onely of those Vertues of his which were more eminent and remarkable Of his Piety towards God which is the necessary foundation of all other Graces and Vertues I shall onely say this that it was great and exemplary but yet very still and quiet without stir and noise and much more in substance and reality than in shew and ostentation and did not consist in censuring and finding fault with others but in the due care and government of his own life and actions and in exercising himself continually to have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men in which he was such a proficient that even after long acquaintance and familiar conversation with him it was not easie to observe any thing that might deserve blame He particularly excell'd in the more peculiar vertues of conversation in modesty humility meekness cheerfulness and in kindness and charity towards all men So great was his modesty that it never appear'd either by word or action that he put any value upon himself This I have often observ'd in him that the Charities which were procur'd chiefly by his application and industry when he had occasion to give an account of them he would rather impute to any one who had but the least hand and part in the obtaining of them than assume any thing of it to himself Another instance of his modesty was that when he had quitted his Living of S. Sepulchres upon some dissatisfaction about the terms of conformity he willingly forbore preaching saying there was no need of him here in London where there were so many worthy Ministers and that he thought he might doe as much or more good in another way which could give no offence Onely in the later years of his life being better satisfy'd in some things he doubted of before he had License from some of the Bishops to preach in Wales in his progress which he was the more willing to doe because in some places he saw great need of it and he thought he might doe it with greater advantage among the poor People who were the more likely to regard his instructions being recommended by his great charity so well known to them and of which they had so long had the experience and benefit But where there was no such need he was very well contented to hear others perswade men to goodness and to practise it himself He was clothed with humility and had in a most eminent degree that ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which S. Peter says is in the sight of God of so great price So that there was not the least appearance either of Pride or Passion in any of his words or actions He was not onely free from anger and bitterness but from all affected gravity and moroseness His conversation was affable and pleasant he had a wonderfull serenity of mind and evenness of temper visible in his very countenance he was hardly ever merry but never melancholy and sad and for any thing I could discern after a long and intimate acquaintance with him he was upon all occasions and accidents perpetually the same always cheerfull and always kind of a disposition ready to embrace and oblige all men allowing others to differ from him even in opinions that were very dear to him and provided men did but fear God and work righteousness he lov'd them heartily how distant soever from him in judgment about things less necessary In all which he is very worthy to be a pattern to men of all Perswasions whatsoever But that Vertue which of all other shone brightest in him and was his most proper and peculiar character was his cheerfull and unwearied diligence in acts of pious Charity In this he left far behind him all that ever I knew and as I said before had a singular sagacity and prudence in devising the most effectual ways of doing good and in managing and disposing his charity to the best purposes and to the greatest extent always if it were possible making it to serve some end of Piety and Religion as the instruction of poor children in the principles of Religion and furnishing grown persons that were ignorant with the Bible and other good Books strictly obliging those to whom he gave them to a diligent reading of them and when he had opportunity exacting of them an account how they had profited by them In his occasional alms to the poor in which he was very free and bountifull the relief he gave them was always mingled with good counsel and as great a tenderness and compassion for their souls as bodies which very often attain'd the good effect it was likely to have the one making way for the other with so much advantage and men being very apt to follow the good advice of those who give them in hand so sensible a pledge and testimony of their good will to them This kind of charity must needs be very expensive to him but he had a plentifull estate settled upon him and left him by his Father and he laid it out as liberally in the most prudent and effectual ways of charity he could think of and upon such persons as all circumstances considered he judg'd to be the fittest and most proper objects of it For about nine or ten years last past he did as is well known to many here present almost wholly apply his charity to Wales because there he judg'd was most occasion for it And because this was a very great work he did not onely lay out upon it whatever he could spare out of his own estate but employ'd his whole time and pains to excite and engage the charity of others for his assistance in it And in this he had two excellent designs One to have poor children brought up to reade and write and to be carefully instructed in the principles of Religion The other to furnish persons of grown age the poor especially with the necessary helps and means of knowledge as the Bible and other Books of piety and devotion in their own Language to which end he procur'd the Church-Catechisme the Practice of Piety and that best of Books the Whole Duty of Man besides several other pious and usefull Treatises to be translated into the Welch Tongue and great numbers of them to be printed and sent down to the chief Towns in Wales to be sold at easie rates to those that were able to buy them and to be freely given to those that were not And in both these designs through the blessing of God upon his unwearied endeavours he found very great success For by the large and bountifull contributions which chiefly by his industry and prudent application were obtain'd from charitable Persons of all Ranks and conditions from the Nobility and Gentry of Wales and the neighbouring Counties and several of that Quality in and about London from divers of the Right Reverend Bishops and of the Clergy and from that perpetual fountain of charity the City of London led on and
A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Reverend M r THOMAS GOVGE the 4th of Novemb. 1681. At S. Anne's Blackfriars With a brief account of his Life By JOHN TILLOTSON D. D. Dean of Canterbury and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by M. F. for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill and William Rogers at the Sun against S. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet 1682. TO The Right Worshipfull THE PRESIDENT THE TREASURER And the rest of the worthy Governours of the Hospital of Christ Church in LONDON WHen upon the request of some of the Relations and Friends of the Reverend Mr. Gouge deceased and to speak the truth in compliance with mine own inclination to doe 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 fitly to address it than to your selves who are the living pattern of the same Vertue and the faithfull 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 doe 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 usefull 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 M r THOMAS GOVGE With a short account of his Life LUKE XX. 37 38. Now that the dead are raised ever 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 onely 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 be 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 Consider it as an Argument ad hominem and shew the fitness and force of it to convince those with whom our Saviour disputed Secondly I shall enquire Whether it be more than an Argument ad hominem And if it be wherein the real and absolute force of it doth consist And then I shall apply this Doctrine of the Resurrection to the present Occasion I. First We will consider it as an Argument ad hominem and shew the fitness and force of it to convince those with whom our Saviour disputed And this will appear if we carefully consider these four things 1. What our Saviour intended directly and immediately to prove by this Argument 2. The extraordinary veneration which the Jews in general had for the Writings of Moses above any other Books of the Old Testament 3. The peculiar notion which the Jews had concerning the use of this Phrase or expression of God's being any one 's God 4. The great respect which the Jews had for these three Fathers of their Nation Abraham Isaac and Jacob. For each of these make our Saviour's Argument more forcible against those with whom he disputed First We will consider what our Saviour intended directly and immediately to prove by this Argument And that was this
encourag'd by the most bountifull example of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen to all which he constantly added two Thirds of his own estate which as I have been credibly inform'd was two hundred pounds a year I say by all these together there were every year eight hundred sometimes a thousand poor children educated as I said before and by this example several of the most considerable Towns of Wales were excited to bring up at their own charge the like number of poor children in the like manner and under his inspection and care He likewise gave very great numbers of the Books above mention'd both in the Welch and English Tongues to the poorer sort so many as were unable to buy them and willing to reade them But which was the greatest work of all and amounted indeed to a mighty charge he procured a new and very fair Impression of the Bible and Liturgy of the Church of England in the Welch Tongue the former Impression being spent and hardly twenty of them to be had in all London to the number of eight thousand one thousand whereof were freely given to the poor and the rest sent to the principal Cities and Towns in Wales to be sold to the rich at very reasonable and low rates viz. at four shillings a piece well bound and clasped which was much cheaper than any English Bible was ever sold that was of so fair a print and paper A work of that charge that it was not likely to have been done any other way and for which this Age and perhaps the next will have great cause to thank God on his behalf In these good works he employed all his time and care and pains and his whole heart was in them so that he was very little affected with any thing else and seldom either minded or knew any thing of the strange occurrences of this troublesome and busie Age such as I think are hardly to be parallel'd in any other Or if he did mind them he scarce ever spoke any thing about them For this was the business he laid to heart and knowing it to be so much and so certainly the Will of his heavenly Father it was his meat and drink to be doing of it And the good success he had in it was a continual feast to him and gave him a perpetual serenity both of mind and countenance His great love and zeal for this work made all the pains and difficulties of it seem nothing to him He would rise early and sit up late and continued the same diligence and industry to the last though he was in the threescore and seventeenth year of his age And that he might manage the distribution of this great charity with his own hands and see the good effect of it with his own eyes he always once but usually twice a year at his own charge travelled over a great part of Wales none of the best Countries to travel in But for the love of God and men he endured all that together with the extremity of heat and cold which in their several seasons are both very great there not onely with patience but with pleasure So that all things considered there have not since the primitive times of Christianity been many among the sons of men to whom that glorious character of the Son of God might be better applied that he went about doing good And Wales may as worthily boast of this truly Apostolical man as of their famous S. David who was also very probably a good man as those times of ignorance and superstition went But his goodness is so disguised by their fabulous Legends and stories which give us the account of him that it is not easie to discover it Indeed ridiculous miracles in abundance are reported of him as that upon occasion of a great number of people resorting from all parts to hear him preach for the greater advantage of his being heard a mountain all on a sudden rose up miraculously under his feet and his voice was extended to that degree that he might be distinctly heard for two or three miles round about Such phantastical miracles as these make up a great part of his History And admitting all these to be true which a wise man would be loth to do our departed Friend had that which is much greater and more excellent than all these a fervent charity to God and men which is more than to speak as they would make us believe S David did with the tongue of men and Angels more than to raise or remove mountains And now methinks it is pity so good a design so happily prosecuted should fall and die with this good man And it is now under deliberation if possible still to continue and carry it on and a very worthy and charitable person pitched upon for that purpose who is willing to undertake that part which he that is gone performed so well But this will depend upon the continuance of the former Charities and the concurrence of those worthy and well disposed persons in Wales to contribute their part as formerly which I perswade my self they will cheerfully doe I will add but one thing more concerning our deceased Brother that though he meddled not at all in our present heats and differences as a Party having much better things to mind yet as a looker on he did very sadly lament them and for several of the last years of his life he continued in the Communion of our Church and as he himself told me thought himself obliged in conscience so to do He died in the 77th year of his age Octob. 29th 1681. It so pleased God that his death was very sudden and so sudden that in all probability he himself hardly perceived it when it happened for he died in his sleep and as it is said of David after he had served his generation according to the will of God he fell asleep I confess that a sudden death is generally undesirable and therefore with reason we pray against it because so very few are sufficiently prepared for it But to him the constant employment of whose life was the best preparation for death that was possible no death could be sudden nay it was rather a favour and blessing to him because by how much the more sudden so much the more easie As if God had designed to begin the reward of the great pains of his life in an easie death And indeed it was rather a translation than a death and saving that his body was left behind what was said of Enoch may not unfitly be applied to this pious and good man with respect to the suddenness of his change he walked with God and was not for God took him And God grant that we who survive may all of us sincerely endeavour to tread in the steps of his exemplary piety and charity of his labour of love his unwearied diligence and patient continuance in doing good that we