play fast and loose with oaths And it is a very sad sign of the decay of Christian Religion amongst us to see so many who call themselves Christians to make so little conscience of so great a sin as even the Light of Nature would blush and tremble at I will conclude all with those excellent Sayings of the Son of Sirach concerning these two sins I have been speaking of of Prophane Swearing and Perjury Eccl. 23.9 10 c. Accustom not thy mouth to swearing neither use thy self to the naming of the holy One. A man that useth much swearing shall be filled with iniquity and the plague shall never depart from his house If he shall offend his sin shall he upon him and if he acknowledg not his sin he maketh a double offence And if he swear salsly he shall not be innocent but his house shall be full of calamities And to represent to us the dreadfull nature of this sin of Perjury There is saith he a word that is cloathed about with death meaning a rash and false Oath There is a word that is cloathed about with death God grant it be not found in the heritage of Jacob for all such things shall be far from the godly and they will not wallow in these sins From which God preserve all good men and make them carefull to preserve themselves as they value the present peace of their own consciences and the favour of Almighty God in this world and the other for his mercies sake in Jesus Christ To whom c. A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Reverend Mr. THOMAS GOVGE the 4th of Novemb. 1681. At St. Anne's Blackfryars With a brief account of his Life TO The Right Worshipfull THE PRESIDENT THE TREASURER And the rest of the worthy Governors of the Hospital of Christ-Church in LONDON WHEN upon the request of some of the Relations and Friends of the Reverend Mr. Gouge deceasedy and to speak the truth in compliance with mine own inclination to do right to the memory of so good a man and to set so great an Example in the view of all men I had determined to make this Discourse publick I knew not where more sitly to address it than to your selves who are the living pattern of the same Vertue and the faithful dispensers and managers of one of the best and greatest Charities in the world especially since he had a particular relation to you and was pleased for some years last past without any other consideration but that of Charity to employ his constant pains in Catechising the poor Children of your Hospital wisely considering of how great consequence it was to this City to have the foundations of Religion well laid in the tender years of so many persons as were afterwards to be planted there in several Professions and from a true humility of mind being ready to stoop to the meanest office and service to do good I have heard from an intimate friend of his that he would sometimes with great pleasure say that he had two Livings which he would not exchange for two of the greatest in England meaning Wales and Christ's Hospital Contrary to common account he esteemed every advantage of being useful and serviceable to God and men a rich Benefice and those his best Patrons and Benefactors not who did him good but who gave him the opportunity and means of doing it To you therefore as his Patrons this Sermon doth of right belong and to you I humbly dedicate it heartily beseeching Almighty God to raise up many by his example that may serve their generation according to the will of God as he did I am Your Faithfull and humble Servant Jo Tillotson A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of Mr. THOMAS GOVGE With a short account of his Life LUKE 20.37 38. Now that the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead but of the living For all live to him THE occasion of these words of our blessed Saviour was an objection which the Sadduces made against the Resurrection grounded upon a case which had sometimes happened among them of a Woman that had had seven Brethren successively to her Husbands Upon which case they put this Question to our Saviour whose wife of the seven shall this woman be at the Resurrection That is if men live in another world how shall the controversie between these seven Brethren be decided for they all seem to have an equal claim to this Woman each of them having had her to his wife This captious Question was not easie to be answered by the Pharisees who fancied the enjoyments of the next life to be of the same kind with the sensual pleasures of this world only greater and more durable From which Tradition of the Jews concerning a sensual Paradise Mahomet seems to have taken the pattern of his as he did likewise many other things from the Jewish Traditions Now upon this supposition that in the next life there will be marrying and giving in marriage it was a Question not easily satisfied Whose wife of the seven this woman should then be But our Saviour clearly avoids the whole force of it by shewing the different state of men in this world and in the other The children of this world says he marry and are given in marriage but they who shall he accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage And he does not barely and magisterially assert this Doctrine but gives a plain and substantial Reason for it because they cannot die any more After men have lived a while in this world they are taken away by death and therefore marriage is necessary to maintain a succession of mankind but in the other world men shall become immortal and live for ever and then the reason of marriage will wholly cease For when men can die no more there will then be no need of any new supplies of mankind Our Saviour having thus cleared himself of this Objection by taking away the ground and foundation of it he produceth an Argument for the proof of the Resurrection in the words of my Text Now that the dead are raised Moses even shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob That is when in one of his Books God is brought in speaking to him out of the Bush and calling himself by the title of the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. From whence our Saviour infers the Resurrection because God is not the God of the dead but of the living For all live to him My design from these words is to shew the force and strength of this Argument which our Saviour urgeth for the proof of the Resurrection In order whereunto I shall First
urge and encourage them to a vigorous resolution of a better course And this accompanied with a powerfull assistance of God's grace which when sincerely sought is never to be despaired of may prove effectual to bring back even the greatest of sinners 1. There is left even in the worst of men a natural sense of the evil and unreasonableness of sin which can hardly be ever totally extinguished in humane nature For though the habits of great vices are very apt to harden and stupifie men so that they have seldom a just sense of their evil ways yet these persons are sometimes under strong convictions and their consciences do severely check and rebuke them for their faults They are also by fits under great apprehension of the danger of their condition and that the course which they are in if they continue in it will prove fatal to them and ruine them at last Especially when their consciences are throughly awakened by some great affliction or the near approach of death and a lively sense of another World And the apprehension of a mighty danger will make men to look about them and to use the best means to avoid it 2. Very bad men when they have any thoughts of becoming better are apt to conceive some good hopes of God's grace and mercy For though they find all the causes and reasons of despair in themselves yet the consideration of the boundless goodness and compassions of God how undeserved soever on their part is apt to kindle some sparks of hope even in the most desponding mind His wonderfull patience in the midst of our manifold provocations cannot but be a good sign to us that he hath no mind that we should perish but rather that we should come to repentance and if we do repent we are assured by his promise that we shall be forgiven He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy If we confess our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 3. Who knows what men throughly rouzed and startled may resolve and do And a mighty resolution will break through difficulties which seem insuperable Though we be weak and pitifull Creatures yet nature when it is mightily irritated and stir'd will do strange things The resolutions of men upon the brink of despair have been of an incredible force and the Soul of man in nothing more discovers its divine power and original than in that spring which is in it whereby it recovers it self when it is mightily urged and prest There is a sort of resolution which is in a manner invincible and hardly any difficulty can resist it or stand before it Of this there have been great instances in several kinds Some by an obstinate resolution and taking incredible pains with themselves have mastered great natural vices and defects As Socrates and Demosthenes who almost exceeded all mankind in those two things for which by nature they seemed to be least made and most unfit One in governing of his passions and the other in the mighty force and power of his eloquence Some that by intemperance have brought themselves to a dropsie which hath just set them upon the brink of the grave by a bold and steady purpose to abstain wholly from drink for a long time together have rescued themselves from the jaws of death Some that had almost ruined themselves by a careless and dissolute life and having run themselves out of their estates into debt and being cast into prison have there taken up a manly resolution to retrieve and recover themselves and by the indefatigable labour and study of some years in that uncomfortable retreat have mastered the knowledge and skill of one of the most difficult Professions in which they have afterwards proved great and eminent And some in the full carriere of a wicked course have by a sudden thought and resolution raised in them and assisted by a mighty grace of God taken up presently and made an immediate change from great wickedness and impiety of life to a very exemplary degree of goodness and vertue The two great encouragements to vertue which Pythagoras gave to his Scholars were these and they were worthy of so great a Philosopher First Chuse always the best course of life and custome will soon make it the most pleasant The other was this that Power aad Necessity are Neighbours and never dwell far from one another When men are prest by a great necessity when nature is spurr'd up and urged to the utmost men discover in themselves a power which they thought they had not and find at last that they can do that which at first they despaired of ever being able to do 4. The grace and assistance of God when sincerely sought is never to be despaired of So that if we do but heartily and in good earnest resolve upon a better course and implore the help of God's grace to this purpose no degree of it that is necessary shall be wanting to us And here is our chief ground of hope For we are weak and unstable as water and when we have taken up good resolutions do easily start from them So that fresh supplies and a continued assistance of God's grace is necessary to keep up the first warmth and vigour of our resolutions till they prove effectual and victorious And this grace God hath promised he will not deny to us when we are thus disposed for it that he will give his H. Spirit to them that ask it that he will hot quench the smoaking flax nor break the bruised reed untill he bring forth judgment unto victory All that now remains is to apply this to our selves And we are all concerned in it For we shall all find our selves comprehended under one of these three Heads Either we are of the number of those few happy Persons who by the influence and advantage of a good education were never engaged in a bad course Or of those who have been drawn into vice but are not yet far gone in it Or of those who have been long accustomed to an evil course and are grown old and stiff in it The first of these having great cause to thank God for this singular felicity that they were never ensnared and intangled in vitious habits that they have not had the trial of their own weakness under this miserable slavery that they never knew what it was to be out of their own power to have lost their liberty and the Government of themselves When we hear of the miserable servitude of the poor Christians in Turkey we are apt as there is great reason to pity them and to think what a blessing of God it is to us that we are not in their condition And yet that slavery is hot comparable to this either for the sad nature or the dismal consequences of it or for the difficulty of being released from it And let such Persons who have been thus happy never
suppose to dye so imperfect that they stand in need of being purged and according to the degree of their imperfection are to be detain'd a shorter or a longer time in Purgatory But now besides that there is no Text in Scripture from whence any such state can probably be concluded as is acknowledged by many learned men of the Church of Rome and even that Text which they have most insisted upon they shall be saved yet so as by fire is given up by them as insufficient to conclue the thing Estius is very glad to get off it by saying there is nothing in it against Purgatory Why no body pretends that but we might reasonably expect that there should be something for it in a Text which hath been so often produced and urged by them for the proof of it I say besides that there is nothing in Scripture for Purgatory there are a great many things against it and utterly inconsistent with it In the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus which was designed to represent to us the different stares of good and bad men in another world there is not the least intimation of Purgatory but that good men pass immediately into a state of happiness and bad men into a place of torment And St. John Rev. 14.13 pronounceth all that dye in the Lord happy because they rest from their labours which they cannot be said to do who are in a state of great anguish and torment as those are supposed to be who are in Purgatory But above all this Reasoning of Saint Paul is utterly inconsistent with any imagination of such a state For he encourageth all Christians in general against the fear of death from the consideration of that happy state they should immediately pass into by being admitted into the presence of God which surely is not Purgatory We are of good courage says he and willing rather to be absent from the body And great reason we should be so if so soon as we leave the body we are present with the Lord. But no man sure would be glad to leave the body to go into a place of exquisite and extreme torment which they tell us is the case of most Christians when they dye And what can be more unreasonable than to make the Apostle to use an argument to comfort all Christians against the sear of death which concerns but very few in comparison So that if the Apostle's reasoning be good that while we are in this life we are detained from our happiness and so soon as we depart this life we pass immediately into it and therefore death is desirable to all good men I say if this reasoning be good it is very clear that Saint Paul knew nothing of the Doctrine now taught in the Church of Rome concerning Purgatory because that is utterly inconsistent with what he expresly asserts in this Chapter and quite takes away the force of his whole Argument 3. To encourage us against the fear of death And this is the Conclusion which the Apostle makes from this consideration Therefore says he we are of good courage knowing that whilst we converse in the body we are absent from the Lord. There is in us a natural love of life and a natural horrour and dread of death so that our spirits are apt to shrink at the thoughts of the approach of it But this fear may very much be mitigated and even over-ruled by Reason and the considerations of Religion For death is not so dreadful in it self as with regard to the consequences of it And those will be as we are comfortable and happy to the good but dismal and miserable to the wicked So that the only true antidote against the fear of death is the hopes of a better life and the only firm ground of these hopes is the mercy of God in Jefus Christ upon our due preparation for another world by repentance and a holy life For the sting of death is sin and when that is taken away the terrour and bitterness of death is past And then death is so far from being dreadful that in reason it is extremely desirable because it lets us into a better state such as only deserves the name of life Hi vivunt qui ex corporum vinculis tanquam è carcere evolaverunt vestra vero quae dicitur vita mors est They truly live could a Heathen say who have made their escape out of this prison of the body but that which men commonly call life is rather death than life To live indeed is to be well and to be happy and that we shall never be till we are got beyond the grave 4. This Consideration should comfort us under the loss and death of Friends which certainly is one of the greatest grievances and troubles of humane life For if they be fit for God and go to him when they dye they are infinitely happier than it was possible for them to have been in this world and the trouble of their absence from us is fully balanced by their being present with the Lord. For why should we lament the end of that life which we are assured is the beginning of immortality One reason of our trouble for the loss of friends is because we loved them But it is no sign of our love to them to grudge and repine at their happiness But we hoped to have enjoyed them longer Be it so yet why should we be troubled that they are happy sooner than we expected but they are parted from us and the thought of this is grievous But yet the consideration of their being parted for a while is not near so sad as the hopes of a happy meeting again never to be parted any more is comfortable and joyful So that the greater our love to them was the less should be our grief for them when we consider that they are happy and that they are safe past all storms all the troubles and temptations of this life and out of the reach of all harm and danger for ever But though the Reason of our duty in this case be very plain yet the practice of it is very difficult and when all is said natural affection will have its course And even after our Judgment is satisfied it will require some time to still and quiet our Passions 5. This Consideration should wean us from the love of life and make us not only contented but willing and glad to leave this world whenever it shall please God to call us out of it This Inference the Apostle makes ver 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to he absent from the body and present with the Lord. Though there were no state of immortality after this life yet methinks we should not desire to live always in this world Habet natura says Tully ut aliarum rerum sic vivendi modum As nature hath set bounds and measures to other things so likewise to life of which men should know when
requires a great deal of good nature in a very bad man to be able patiently to bear to be told of his faults Besides that habitual wickedness is naturally apt to banish consideration to weaken our resolution and to discourage our hopes both of God's grace and assistance and of his mercy and forgiveness which are the best means and encouragement to repentance Sin is a great enemy to Consideration and especially when men are deeply plunged into it their condition is so very bad that they are loth to think of it and to search into it A vitious man is a very deformed sight and to none more than to himself and therefore he loves to turn his Eyes another way and to divert them as much as he can from looking upon himself He is afraid to be alone lest his own mind should arrest him and his Conscience should take the opportunity to call him to an account And if at any time his own thoughts meet with him and he cannot avoid consideration he is ready to say as Ahab did to Elijah hast thou found me O my enemy and is as glad to shake it off as a man is to get rid of a Creditor whom because be knows not how to satisfie he cares not to speak with him Consideration is the great troubler and disturber of men in an evil course because it would represent to them the plain truth of their case and therefore they do all they can to keep it off as those who have improvidently managed their affairs and been ill husbands of their estates are loth to make up their accounts lest by that means they should be forced to understand the worst of their condition Or if consideration happen to take them at an advantage and they are so hard prest by it that they cannot escape the sight of their own condition yet they find themselves so miserably entangled and hamper'd in an evil course and bound so fast in the chains of their own wickedness that they know not how to get loose Sin is the saddest slavery in the World it breaks and sinks mens Spirits and makes them so base and servile that they have not the courage to rescue themselves No sort of slaves are so poor spirited as they that are in bondage to their lusts Their power is gone or if they have any left they have not the heart to make use of it And though they see and feel their misery yet they chuse rather to sit down in it and tamely to submit to it than to make any resolute attempt for their Liberty What the Prophet says of whoredom and wine is proportionably true of other vices they take away the heart Every lust that we entertain deals with us as Dalilah did with Sampson not only robbs us of our strength but leaves us fast bound so that if at any time we be awakened to a sense of our condition and try to rescue our selves from it we find that our strength is departed from us and that we are not able to break loose And as long custom and continuance in sin deprives us of our strength so it discourageth our hopes both of God's grace and assistance and of his mercy and forgiveness For why should men expect the continuance of that grace which they have so often received in vain After so many provocations how can we look the offended Majesty of God in the Face how can we lift up our eyes to heaven with any hopes of mercy and forgiveness there Despair doth almost naturally spring from an evil Conscience and when men are thoroughly awakened to a sense of sin and of the infinite evil of it as they cannot easily forgive themselves so they can hardly believe that there is goodness enough any where to forgive them But besides these disadvantages which are natural and consequent upon a vitious course by the just judgment of God his Spirit is withdrawn from them and they are given up to their own hearts lusts to commit all iniquity with greediness And then there is hardly any thing left ether to restrain them in their evil course or to recover them out of it And not only so but by the just permission of God as men grow worse and more wicked the Devil hath a nearer access to them and a more immediate power over them So the Scripture tells us that wicked men are led captive by Satan at his pleasure and that the evil one works and acts in the Children of disobedience They are as it were possest and inspired by him And what can be expected from this cruel and malicious enemy of mankind but that he will continually be punishing them on from one wickedness to another till he drive them first into despair and then if God permit him into eternal perdition And what a forlorn state is this when men are thus forsaken of God and left without check blindly and headily to follow the sway of their own tempers and the bent of their own corrupt hearts when they are continually exposed to temptations strongly inviting them to evil and God lets the Devil loose upon them to manage those temptations with his utmost skill and to practise all his arts and wiles upon them In these circumstances men almost infallibly run into sin as sure as men wander in the dark and are in danger of falling in slippery places and of being entangled when they continually walk in the midst of snares cunningly laid for them It is not in men thus disabled and entangled to order their own steps and to restrain their inclinations and passions in the presence of a powerfull temptation At the best we need God's direction to guide us his continual grace to uphold us and to guard and preserve us from evil and much more do we stand in need of it when we have brought our selves into these wretched circumstances but then alas how little reason have we to hope for it Blind and miserable men that in despite of all the mercifull warnings of God's word and providence will run themselves into this desperate state and never think of returning to a better mind till their retreat is difficult almost to an impossibility I proceed to the II. Head of my Discourse which was to shew that the case of these persons though it be extremely difficult is not quite desperate but after all there is some ground of hope and encouragement left that they may yet be reclaimed and brought to goodness Indeed humanely speaking and according to all appearance and probability the thing seems to be very hopeless and next to an impossibility but yet what our Saviour says concerning the difficulty of a rich man's Salvation will reach also to this case though much more difficult those things which are impossible with men are possible with God And this will appear if we consider that even in the worst of men there is something left which tends to reclaim them to awaken them to consideration and to
to have been engaged in an evil course preserve their innocency with great tenderness and care as the greatest Jewel in the World No Man knows what he do's and what a foundation of trouble he lays to himself when he forfeits his innocency and breaks the peace of his own mind when he yields to a Temptation and makes the first step into a bad course He little thinks whither his lusts may hurry him and what a monster they may make of him before they have done with him 2. Those who have been seduced but are not yet deeply engaged in an evil course let them make a speedy retreat lest they put it for ever out of their power to return Perhaps their feet onely are yet ensnared but their hands are at liberty and they have some power left whereby with an ordinary grace of God they may loose and rescue themselves But after a while their hands may be manacled and all their power may be gone and when they are thus bound hand and foot they are just prepared and in danger every moment to be cast into utter darkness 3. As for those who are gone very far and are grown old in vice who can forbear to lament over them for they are a sad spectacle indeed and the truest object of pity in the World And yet their recovery is not utterly to be despaired of for with God it is possible The spirit of God which hath withdrawn himself or rather hath been driven away by them may yet be persuaded to return and to undertake them once more if they would but seriously rosolve upon a change and heartily beg God's assistance to that purpose If we would take up a mighty resolution we might hope that God would afford a miraculous grace to second it and make it effectual to our recovery Even in this perverse and degenerate Age in which we live God hath not been wanting to give some miraculous instances of his grace and mercy to sinners and those perhaps equal to any of those we meet with in Scripture of Manasses or Mary Magdalen or the penitent Thief both for the greatness of the offenders and the miracle of their change To the end that none might despair and for want of the encouragement of an example equal to their own case be disheartned from so noble an enterprize I am loth to put you in mind how bad some have been who yet have been snatched as Firebrands out of the fire and that in so strange a manner that it would even amaze a Man to think of the wonder of their recovery those who have sunk themselves into the very depth of infidelity and wickedness have by a mighty hand and out-stretched arm of God been pluckt out of this horrible Pit And will we still stand it out with God when such great Leaders have given up the cause and have surrendred and yielded up themselves willing Captives to the grace of God that omnipotent grace of God which can easily subdue the stoutest heart of Man by letting in so strong a light upon our minds and pouring such terrible convictions into our consciences that we can find no ease but in turning to God I hope there are none here so bad as to need all the encouragement to repentance which such examples might give them encouragement I say to repentance for surely these examples can encourage no Man to venture any farther in a wicked course they are so very rare and like the instances of those who have been brought back to life after the sentence of death seemed to have been fully executed upon them But perhaps some will not believe that there have been such examples or if there have they impute all this either to a disturbed imagination or to the faint and low spirits of Men under great bodily weakness or to their natural cowardize and fear or to I know not what foolish and fantastical design of completing and finishing a wicked life with an hypocritical death Nothing surely is easier than to put some bad construction upon the best things and so slurr even repentance it self and almost dash it out of countenance by some bold and perhaps witty saying about it But oh that Men were wise oh that Men were wise that they understood and would consider their latter end Come let us neither trifle nor dissemble in this matter I dare say every man's Conscience is convinced that they who have led very ill lives have so much reason for repentance that we may easily believe it to be real However of all things in the world let us not make a mock of repentance that which must be our last sanctuary and refuge and which we must all come to before we die or it had been better for us we had never been born Therefore let my counsel be acceptable unto you break off your sins by repentance and your iniquities by righteousness And that instantly and without delay lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin If we have been enslaved but a little to a vitious course we shall find it a task difficult enough to assert our own liberty to break these bonds in sunder and to cast these cords from us But if we have been long under this bondage we have done so much to undoe our selves and to make our case desperate that it is God's infinite mercy to us that there is yet hope Therefore give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness and your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while you look for light he turn it into darkness and the shadow of death I will conclude with that encouraging invitation even to the greatest of sinners to repentance from the mouth of God himself Isa 55. Incline your ear and come unto me hear and your Soul shall live seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy and to our God for he will abundantly pardon To him let us apply out selves and humbly beseech him who is mighty to save that he would stretch forth the right hand of his power for our deliverance from this miserable and cruel bondage of our lusts and that as the rain cometh down from Heaven and returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it to bring forth and bud so he would grant that his word may not return void but accomplish his pleasure and prosper in the thing to which he sent it For his mercy sake in Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and for ever Amen MATTTHEW XXIII 13. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men and ye neither go in your selves neither suffer ye them that are entring to go in THE Scribes so often mentioned in the Gospel