watches over all our actions, and that, to use our Lord’s example, not a
sparrow falls to the ground without some special reason why that
particular sparrow should fall at that particular moment and in that
particular place. I cannot see why all things should not move in a
divine and wonderful order, and yet why they should not all work together
for good to those who love God. The Psalmist of old finds no
contradiction between the two thoughts. Rather does the one of them seem
to him to explain the other. ‘All things,’ says he, ‘continue this day
as at the beginning. For all things serve Thee.’
Still it is not to be denied, that this question has been a difficult one
to men in all ages, and that it is so to many now.
But be that as it may, this I say, that, of all men, seafaring men are
the most likely to solve this great puzzle about the limits of science
and of religion, of law and of providence; for, of all callings, theirs
needs at once most science and most religion; theirs is most subject to
laws, and yet most at the mercy of Providence. And I say that many
seafaring men have solved the puzzle for themselves in a very rational
and sound way, though they may not be able to put thoughts into words;
and that they do show, by their daily conduct, that a man may be at once
thoroughly scientific and thoroughly religious. And I say that this
Ancient and Honourable Corporation of the Trinity House is a proof
thereof unto this day; a proof that sound science need not make us
neglect sound religion, nor sound religion make us neglect sound science.
No man ought to say that seamen have neglected science. It is the
fashion among some to talk of sailors as superstitious. They must know
very little about sailors, and must be very blind to broad facts, who
speak thus of them as a class. Many sailors, doubtless, are
superstitious. But I appeal to every master mariner here, whether the
superstitious men are generally the religious and godly men; whether it
is not generally the most reckless and profligate men of the crew who are
most afraid of sailing on a Friday, and who give way to other silly
fancies which I shall not mention in this sacred place. And I appeal,
too, to public experience, whether many, I may say most, of those to whom
seamanship and sea-science owes most, have not been God-fearing Christian
men?
Be sure of this, that if seamen, as a class, had been superstitious, they
would never have done for science what they have done. And what they
have done, all the world knows. To seamen, and to men connected with the
sea, what do we not owe, in geography, hydrography, meteorology,
astronomy, natural history? At the present moment, the world owes them
large improvements in dynamics, and in the new uses of steam and iron.
It may be fairly said that the mariner has done more toward the knowledge
of Nature than any other personage in the world, save the physician.
For seamen have been forced, by the nature of their calling, to be
scientific men. From the very earliest ages in which the first canoe put
out to sea, the mariner has been educated by the most practical of all
schoolmasters, namely, danger. He has carried his life in his hand day
and night; he has had to battle with the most formidable and the most
seemingly capricious of the brute powers of nature; with storms, with
ice, with currents, with unknown rocks and shoals, with the vicissitudes
of climate, and the terrible and seemingly miraculous diseases which
change of climate engenders. He has had to fight Nature; and to conquer
her, if he could, by understanding her; by observing facts, and by facing
facts. He dared not, like a scholar in his study, indulge in theories
and fancies about how things ought to be. He had to find out how they
really were. He dared not say, According to my theory of the universe
this current ought to run in such a direction; he had to find out which
way it did actually run, according to God’s method of the universe, lest
it should run him ashore. Everywhere, I say, and all day long, the
seaman has to observe facts and to use facts, unless he intends to be
drowned; and therefore, so far from being a superstitious man, who
refuses to inquire into facts, but puts vain dreams in their stead, the
sailor is for the most part a very scientific-minded man: observant,
patient, accurate, truthful; conquering Nature, as the great saying is,
because he obeys her.
But if seamen have been forced to be scientific, they have been equally
forced to be religious. They that go down to the sea in ships see both
the works of the Lord, and also His wonders in the deep. They see God’s
works, regular, orderly, the same year by year, voyage by voyage, and
tide by tide; and they learn the laws of them, and are so far safe. But
they also see God’s wonders—strange, sudden, astonishing dangers, which
have, no doubt, their laws, but none which man has found out as yet.
Over them they cannot reason and foretell; they can only pray and trust.
With all their knowledge, they have still plenty of ignorance; and
therefore, with all their science, they have still room for religion. Is
there an old man in this church who has sailed the seas for many a year,
who does not know that I speak truth? Are there not men here who have
had things happen to them, for good and for evil, beyond all calculation?
who have had good fortune of which they could only say, The glory be to
God, for I had no share therein? or who have been saved, as by miracle,
from dangers of which they could only say, It was of the Lord’s mercies
that we were not swallowed up? who must, if they be honest men, as they
are, say with the Psalmist, We cried unto the Lord in our trouble, and he
delivered us out of our distress?
And this it is that I said at first, that no men were so fit as seamen to
solve the question, where science ends and where religion begins; because
no men’s calling depends so much on science and reason, and so much, at
the same time, on Providence and God’s merciful will.
Therefore, when men say, as they will,—If this world is governed by fixed
laws, and if we have no right to ask God to alter his laws for our sakes,
then what use in prayer? I will answer,—Go to the seaman, and ask him
what he thinks. The puzzle may seem very great to a comfortable
landsman, sitting safe in his study at home; but it ought to be no puzzle
at all to the master mariner in his cabin, with his chart and his Bible
open before him, side by side. He ought to know well enough where reason
stops and religion begins. He ought to know when to work, and when to
pray. He ought to know the laws of the sea and of the sky. But he ought
to know too how to pray, without asking God to alter those laws, as
presumptuous and superstitious men are wont to do.
Take as an instance the commonest of all—a storm. We know that storms
are not caused (as folk believed in old time) by evil spirits; that they
are natural phenomena, obeying certain fixed laws; that they are
necessary from time to time; that they are probably, on the whole,
useful.
And we know two ways of facing a storm, one of which you may see too
often among the boatmen of the Mediterranean—How a man shall say, I know
nothing as to how, or why, or when, a storm should come; and I care not
to know. If one falls on me, I will cry for help to the Panagia, or St.
Nicholas, or some other saint, and perhaps they will still the storm by
miracle. That is superstition, the child of ignorance and fear.
And you may have seen what comes of that temper of mind. How, when the
storm comes, instead of order, you have confusion; instead of courage,
cowardice; instead of a calm and manly faith, a miserable crying of every
man to his own saint, while the vessel is left to herself to sink or
swim.
But what is the temper of true religion, and of true science likewise?
The seaman will say, I dare not pray that there may be no storm. I
cannot presume to interfere with God’s government. If there ought to be
a storm, there will be one: if not, there will be none. But I can
forecast the signs of the weather; I can consult my barometer; I can
judge, by the new lights of science, what course the storm will probably
take; and I can do my best to avoid it.
But does that make religion needless? Does that make prayer useless?
How so? The seaman may say, I dare not pray that the storm may not come.
But there is no necessity that I should be found in its path. And I may
pray, and I will pray, that God may so guide and govern my voyage, and
all its little accidents, that I may pass it by. I know that I can
forecast the storm somewhat; and if I do not try to do that, I am
tempting God: but I may pray, I will pray, that my forecast may be
correct. I will pray the Spirit of God, who gives man understanding, to
give me a right judgment, a sound mind, and a calm heart, that I may make
no mistake and neglect no precaution; and if I fail, and sink—God’s will
be done. It is a good will to me and all my crew; and into the hands of
the good God who has redeemed me, I commend my spirit, and their spirits
likewise.
This much, therefore, we may say of prayer. We may always pray to be
made better men. We may always pray to be made wiser men. These prayers
will always be answered; for they are prayers for the very Spirit of God
himself, from whom comes all goodness and all wisdom, and it can never be
wrong to ask to be made right.
There are surely, too, evils so terrible, that when they threaten us—if
God being our Father means anything,—if Christ being our example means
anything—then we have a right to cry, like our Lord himself, ‘Father, if
it be possible, let this cup pass from me:’ if we only add, like our
Lord, ‘Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’
And of dangers in general this we may say—that if we pray against known
dangers which we can avoid, we do nothing but tempt God: but that against
unknown and unseen dangers we may always pray. For instance, if a sailor
needlessly lodges over a foul, tideless harbour, or sleeps in a tropical
mangrove swamp, he has no right to pray against cholera and fever; for he
has done his best to give himself cholera and fever, and has thereby
tempted God. But if he goes into a new land, of whose climate, diseases,
dangers, he is utterly ignorant, then he has surely a right to pray God
to deliver him from those dangers; and if not,—if he is doomed to suffer
from them,—to pray God that he may discover and understand the new
dangers of that new land, in order to warn future travellers against
them, and so make his private suffering a benefit to mankind.
This, then, is our duty as to known dangers,—to guard ourselves against
them by science, and the reason which God has given us; and as to unknown
dangers, to pray to God to deliver us from them, if it seem good to him:
but above all, to pray to him to deliver us from them in the best way,
the surest way, the most lasting way, the way in which we may not only
preserve ourselves, but our fellow-men and generations yet unborn;
namely, by giving us wisdom and understanding to discover the dangers, to
comprehend them, and to conquer them, by reason and by science.
This is the spirit of sound science and of sound religion. And it was in
this spirit, and for this very end, that this Ancient and Honourable
Corporation of the Trinity House was founded more than three hundred
years ago. Not merely to pray to God and to the saints, after the
ancient fashion, to deliver all poor mariners from dangers of the seas.
That was a natural prayer, and a pious one, as far as it went: but it did
not go far enough. For, as a fact, God did not always answer it: he did
not always see fit to deliver those who called upon him. Gallant ships
went down with all their crews. It was plain that God would not always
deliver poor mariners, even though they cried to him in their distress.
Then, in the sixteenth century, when men’s minds were freed from many old
superstitions, by a better understanding both of Holy Scripture and of
the laws of nature, the master mariners of England took a wiser course.
They said, God will not always help poor mariners: but he will always
teach them to deliver themselves. And so they built this House, not in
the name of the Virgin Mary or any saints in heaven, but, with a deep
understanding of what was needed, in the most awful name of God himself.
Thereby they went to the root and ground of this matter, and of all
matters. They went to the source of all law and order; to the source of
all force and life; and to the source, likewise, of all love and mercy;
when they founded their House in the name of the Father of Lights, in
whom men live and move and have their being; from whom comes every good
and perfect gift, and without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground; in
the name of the Son, who was born on earth a man, and tasted sorrow, and
trial, and death for every man; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who
inspires man with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and gives him a
right judgment in all things, putting into his heart good desires, and
enabling him to bring them to good effect. And so, believing that the
ever-blessed Trinity would teach them to help themselves and their
fellow-mariners, they set to work, like truly God-fearing men, not to
hire monks to sing and say masses for them, but to set up for themselves
lights and sea-marks, and to take order for the safe navigation of these
seas, like men who believed indeed that they were the children of God,
and that God would prosper his children in as far as they used that
reason which he himself had bestowed upon them.
It is for these men’s sakes, as well as for our own, that we are met
together here this day. We are met to commemorate the noble dead; not in
any Popish or superstitious fashion, as if they needed our prayers, or we
needed their miraculous assistance: but in the good old Protestant
scriptural sense—to thank God for all his servants departed this life in
his faith and fear, and to pray that God may give us grace to follow
their good examples; and especially to thank him for the founders of this
ancient Trinity House, which stands here as a token to all generations of
Britons, that science and religion are not contrary to each other, but
twin sisters, meant to aid each other and mankind in the battle with the
brute forces of this universe.
We are met together here to thank God for all gallant mariners, and for
all who have helped mariners toward safety and success; for all who have
made discoveries in hydrography or meteorology, in navigation, or in
commerce, adding to the safety of seamen, and to the health and wealth of
the human race; for all who have set noble examples to their crews,
facing danger manfully and dying at their posts, as many a man has died,
a martyr to his duty; for all who, living active, and useful, and
virtuous lives in their sea calling, have ended as they lived,
God-fearing Christian men.
To thank God for all these we are met together here; and to pray to God
likewise that he would send his Spirit into the hearts of seamen, and of
those who deal with seamen; and specially into the hearts of the Royal
the Master and the Worshipful the Elder Brethren of this Ancient and
Honourable House; that they may be true, and loyal, and obedient to that
divine name in which they are met together here this day—the name of
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the ever-blessed Trinity, the giver of all
good gifts, in whom we live, and move, and have our being; always keeping
God’s commandments and looking for God’s guidance, and setting to those
beneath them an example of sound reason, virtue, and religion; that so
there may never be wanting to this land a race of seamen who shall trust
in God to teach them all they need to know, and to dispose of their
bodies and souls as seemeth best to his most holy will; who, fearing God,
shall fear nought else, but shall defy the dangers of the seas, and all
the brute forces of climates and of storms; who shall set in foreign
lands an example of justice and mercy, of true civilization and true
religion; and so shall still maintain the marine of Great Britain, as it
has been for now three hundred years, a safeguard and a glory to these
islands, and a blessing to the coasts of all the world.
SERMON IV.
GOD’S TRAINING.