334 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND BEEPING This king is God; heaven is his habitation; the subjects are all men ; the sons,, who are part of the subjects, are the elect ; the rest are the non-elect ; the river, or sea, is the passage of this life. The further side is all men's natural, sinful distance and separation from ,God and happiness ; the ice that bears them, is this frail life of pleasures, profits, and honors, which delight the flesh ; the depth unfrozen, is hell; he that enticeth them thither is the devil. The eldest son that is sent to bring themOver, is Jesus Christ; his com- mission and undertaking is, to help all over that refuse not his help ; and to see that the elect be infallibly recovered and.saved. Do I need to go over the other particulars? I know you see-my mean- ing in them all : especially that which I aim at is this ; that as Paul had a promise of the life of all that were with him in the ship, and yet when some would have gone out, he told them, "Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved," Acts-xxvii. 31, (so that 'be makes tFeir apprehension of danger in a possibilityof being drowned, to be the means of detaining them in the ship till they came all safe to land,) so Jesus Christ, who will infallibly save all his elect, (they being given him by his Father to be infallibly saved,) will do it by causing them to hold fast by him through all the troubles, and labors and temptations of this tumultuous, tem- pestuous world, and that till they come to land; and the appre- hension'of their dangers shall be his means to make them hold fast; yetis not their safety principally in themselves, but in him; nor is it their holding fast by him that is the chief cause of their differ- ence from those that perish, but that is his love and resolution to save them. And therefore, when they do let go their hold, he will not so lose them, but will fetch them up again; only he will not bring them through the sea of danger as you would draw a block through the water; but as men that must hold fast, and be commanded and threatened to that end ; and therefore when they lose their hold, it is the fear of drowning which they felt them- selves near, which shall pause them to hold faster the next time; and this must needs be the fear of a possible danger. And for those that perish, they have none to blame but themselves. They perish not for want of a Savior, but because they would not lay hold on him, and follow him through the tempests and waves of trial. Nor can they quarrel at him because he did more for others, and did not as much for them, as long as he offered them so suffi- cient help, that only their own willful refusal was their ruin, and their perdition was of themselves. I conclude, therefore, that, seeing our salvation is laid by God upon our faithful holding fast to Christ through all trials and diffi- culties, and our holy fear is the means of our holding fast, (Christ being still the principal cause of our safety,) therefore, never look
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