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A41726
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A sermon preached before the King at White-Hall on Christmas-Day, 1684 Humfrey Gower ...
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Gower, Humphrey, 1638-1711.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing G1459; ESTC R3870
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19,094
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36
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A SERMON Preached before the KING AT WHITE-HALL ON Christmass-Day 1684. By HVMFREY GOWER D. D. and Master of St. John's College in Cambridge Published by His Majesties special Command LONDON Printed by S. Roycrost for Robert Clavell at the Peacock at the West-end of St. Pauls Church-Yard 1685. GALAT. III. 21 22. Is the Law then against the Promises of God God forbid For if there had been a Law given which could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law But the Scripture hath concluded all under Sin that the Promise by Faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe WE cannot more properly celebrate the Memory of the Incarnation of our Blessed Lord the Pious purpose of our present Assembling than by fixing our Meditations on the Nature Reason and Design of that most wonderful Undertaking and Condescension of the Son of God This is a sure way to sanctifie our Feast and make it truly an Holy-Day Not that we are to neglect the History The bare Narrative of the thing done affords very proper and useful entertainment for this Season It refreshes the Memory in all the mighty particulars of this stupendious Transaction and so helps to settle them firmer in the Mind it raises and warms the Fancy excites and quickens the Affections of the Soul all which have very considerable influence upon Practice This is to keep Holy-day too to listen with the Shepherds to the Glad-tydings of the bright Ambassadour of Heaven and the triumphant Melody of the Celestial Choir which assisted at that Solemnity then to accompany the Eastern Sages conducted by a Light held out from Heaven to behold the place where the infinite Infant lay to read the wondrous History of the New-born-Babe as it was fairly written long before his Birth in the Prophecies of the Old Testament concerning the Tribe the Family the Name the Place the Time and the Manner of the Nativity of Him who was God as well as Man All this is the work of the Day and you have done it often and the Church hath taken care by the Psalms and Lessons and other parts of the proper Service that it should never be quite omitted But there is still further and more lofty matter of Meditation in the Mercies and Mysteries of this Day A Day contriv'd from all Eternity prefigur'd from all Antiquity which the Fulness of Time produc'd which Holy Church and Holy Men in all Ages gladly commemorate which Angels gaze at with Ecstasie and Rapture and which both Men and Angels shall eternally celebrate with shouts of Joy and everlasting Hallelujah's Some part of this abounding Theme is presented to you by the words of my Text in which is contain'd this principal Proposition That the Law was but an Introduction or Dispensation preparatory to the Gospel and the Proof of it taken from the Insufficiency of the Law to effect what God mainly propos'd to himself the eternal Happiness of Mankind For if there had been a Law given which could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law But the Scripture hath concluded all under Sin that the Promise by Faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe In the whole Argument as it lies in these words there are at least four Particulars or Propositions First That Man of himself has no Title to Immortal Life This is implyed and supposed because God contrives a way to render him fairly capable of being saved Secondly God sincerely desires the Life that is the Salvation of Men and has propos'd Means regularly to Accomplish it Thirdly This was not could not be by the Law of Moses But Fourthly By the Grace and Mercy exhibited to the World in Jesus Christ or in the words of the Text by the Promise which by Faith of Jesus Christ is given to them that believe As for the first of these It is very evident that we are naturally without any plea for Eternal Life The promise of Immortality was free unmerited Bounty even to our First Parents whilst they stood adorned with all the beauties of a spotless Innocence The longest life of Man all spent in most unblemished uniform Obedience to his Creators Laws could merit nothing at all much less the inestimable reward of Everlasting Glory Death indeed is as we are told Rom. 6. 23. the natural and dearly earn'd wages of Sin but Eternal Life is the gift of God The first and perfectest of our Kind could at the best be but an unprofitable Servant to the Infinite Master that he served Nay it was the peculiar Privilege and Happiness of his Nature that he was able to perform a steddy and perpetual Obedience to all his Creators Will. Therefore the Psalmist prays for more degrees of such Spiritual Power and pleads his being a Creature to move his Maker to bestow them on him Psal 119. 73. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me give me understanding that I may learn thy Commandments Man 's own Being the excellent endowments of his Nature his very Meat and Drink are liberal and abundant Wages for that Service which is naturally due from the Creature to the Creator and is as duly paid by all Man only excepted who yet is most obliged to it as enjoying great Advantages and even an Imperial Prerogative above all the rest as if for Him alone the whole Fabrick of Heaven and Earth had been produc'd Esai 48. 13. Mine hand hath laid the foundation of the Earth and my right hand hath spann'd the Heavens saith the Lord by his holy Prophet when I call unto them they stand up together Good reason sure that they should stand up and be at the Call of Him who gave them and supports them in their Being Frogs and Locusts and all Vermin come and go as they are commanded off and on by the Sovereign Word of their Almighty Maker The Ravens feed one Prophet a Lion tears another but hungry and ravenous as they were those Lions chose to fast and starye rather than hurt a third A Fish swallows up a fourth and then harmlesly restores him to Dry-land and all at the Command of God Judg. 5. 20. The Stars in their courses fight against Sisera Psal 148. 8. Fire and Hail Snow and Vapour and Stormy Wind are fulfilling his Word These and all things else rejoyce in his Commandment are ready upon Earth when need is Ecclus. 39. 31. and when their time is come they shall not transgress his Word c. But Man only Man like a pamper'd Rebel grown great and insolent by the abus'd Indulgence of his Prince boggled at the first and easiest Trial of his Obedience and proudly disdain'd to acknowledge any Lord over him But what if he does his best What has he of his own to offer to his God Who hath first given to him and it shall be recompenced unto him again Adam himself had nothing but what was given him why should he glory
Covenants In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die That was the unrelenting Rigour of the first Law and the rigid Condition of the Law of Moses is carefully remembred by the Apostle in this Chapter Gal. 3. 10. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them A very uncomfortable and frightful Sanction it is sufficient of it self to represent that Law as a Schoolmaster as it is stil'd qualified not only to bring but to drive us unto Christ Thanks be therefore to God through Jesus Christ our Lord who by the propitious Mystery of this Day and the saving Consequences of it hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law Himself being made a Curse for us who did all that could be requir'd in the greatest Rigour and yet suffer'd too the greatest that we who of our selves could do nothing as we ought to do might yet suffer nothing but being by him enabled to do all things may be made Heirs even joynt Heirs with himself of Eternal Glory And this it is that makes up our present Rejoycing The Birth of Christ was the Death of the Law For He was the End of the Law and put an end to it also as it is taken in competition with the Gospel For we well know that it is not always so and therefore can easily reconcile those different and contrary Accounts which are given of it in the New Testament As it is considered absolutely in it self without regard and subordination to our Blessed Lord who gives strength for the fulfilling of the Moral part of it and is the substance and accomplishment of the Ceremonial it is represented full of Terrors as to Man and under Characters of Disparagement and Diminution to it self Thus it is said to be abolished and disannull'd that it was but until John that it was given by Moses who was faithful but as a Servant whereas Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ who is Lord and Heir of all things That it stops every Mouth and makes all the World become guilty before God that it cannot Justifie or make Righteous It is not only reflected on as a less excellent Ministry a Covenant not faultless unprofitable decayed waxen old a Shadow and vanishing away but it is likewise severely censured as an unsupportable Yoak and that which worketh Wrath and Death It is said indeed to be weak but for all that we are told that it is the strength of Sin a Letter that killeth and the Ministration of Condemnation and Death that it is a Curse and Emnity which Christ abolished and slew the oldness of the Letter and dead that there was made of necessity a change of the Law and accordingly that we are not now under the Law but under Grace At this rate is it expos'd and vilisied when consider'd as opposite to or distinct in part or in whole from the Dispensation of the Gospel But there is another view of it and a much better prospect when it is represented as it was intended to be a Dispensation preparatory and subordinate to the Gospel A Law of Life and Manners improv'd fulfil'd and enforced by our Saviour who plentifully furnisheth out Grace and Strength to enable us to live up to the Precepts of it in an Evangelical Perfection And thus it will soon appear that the Law is not against the Promises of God according to my Text. For we find our Blessed Saviour making a solemn and very early Protestation even in his first Sermon that he came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law that not a jot of it should be unfulfill'd that it is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than one tittle of the Law to fail And St. Paul establish'd the Christian Faith by the Law of Moses as well as by the Prophets and thus now the Doers of the Law shall be justified and we read often of the Righteousness of the Law and that it is not made void through Faith God forbid saith St. Paul yea we establish the Law And thus the Law is holy and the Commandment holy and just and good Thus too it is Spiritual to be delighted in a Commandment ordain'd unto Life and a means to bring us unto Christ King David himself who composed so many Hymns on purpose to celebrate and adorn the Law and that long Alphabetical Octonary the 119th Psalm on that single Subject could not say more in honour of it than what I have already or may further be alledged for that purpose from the Scriptures of the New Testament But then the Law is understood to be a kind of Gospel a Dispensation typical and significative of Christ According to what the Great Father tells us * Quid est enim quod dicitur Testamentum Vetus nisi occultatio Novi Et quid est aliud quod dicitur Novum nisi Veteris revelatio St. Aug. de Civ Dei l. 16. f. 26. That the Law was but the Gospel mask'd and the Gospel nothing else but the Law reveal'd Indeed the whole Old Testament in a manner is a Mysterious Shadow a Prophetical and Figurative Representation of the New Which some observing and finding what excellent use our Saviour and his Apostles made of the History and Prophecies of the one Testament to confirm and illustrate the Doctrines of the other have indulged so long and unwarily to the contemptation of the Allegorical that they have quite neglected and at last utterly lost and even renounc'd the first and Literal Sence But this is an unreasonable affection of an extravagant and sottish Extreme It was the infinite Wisdom and Power of God that so contriv'd ordered and overrul'd Affairs in the first Ages of the World that they might aptly prelude typifie and represent that great Undertaking which he was to set on foot in the latter Times Hereby making the Age of the Patriarchs and the Law but a long Preface or Introduction to that of the Gospel Indeed to speak properly we are to Date the Gospel from the time of the first Publication of it which was immediately after the Fall as we all know From that happy Moment all the hopes of Heaven of a future Endless Life of Bliss depended wholly on the Birth and Death of the Messias Christianity therefore commenced about Four Thousand Years before the first Christmas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Dem. Evang. l. 1. c. 8. Il 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I mean before the actual Incarnation and Nativity of the Son of God It is then no Novel and Upstart Doctrine not a Modern or New invented Discipline but far the most Ancient the Senior Religion of the World Almighty God for wise and weighty Purposes did not think fit to put the Gospel Dispensation presently in practice with all the Power and Demonstration all the Lustre and Advantages with which in the Fulness of time it was to appear and be recommended to the World