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would one day be exhausted, and that after so many years were past, we should be as poor and miserable again as we were once in this world. God hath so ordered things, that the vain and empty delights of this world should be temporary and transient, but that the great and substantial pleasures of the other world should be as lasting as they are excellent; for heaven, as it is an exceeding, so it is an eternal weight of glory. And this is that which crowns the joys of heaven, and banishes all fear and trouble from the minds of the blessed; and thus to be secured in the possession of our happiness is an unspeakable addition to it. For that which is eternal, as it shall never determine, so it can never be diminished; for to be diminished and to decay is to draw nearer to an end, but that which shall never have an end can never come nearer to it.

O vast eternity! how dost thou swallow up our thoughts and entertain us at once with delight and amazement? This is the very top and highest pitch of our happiness, upon which we may stand secure and look down with scorn upon all things here below; and how small and inconsiderable do they appear to us, compared with the vast and endless enjoyments of our future state? But oh, vain and foolish souls, that are so little concerned for eternity, that for the trifles of time, and “the pleasures of sin which are but for a season," can find in our hearts to forfeit an everlasting felicity! Blessed God! why hast thou prepared such a happiness for those who neither consider it, nor seek after it? Why is such a price put into the hands of fools, who have no heart to make use of it;" who fondly choose to gratify their lusts, rather than to save their souls, and sottishly prefer the temporary enjoyments of sin before a blessed immortality?

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Funeral Sermon for the Rev. Thomas Gouge.

[The reader is already acquainted with this good man's father,

Dr William Gouge.* The son was, until Bartholomew-Day, incumbent of St Sepulchre's, but his funeral sermon was preached in St Ann's, Blackfriars, where his venerable father had ministered for five and forty years. It is pleasant to know that the funeral sermon of such a man was preached by the Dean of Canterbury, and we cannot withhold from our readers the record of such large-hearted beneficence as marked this good man long before the days of home missions and benevolent societies.]

He was born at Bow, near Stratford, in the county of Middlesex, the 19th day of September 1605. He was bred at Eton School, and from thence chosen to King's College in Cambridge, being about twenty years of age, in the year 1626. After he had finished the course of his studies and taken his degrees, he left the university and his fellowship, being presented to the living of Colsden, near Croydon in Surrey, where he continued about two or three years, and from thence was removed to St Sepulchre's, in London, in the year 1638; and the year after, thinking fit to change his condition, matched 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 faithful minister for about the space of twentyfour years; for besides his constant and weekly labour of preaching, he was very diligent and charitable in visiting the sick, and ministering not only 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 catechise in the church, especially the poorer sort, who were generally most ignorant; and, to encourage them to come * Christian Classics, vol. i. p. 330.

upon

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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 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 reclaimed them to a virtuous and industrious course of life, which enabled them afterwards to live without being beholden to the charity of others.

Of his piety towards God, which is the necessary foundation of all other graces and virtues, I shall only 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 show 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 easy to observe anything that might deserve blame.

He particularly excelled in the more peculiar virtues of conversation, in modesty, humility, meekness, cheerfulness, and in kindness and charity towards all men.

So great was his modesty, that it never appeared either by word or action that he put any value upon himself. This I have often observed in him, that the charities which were procured 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 anything of it to himself. Another instance of his modesty was, that when he had quitted his living of St Sepulchre's 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 do as much or more good in another way which could give no offence. Only in the later years of his life, being better satisfied in some things he had 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 do, because in some places he saw great need of it, and he thought he might do 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 persuade 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 St 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 only free from anger and bitterness, but from all affected gravity and moroseness. His conversation was affable and pleasant; he had a wonderful 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

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discern, after a long and intimate acquaintance with him, he was, upon all occasions and accidents, perpetually the same; always cheerful, 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 loved 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 persuasions whatsoever.

But that virtue which, of all other, shone brightest in him, and was his most proper and peculiar character, was his cheerful 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 bountiful, 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 attained 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 plentiful estate settled upon him and left him by his father, and he laid it out as liberally in the most