Being driven by the wind about a mile from the sand, there they cast anchor, and fell into discourse of the providences and goodness of God to them in this unhoped-for preservation.  One observed, that if Whitelocke had not positively overruled the seamen, and made them, contrary to their own opinions, to take down their sails, but that the ship had run with all her sails spread, and with that force had struck into the sand, it had been impossible for her ever to have come off again, but they must all have perished.  Another observed, that the ship did strike so upon the bank of sand, that the wind was on that side of her where the bank was highest, and so the strength of the wind lay to drive the ship from the bank towards the deep water.

Another supposed, that the ship did strike on the shelving part of the bank of sand, and the wind blowing from the higher part of the bank, the weight of the ship thus pressed by the wind, and working towards the lower part of the shelving of the bank, the sand crumbled away from the ship, and thereby and with the wind she was set on-float again.  Another observed, that if the ship had struck higher on the bank or deeper, when her sails had been spread, with the force of her way, they could not in the least probability have been saved.

Another observed, that through the goodness of God the wind rose higher, and came more to that side of the ship where the bank of sand was highest, after the ship was struck, which was a great means of her coming off; and that, as soon as she was floated, the wind was laid and came about again to another quarter.  Another observed, that it being at that time ebbing water was a great means of their preservation; because the ship being so far struck into the sand, and so great a ship, a flowing water could not have raised her; but upon the coming in of the tide she would questionless have been broke in pieces.

The mariners said, that if God had not loved the landmen more than the seamen they should never have come off from this danger.  Every one made his observations.  Whitelocke concluded them to this purpose: 

[SN:  Whitelocke orders a thanksgiving to God.]

    “Gentlemen,

“I desire that we may all join together in applying these observations and mercies to the praise of God, and to the good of our own souls.  Let me exhort you never to forget this deliverance and this signal mercy.  While the love of God is warm upon our hearts, let us resolve to retain a thankful memory of it to our lives’ end, and, for the time to come, to employ those lives, which God hath now given to us and renewed to us, to the honour and praise of Him, who hath thus most wonderfully and most mercifully revived us, and as it were new created us.  Let us become new creatures; forsake your former lusts in your ignorance, and follow that God fully, who hath so eminently appeared for us, to save us out of our distress; and as God hath given us new