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
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 Jacoh 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 That there is another state after this life wherein men shall be happy or miserable according as they have lived in this world And this doth not only suppose the immortality of the Soul but forasmuch as the Body is an essential part of man doth by consequence infer the resurrection of the Body because otherwise the man would not be happy or misererable in the other world But I cannot see any sufficient ground to believe that our Saviour intended by this Argument directly and immediately to prove the resurrection of the Body but only by consequence and as it follows from the admission of a future state wherein men shall be rewarded or punished For that Reason of our Saviour that God is not a God of the dead but of the living if it did directly prove the resurrection of the Body it would prove that the Bodies of Abraham Isaac and Jacob were raised to life again at or before that time when God spake to Moses and called himself the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob But we do not believe this and therefore ought not to suppose that it was the intention of our Saviour directly and immediately to prove the resurrection of the Body but only as I said before a future state And that this was all our Saviour intended will more plainly appear if we consider what that Errour of the Sadduces was which our Saviour here confutes And Josephus who very well understood the difference of the Sects among the Jews and gives a particular account of them makes not the least mention of any Controversie between the Pharisees and the Sadduces about the resurrection of the Body All that he says is this That the Pharisees hold the Immortality of the Soul and that there are Rewards and Punishments in another world But the Sadduces denied all this and that there was any other state after this life And this is the very same account with that which is given of them in the New Testament vers 27. of this Chapt. The Sadduces who deny that there is any resurrection The meaning of which is more fully declared Act. 23.8 The Sadduces say that there is no resurrection neither angel nor spirit but the Pharisees confess both That is the Sadduces denied that there was any other state of men after this life and that there was any such thing as an immortal Spirit either Angels or the Souls of men surviving their Bodies And as Dr. Hammond hath judiciously observed this is the true importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. a future or another state unless in such Texts where the Context does restrain it to the raising again of the Body or where some word that denotes the body as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added to it Secondly The force of this Argument against those with whom our Saviour disputed will further appear if we consider the great veneration which the Jews in general had for the Writings of Moses above any other Books of the Old Testament which they especially the Sadduces looked upon only as Explications and Comments upon the Law of Moses But they esteemed nothing as a necessary Article of Faith which had not some foundation in the Writings of Moses And this seems to me to be the true Reason why our Saviour chose to confute them out of Moses rather than any other part of the Old Testament And not as many learned men have imagined because the Sadduces did not receive any part of the Old Testament but only the five Books of M ses so that it was in vain to argue against them out of any other This I know hath been a general opinion grounded I think upon the mistake of a passage in Josephus who says the Sadduces only received the written Law But if We carefully consider that passage we shall find that Josephus doth not there oppose the Law to the other Bâ—â—ks of the Old Testament which were also written but to Oral Tradition For he says expresly that the Sadduces only received the written Law but the Pharisees over and besides what was written received the Oral which they call Tradition I deny not but that in the later Prophets there are more express Texts for the proof of a future state than any are to be found in the Books of Moses As Daniel 12.2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake s me to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt And indeed it seems very plain that holy men among the Jews towards the expiration of the Legal dispensation had still clearer and more express apprehensions concerning a future state than are to be met with in the Writings of Moses or of any of the Prophets The Law given by Moses did suppose the Immortality of the Souls of men and the expectation of another life after this as Principles of Religion in some degree naturally known but made no new and express Revelation of these things Nor was there any occasion for it the Law of Moses being a Political Law not intended for the Government of mankind but of one particular Nation and therefore was establish'd as Political Laws are upon temporal promises and threatnings promising temporal prosperity to the observation of its precepts and threatning the breach of them with temporal judgments and calamities And this I take to be the true reason why arguments fetch'd from another world are so obscurely insisted upon under that Dispensation not but that another life after this was always suppos'd and was undoubtedly the hope and expectation of good men under the Law but the clear discovery of it was reserv'd for the Times of the Messias And therefore as
over it which profiteth him that worthily eateth the Lord and this he says he had spoken concerning the typical and Symbolical body So that the matter of bread remaineth in the Sacrament and this Origen calls the typical and Symbolical body of Christ and it is not the natural body of Christ which is there eaten for the food eaten in the Sacrament as to that of it which is material goeth into the belly and is cast out into the draught This Testimony is so very plain in the Cause that Sextus Senensis suspects this place of Origen was depraved by the Heretiques Cardinal Perron is contented to allow it to be Origen's but rejects his testimony because he was accused of Heresie by some of the Fathers and says he talks like a Heretique in this place So that with much ado this testimony is yielded to us The same Father in his * Cap. 10. Homilies upon Leviticus speaks thus There is also in the New Testament a letter which kills him who doth not Spiritually understand those things which are said for if we take according to the Letter that which is said EXCEPT YE EAT MY FLESH AND DRINK MY BLOVD this Letter kills And this also is a killing Testimony and not to be answered but in Cardinal Perron's way by saying he talks like a Heretique St. Cyprian hath a whole Epistle * Ep. 63. to Cecilius against those who gave the Communion in Water only without Wine mingled with it and his main argument against them is this that the bloud of Christ with which we are redeemed and quickned cannot seem to be in the Cup when there is no Wine in the Cup by which the Bloud of Christ is represented and afterwards he says that contrary to the Evangelical and Apostolical Doctrine water was in some places offer'd or given in the Lord's Cup which says he alone cannot express or represent the bloud of Christ And lastly he tells us that by water the people is understood by Wine the bloud of Christ is shewn or represented but when in the Cup water is mingled with Wine the people is united to Christ So that according to this Argument Wine in the Sacramental Cup is no otherwise chang'd into the Bloud of Christ than the Water mixed with it is changed into the People which are said to be united to Christ I omit many others and pass to St. Austin in the fourth Age afâ—er Christ And I the rather insist upon his Testimony because of his eminent esteem and authority in the Latin Church and he also calls the Elements of the Sacrament the figure and sign of Christ's body and bloud In his Book against Adimantus the Manichee we have this expression * Aug. Tom. 6. p. 187. Edit Basil 1569. our Lord did not doubt to say this is my Body when he gave the Sign of his Body And in his explication of the third Psalm speaking of Judas whom our Lord admitted to his last Supper in which says he †Enarrat in Psal Tom. 8. p. 16. he commended and delivered to his Disciples the figure of his Body Language which would now be censur'd for Heresie in the Church of Rome Indeed he was never accus'd of Heresie as Cardinal Perron says Origen was but he talks as like one as Origen himself And in his Comment on the 98 Psalm speaking of the offence which the Disciples took at that saying of our Saviour except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud c. he brings in our Saviour speaking thus to them ‖ Id. Tom. 9. p. 1105. ye must understand Spiritually what I have said unto you ye are not to eat this body which ye see and to drink that bloud which shall be shed by those that shall crucifie me I have commended a certain Sacrament to you which being Spiritually understood will give you life What more opposite to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation than that the Disciples were not to eat that Body of Christ which they saw nor to drink that bloud which was shed upon the Cross but that all this was to be understood spiritually and according to the nature of a Sacrament For that body he tells us is not here but in heaven in his Comment upon these words me ye have not always * Id Tract 50. in Johan He speaks says he of the presence of his body ye shall have me according to my providence according to Majesty and invisible grace but according to the flesh which the word assumed according to that which was born of the Virgin Mary ye shall not have me therefore because he conversed with his Disciples forty days he is ascended up into heaven and is not here In his 23 d. Epistle †Id Tom. 2. p. 93. if the Sacrament says he had not some resemblance of those things whereof they are Sacraments they would not be Sacraments at all but from this resemblance they take for the most part the names of the things which they represent Therefore as the Sacrament of the body of Christ is in some manner or sense Christ's body and the Sacrament of his bloud is the bloud of Christ So the Sacrament of faith meaning Baptism is faith Upon which words of St. Austin there is this remarkable Gloss in their own Canon Law ‖ De Consecr dist 2. Hoc est the heavenly Sacrament which truly represents the flesh of Christ is called the body of Christ but improperly whence it is said that after a manner but not according to the truth of the thing but the Mystery of the thing signified So that the meaning is it is called the body of Christ that is it signifies the body of Christ And if this be St. Austin's meaning I am sure no Protestant can speak more plainly against Transubstantiation And in the ancient Canon of the Mass before it was chang'd in complyance with this new Doctrine it is expresly call'd a Sacrament a Sign an Image and a Figure of Christ's body To which I will add that remarkable passage of St. Austin cited by * De consecrat dist 2. Sect. Vtrum Gratian that as we receive the similitude of his death in Baptism so we may also receive the likeness of his flesh and bloud that so neither may truth be wanting in the Sacrament nor Pagans have occasion to make us ridiculous for drinking the bloud of one that was slain I will mention but one Testimony more of this Father but so clear a one as it is impossible any man in his wits that had believed Transubstantiation could have utter'd It is in his Treatise * Lib. 3. Tom. 3. p. 53. de Doctrina Christiana where laying down several Rules for the right understanding of Scripture he gives this for one If says he the speech be a precept forbidding some heinous wickedness or crime or commanding us to do good it is not figurative but if it seem to command any