excellent thing that they are so numerous.  We are now coming homewards.  How did our God preserve us over the Baltic Sea from innumerable dangers of the rocks, sands, coasts, islands, fierce lightnings, storms, and those high-swelling waters!  Such was our preservation in the Elbe, when our countrymen leaped into the water to bring us off from danger, and when the tempests hurried us up and down, by Heligoland, then towards Holland, then to the northward, then to the southward, in the open breaking rough seas, when we had lost our course and knew not where we were.

“Above all other was that most eminent deliverance near our own coast, when our ship was stuck upon the sand twelve leagues from any shore, when no help nor human means were left to save us, when pale death faced us so long together, when no hopes remained to escape his fury or the rages of the waves, which we expected every instant to swallow us; even then, to show where our dependence ought to be, our God would make it His own work to deliver us.  He it was that raised the wind, and brought it from the higher part of the bank, to shake our fastened ship, and crumble the loose sands; and no sooner had we taken a resolution of praying and resigning our souls to God, but He gave us our lives again, moving our ship by His powerful arm, making it to float again, none knowing how or by what means, but by the free act of His mercy, and not a return of ours, but of the prayers of some here present, and divers others our Christian friends, who at that very time were met together to seek the Lord for us and for our safe return.

“Methinks the hearts of us who were partakers of these mercies should rejoice in the repetition of them, and those that hear them cannot but say they hear excellent things; and certainly never had any men more cause than we have of returning humble and hearty thanks to God who hath thus saved us.

“And having received these mercies, and been delivered out of these distresses, I may say to you, as Jacob said to his household (Gen. xxxv.), ‘Let us arise and go to Bethel;’ let us serve God and praise His name who answered us in the day of our distress, and was with us in the way which we went.  Let us also keep Jacob’s vow:  ’The Lord hath been with us and kept us in our way, and brought us again to our fathers’ house in peace; let the Lord be our God.’  Let not any of our former vanities or lusts, or love of the world, be any more our God, but let the Lord be our God; let our thanksgiving appear in owning the Lord for our God, and in walking answerable to our mercies; let our prayers be according to the counsel of the Apostle (Eph. v.), ’See then that ye walk circumspectly, giving thanks always for all things.’  How much more are we bound to do it from our special mercies!

“Gentlemen, give me leave to conclude with my particular thanks to you who accompanied me in my journey, and have manifested very much respect,