en came in to prayers, and Whitelocke talked with divers
of them upon the mercy they had received, who seemed to be much moved
with the goodness of God to them; and Whitelocke sought to make them and
all the company sensible of God's gracious dealings, and to bring it home
to the hearts of them. He also held it a duty to leave to his own family
this large relation, and remembrance of the Lord's signal mercy to him
and his; whereby they might be induced the more to serve the God of
their fathers, to trust in Him who never fails those that seek Him, and
to love that God entirely who hath manifested so much love to them, and
that in their greatest extremities; and hereby to endeavour that a
grateful acknowledgment of the goodness and unspeakable love of God might
be transmitted to his children's children; that as God never forgets to
be gracious, so his servants may never forget to be thankful, but to
express the thankfulness of their hearts by the actions of their lives.

Whitelocke spent this night in discourses upon this happy subject, and
went not to bed at all, but expected the return of day; and, the more to
express cheerfulness to the seamen, he promised that as soon as light did
appear, if they would up to the shrouds and top, he that could first
descry land should have his reward, and a bottle of good sack advantage.

_June 29, 1654._

[SN: They make the coast of Norfolk.]

As soon as day appeared, the mariners claimed many rewards and bottles of
sack, sundry of them pretending to have first discovered land; and
Whitelocke endeavoured to give them all content in this day of rejoicing,
God having been pleased to turn their sorrow into joy, by preserving them
in their great danger, and presently after by showing them their
longed-for native country; making them, when they were in their highest
expectation of joy to arrive in their beloved country, then to disappoint
their hopes by casting them into the extremest danger--thus making them
sensible of the uncertainty of this world's condition, and checking
perhaps their too much earthly confidence, to let them see His power to
control it, and to change their immoderate expectation of joy into a
bitter doubt of present death. Yet again, when He had made them sensible
thereof, to make his equal power appear for their deliverance when vain
was the help of man, and to bring them to depend more on him, then was He
pleased to rescue them by his own hand out of the jaws o