Gouge was one of the many English Covenanters who swore the Solemn League and Covenant. He also sat in the Westminster Assembly. This sermon (read by Lyndon Dohms) was preached in the days of the sitting of this Assembly (Sept. 24, 1645), before the House of Peers assembled in the English Parliament, during a public fast. It is also available in printed form.
Here Gouge encourages the civil rulers in their duty as nursing fathers (Isa. 49:23) to the church -- in furthering the covenanted Reformation of his day. Much attention is also paid to Reformation eschatology as it is witnessed in the unfolding of history according to God's decree. Gouge offers great encouragement to Christians living in evil times, as he points to the day when 'the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea' (Hab. 2:14); demonstrating throughout how the gospel continues to march forward to triumph over the forces of darkness -- with special attention to the manner in which God was using the second Reformation to crush both the civil and ecclesiastical beasts of Revelation.
Gouge was a postmillennialist and historicist, and he defends this position from Scripture (and history) throughout this sermon. This is a good example of the type of preaching that fueled the Puritan revolution in the British Isles in the mid-seventeenth century.
For more information on the Puritans, please visit SWRB's home page at the 'Outside Web Link' below.
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