have taken care to satisfie themselves and therefore are to expect nothing from God But let us who call our selves Christians doe something for God for which we have no hopes to be recompensed in this world that we may shew that we trust God and take his word and dare venture upon the security of the next world and that recompense which shall be made at the resurrection of the just And how great and glorious that shall be our Saviour tells us immediately before my Text. They that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead they can die no more but they are equal to the Angels and are the children of God being the children of the resurrection If then we be heirs of such glorious hopes and believe that he who is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob will also be our God let us live as it becomes the Candidates of heaven and the children of the resurrection and such as verily believe another life after this and hope one day to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God And now that I have represented to you what encouragement there is to well-doing and particularly to works of Charity from the consideration of the blessed reward we shall certainly meet with at the Resurrection of the just I shall crave your patience a little longer whilst I propose to you one of the fairest Examples of this kind which either this or perhaps any other Age could easily present us withall I mean our deceased Brother to whom we are now paying our last solemn respects the Reverend Mr. THOMAS GOVGE the worthy Son of a reverend and learned Divine of this City Dr. William Gouge who was Minister of this Parish of Black Friars six and forty years he died in 1653. and still lives in the memory of many here present I must confess that I am no friend to Funeral Panegyricks where there is nothing of extraordinary worth and merit in the party commended to give occasion and foundation for them In such cases as praises are not due to the dead so they may be of ill consequence to the living not onely by bringing those of our Profession that make a practice of it under the suspicion of officious and mercenary flattery but likewise by encouraging men to hope that they also may be well spoken of and even Sainted when they are dead though they should have done little or no good in their life But yet on the other hand to commend those excellent Persons the vertues of whose lives have been bright and exemplary is not onely a piece of justice due to the dead but an act of great charity to the living setting a pattern of well-doing before our eyes very apt and powerfull to incite and encourage us to go and doe likewise Upon both these considerations first to doe right to the memory of so good a man and then in hopes that the example may prove fruitfull and have a considerable effect upon others to beget the like goodness and charity in them I shall endeavour in as narrow a compass as may be to give you the just character of this truly pious and charitable Man and by setting his life in a true light to recommend with all the advantage I can so excellent a pattern to your imitation He was born at Bow near Stratford in the County of Midlesex the 19th day of September 1605. He was bred at Eton School and from thence chosen to Kings College in Cambridge being about 20 years of Age in the year 1626. After he had finish'd the course of his studies and taken his Degrees he left the Vniversity and his Fellowship being presented to the Living of Colsden near Croyden in Surrey where he continued about 2 or 3 years and from thence was remov'd to S. Sepulchres in London in the year 1638. and the year after thinking fit to change his condition match'd into a very worthy and ancient Family marrying one of the Daughters of Sir Robert Darcy Being thus settled in this large and populous Parish he did with great solicitude and pains discharge all the parts of a vigilant and faithfull Minister for about the space of 24 years For besides his constant and weekly labour of preaching he was very diligent and charitable in visiting the sick and ministring not onely spiritual counsel and comfort to them but likewise liberal relief to the wants and necessities of those that were poor and destitute of means to help themselves in that condition He did also every morning throughout the year Catechize in the Church especially the poorer sort who were generally most ignorant and to encourage them to come thither to be instructed by him he did once a week distribute money among them not upon a certain day but changing it on purpose as he thought good that he might thereby oblige them to be constantly present These were chiefly the more aged poor who being past labour had leisure enough to attend upon this exercise As for the other sort of poor who were able to work for their living he set them at work upon his own charge buying Flax and Hemp for them to spin and what they spun he took off their hands paying them for their work and then got it wrought into Cloth and sold it as he could chiefly among his friends himself bearing the whole loss And this was a very wise and well chosen way of charity and in the good effect of it a much greater charity than if he had given these very persons freely and for nothing so much as they earned by their work because by this means he took many off from begging and thereby rescued them at once from two of the most dangerous temptations of this world Idleness and Poverty and by degrees reclaim'd them to a vertuous and industrious course of life which enabled them afterwards to live without being beholden to the charity of others And this course so happily devis'd and begun by Mr. Gouge in his own Parish was I think that which gave the first hint to that worthy and usefull Citizen Mr. Thomas Firmin of a much larger design which hath been prosecuted by him for some years with that vigour and good success in this City that many hundreds of poor Children and others who liv'd idle before unprofitable both to themselves and the publick are continually maintain'd at work and taught to earn their own livelihood much in the same way He being by the generous assistance and charity of many worthy and well-dispos'd Persons of all ranks enabled to bear the unavoidable loss and charge of so vast an undertaking and by his own forward inclination to charity and his unwearied diligence and activity extraordinarily fitted to sustain and go through the incredible pains of it But to return to our deceased Friend concerning whom I must content my self to pass over many things worthy to be remembred of him and to speak
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