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I. ITS WEATHER IS FOULER TO SOME THAN TO OTHERS. This difference is partly necessary and partly moral. A man's condition in life depends greatly both upon his temperament and upon the external circumstances under which he has been brought up. Some have temperaments that are impulsive and tempestuous; others gentle and pacific. Some are surrounded by circumstances suited to soothe and to please, others by those tending ever to agitate and distress. This difference in the temperaments and circumstances of men, whilst it reveals the sovereignty of that God who arranges human affairs after the counsel of His own will, should at the same time dispose us to act with tender consideration in all our intercourse with our fellow-men. But there is a morality in this difference that should not be overlooked. Men have power to rule in a great measure their own temperaments, and control their own circumstances. The man to whom God has given the most fiery passions He has given corresponding intellect for control.

II. IT EXPOSES TO TERRIBLE DISASTERS. How many souls are shipwrecked every day! They go down into the abysses of passion, worldliness, impiety.

III. THERE NEED BE NO SHIPWRECKS. In all cases man is responsible for them.

1. He has an infallible chart — a chart which reveals life true to eternal fact. There is not a danger it does nob expose. It draws the very line over which you should sail if you would sail safely and meet a prosperous end. It tells you how to avoid all the perils lying beneath the wave, how to escape the fierce hurricanes, how to sail through peaceful seas and into sunny climes.

2. He might have a safe anchorage (Hebrews 6:19).

3. He might have an all-sufficient captain — Christ.

(Homilist.)

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KJV: They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

WEB: Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business in great waters;