2. It is likewise to be considered that God did not design to create man in the full possession of happiness at first but to train him up to it by the tryal of his obedience But there could be no tryal of our obedience without some difficulty in our duty Either by reason of powerfull temptations from without or of cross and perverse inclinations from within Our first Parents in their state of innocency had only the tryal of temptation without to which they yielded and were overcome having only a natural power to have resisted the temptation without any aid of supernatural grace And that weakness to good and proneness to evil which they by wilfull transgression contracted is naturally derived to us and we necessarily partake of the bitterness and impurity of the Fountain from whence we spring So that we now labour under a double difficulty being assaulted by temptations from without and incited by evil inclinations from within But then to balance these we have a double advantage that a greater reward is proposed to us than for ought we know would have been conferred on our first parents had they continued innocent and that we are endued with a supernatural power to conflict with these difficulties So that according to the mercifull dispensation of God all this conflict between our inclination and our duty does only serve to give a fairer opportunity for the fitting tryal of our obedience and for the more glorious reward of it 3. God hath provided an universal remedy for this degeneracy and weakness of humane Nature So that what we lost by the first Adam is abundantly repaired to us by the second This St. Paul tells us at large Rom. 5. that as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin so the Grace of God hath abounded to all men by Jesus Christ And that to such a degree as effectually to countervall the ill effects of original sin and really to enable men if they be not wanting to themselves to master and subdue all the bad inclinations of nature even in those who seem to be naturally most corrupt and depraved And if this be true we may without any reflexion upon God acknowledge that though he did not at first create man sick and weak yet he having made himself so his posterity are born so But then God hath not left us helpless in this weak and miserable State into which by wilfull transgression mankind is fallen But as he commands us to be sound so he affords us sufficient aids of his grace by Jesus Christ for our recovery And though there is a Law in our Members warring against the Law of our Minds and captivating us to the Law of Sin and Death i. e. though our sensitive appetite and passions are apt to rebell against the reason of our minds and the dictates of our natural Concience yet every Christian may say with St. Paul thanks be to God who hath given its the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ i. e. hath not left us destitute of a sufficient aid and strength to enable us to conquer the rebellious motions of sin by the powerfull assistance of that grace which is so plentifully offered to us in the Gospel And this is the case of all those who live under the Gospel As for others as their case is best known to God so we have no reason to doubt but that his infinite goodness and mercy takes that care of them which becomes a mercifull Creatour Though both the measures and the methods of his mercy towards them are Secret and unknown to us 4. The hardest contest between man's inclination and duty is in those who have wilfully contracted vicious habits and by that means rendred their duty much more difficult to themselves having greatly improved the evil inclinations of nature by wicked practice and custom For the Scripture plainly supposeth that men may debauch even corrupt nature and make themselves ten fold more the Children of wrath and of the Devil than they were by Nature This is a case sadly to be deplored but yet not utterly to be despaired of And therefore those who by a long progress in an evil course are plunged into this sad condition ought to consider that they are not to be rescued out of it by an ordinary resolution and a common grace of God Their case plainly requires an extraordinary remedy For he that is deeply engaged in vice is like a man laid fast in a bogg who by a faint and lazy struggling to get out does but spend his strength to no purpose and sinks himself the deeper into it The only way is by a resolute and vigorous effort to spring out if possible at once And therefore in this case to a vigorous resolution there must be joyned an earnest application to God for his powerfull grace and assistance to help us out of this miserable State And if we be truly sensible of the desperate danger of our condition the pressing necessity of our case will be apt to inspire us with a mighty resolution For power and necessity are neighbours and never dwell far asunder When men are sorely urged and pressed they find a power in themselves which they thought they had not Like a coward driven up to a wall who in the extremity of distress and despair will fight terribly and perform wonders or like a man lame of the Gout who being assaulted by a present and terrible danger forgets his Disease and will find his legs rather than lose his life And in this I do not speak above the rate of humane Nature and what men throughly roused and awakened to a sense of their danger by a mighty resolution may morally do through that Divine grace and assistance which is ever ready to be afforded to well resolved minds and such as are sincerely bent to return to God and their Duty More than this I cannot say for the encouragement of those who have proceeded far in an evil course And they who have made their case so very desperate ought to be very thankfull to God that there is any remedy left for them 5. From all that hath been said it evidently appears how malicious a suggestion it is that God seeks the destruction of men and hath made his Laws on purpose so difficult and cross to our inclinations that he might have an advantage to ruine us for our disobedience to them Alas we are so absolutely under the Power of God and so unable to withstand it that he may destroy us when he pleaseth without seeking pretences for it For who hath resisted his will If goodness were not his nature he hath power enough to bear out whatever he hath a mind to do to us But our destruction is plainly of our selves and God is free from the bloud of all men And he hath not made the way to Eternal Life so difficult to any of us with a design to make us miserable but that we
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
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