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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81239	Deliverance-obstruction: or, The set-backs of reformation. Discovered in a sermon before the Right Honourable the House of Peers, in Parliament now assembled. Upon the monthly fast, March 25. 1646. / By Tho. Case, preacher in Milkstreet London, and one of the Assembly of Divines.	Case, Thomas, 1598-1682.; England and Wales. Parliament. House of Lords.	1646 (1646)	Wing C827; Thomason E329_9; ESTC R200694	36,291	48

of tongues Mark 3 25. neither can the house divided stand long 6. By Carnal confidence Jer. 17.5 Sixthly as much have they disadvantaged themselves by Carnal confidence a sin not onely cross'd but curs'd Thus saith the Lord Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm Why The reason follows whose heart departeth from the Lord. Look how much men DEIFIE men by so much they UNGOD Jehovah by how much a people IDOLIZE Parliaments or Armies or the best of Creature-helps by so much they withdraw their confidence and dependance from the Rock of Ages and therefore for this doth God oftentimes infatuate Counsels and blast all the beauty and strength of a people wherein ther trusted The wisdom of their wisemen shall perish Isa 29 14. and the understanding of the prudent shall be hid Chap. 20.5 They shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation and of Egypt their glory Alas can a people prosper that have forsaken their strength for weaknesse that have exchanged God for the Creature Can a designe thrive that is under a Curse Therefore cries the Prophet in the ears of all the world Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils Isa 2.22 for wherein is he to be accounted of And therefore on the contrary when Israel after her Captivity is put into a thriving posture she is brought in repenting of and disclaiming all her Creature-confidences with the Spouse in the Canticles coming up from the wildernesse of Captivity LEANING UPON HER BELOVED Ashur shall not save us we will not ride upon horses Hos 14.2.3 neither will we say any more to the work of our hands You are our gods she had said so before but she will say so no more for with thee the fatherlesse findeth mercy We break our stays by leaning too hard upon them Seventhly by undervaluing thoughts of a Deliverance or Reformation An ignorant inadvertency of the worth of such a mercy is very distastful unto God Oh Jerusalem Luke 19.42 hadst thou known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace HADST THOU KNOWN the worth HADST THOU KNOWN the necessity God will have a people know what he doth for them God will have a deliverance valued before he perfect it When Garlick and Onions are as good as milk and honey when trading and lands and riches and honours c. be as good as a Reformation and men can take up with these and let Reformation go its own pace and come at leasure if at all Let them wander saith God in the wildernesse till they know what CANAAN IS WORTH Hos 5. ult I will go and return to my place till they seek my face in their affliction they will seek me early This I suppose is that account given why the Reformation in good Jehoshaphat's time was not a thorow-Reformation Though much was done Chro. 20.33 Howbeit the high places were not taken away for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers I come now to the Third Spring-head of Reasons or Causes arising from The Deliverers obstructions in Deliverers ●art For certainly the work of Deliverance and Reformation may stick long upon the hands of them that are to be the Deliverers and Reformers of a people Yea you may observe it sometimes God hath more trouble to speak after the manner of men to deliver a people from their Deliverers then he hath to deliver them from the enemies of their deliverance yea though the work be intrusted in the hands of a Moses and an Aaron God hath enough to do to keep them from spoiling of it a great part of the Deliverance is to deliver a people from their Deliverers before he deliver them by them So little is God beholding to second Causes You shall see it in the Instances or Causes Take in the first place Luthers account There be three things saith Luther that are the bane of Christian Religion Melch. Ad. in vita Luth. p. 151 〈◊〉 Oblivio bene●●ctorum ab E●●angelio acce●●torum 〈◊〉 Deinde secu●itas quae passim ubique regnat and therefore much more of a REFORMATION First Forgetfulnesse of former mercies Secondly for I will put them together Security They were both the sins of as famous a Reformer as ever the Church of God knew Hezekiah's for which the work of Reformation and the whole Kingdom suffer'd deeply I 'll but read you the Text But Hezekiah RENDRED NOT AGAIN ACCORDING TO THE BENEFIT DONE UNTO HIM Chro. 37.25 for his heart was lifted up therefore THERE WAS WRATH upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem Unthankfulnesse and Pride had like to have undone all that he had done Oh when Reformers forget old Mercies and old Deliverances and them it may be that God hath used as Instruments of them and new mercies and successes serve but to make them secure and swell them with pride to overlook their Brethren and overvalue themselves to think themselves no longer Stewards but Lords not onely petty kings but little gods to do what they PLEASE in the work and with the people of God this shakes the very foundation of Church and State God is highly displeased You have a sad instance in Vzziah of whom the holy Ghost records 2 Chro. 26.15 16. He was marvellously helped till he was strong But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went in to the Temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the Altar of Incense Alas how was the man and all the worthy things he had done for Church and State of which you may read from the beginning of the Chapter forward even lost in Pride Vnthankfulnesse and Security Sapientia mundi qua vult omnia redigere in ordinem publicae utilitati impiis consiliis mederi Exod. 32.22 23 24. 1 King 12. from vers 26 to the end of the Chap. Joh. 11.48 Thirdly Carnal policie worldly wisedom which applies fleshly medicines to Spiritual distempers when men will cast the affairs of Christs Kingdom in the moulds and models of humane policie and principles Aaron he will make a GOLDEN CALF to still the people and secure his own life and Jeroboam will make two ordain Offices Feasts Worship which never come into Gods heart to secure the Kingdom to himself though by this very means he lost it The Builders in Christs time would not own Christ for their King and Deliverer for fear of forfeiting their kingdom to the Romanes and thereby ran upon that very mischief they would avoid yea they lost Two Kingdoms while they would secure one So dangerous a thing it is when men will be wiser then God or at least then God would have them HUMANE POLICY before Scripture-precept or Scripture-patern is nothing else but DISLOYALTY it gives God counsel when God looks for obedience Fourth sin Vnprayerfulnes

Church-affairs as you have spent on State-businesses might have done the deed Verse 8. Vp to the mountains fall a building Gods house that lies waste and do it in good earnest if you mean to prosper That is the sum of the Prophets speech And therefore it was the singular wisedom and piety of Hezekiah recorded to his everlasting honour that in the first yeer of his reign 2 Chron. 29.3 4 5. in the first moneth he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them and brought in the Priests c. He made Church-Reformation his first work And so Josiah In the eighth yeer of his reign while he was yet young 2 Chron. 34.3 4 c. he began to seek the Lord and in the twelfth yeer he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places It was a brave Speech of one that was once a Member of Parliament Oh that there had been such a heart S. E. D. For my part let the Sword reach from the North to the South and a general Perdition of all our remaining Right and Safety threaten us in open view it shall be so far from making me to decline the first setling of Religion that I shall ever argue and rather conclude it thus The more great the more eminent our perils of this world are the stronger the quicker ought our care to be for the glory of God and the pure Law of our souls In the Ninth place you shall finde that want of due execution upon Delinquents hath obstructed if not dasht hopeful beginnings in the Churches Deliverance and enlargement Saul spares Agag it was a present stop in the work and had like to have been the after-ruine of the whole seed of the Jews Haman that plotted their Massacre in Babylon Esth 3.1 was an AGAGITE i. e. of the posterity of Agag Out of the Serpents root came a Cookatrice Isa 14.29 and his fruit had like to have been a fiery flying Serpent to have consumed the whole house of Judah And how Ahab sped for sparing Benhadad the story will tell you 1 King 20.42 Ninthly Want of solid and substantial Principles in Reformers hath been not onely sad but fatal in the Churches affairs when her Counsellers have been young unexperienced unprincipled men led rather by fancie then by judgement taken with every new thing that hath a fair and specious face upon it and not able to dive into the bottom and difference of things A company of young giddy-headed fellows that never knew any more of true Policie or Religion then a few Complements in both came to lost Rehoboam a King as wise in taking their counsel as they in giving his Kingdom which makes me think that Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a childe Eccles 10.10 was the Legacie which his father SOLOMON left behinde him by a kinde of Prophetical spirit as well as a Caution to after-ages And when God would plague a people to purpose he says but this I will give children to be their Princes Isai 3.4 and babes shall rule over them In the tenth and last place Irreformednesse in Reformers doth exceedingly trouble and hinder their work when they that should reform a people are Swearers or Drunkards or Vnclean persons or Haters of the power of Godlinesse c. this is an obstruction of a double influence 1. An influence of sin For will a wicked man think ye prepare a yoke for his own neck or a rod for his own back will he be forward and active to settle a Rule to make a Law that he knows will curb and crosse his own lusts No their endeavour shall be some way or other to bring down the Rule to their hearts when they love not to bring up their hearts to the Rule 2. It hath an influence of Divine Justice For will God use such think ye or honour such in his service No saith God Them that honour me Sam. 3. I will honour Shall he reform MY HOUSE that will not reform HIS OWN Shall he reform OTHERS that will not reform HIMSELF No Every one of the House of Israel which setteth up his Idols in his heart and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face Ezek. 14.7 and cometh to enquire concerning me I the Lord will answer him by my self I will answer him according to the multitude of his idols Vers 4. God may use indeed a Cyrus a Darius about his Out-Works but Sanctificabor in appropinquantibus mihi I will be sanctified in all them that draw nigh unto me Levit. 10.3 The Princes and Lords of Israel brought wrath not onely upon themselves but upon the people by their whoredomes Numb 25.1 so far from bringing them into the land of promise that they were a means to slay them in the wildernesse They that accompany the Lamb must be CALLED and CHOSEN Revel 17.14 and FAITHFUL I come to the Fourth and Last Account sc The Reasons taken from the Author of Deliverance God himself For truely in all these things God hath an over-ruling hand it pleaseth God Reasons on Gods part for reasons best known to himself to suffer a Deliverance or Reformation of his own promising or setting on foot to meet with many desperate oppositious and set-backs which do render it many times in the eye of rational conjecture a lost Designe no Deliverance We will glean up some of those accounts which he hath been pleased to let fall in Scripture for our support and satisfaction herein 1. For trial of mens spirits First God doth it for the discovery of mens Spirits for the discovery of them to others for the discovery of them to themselves Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these Fourty yeers in the wildernesse to humble thee Deut. 8.2 and TO PROVE THEE TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN THY HEART c. Oh suffering times are trying times Set an empty pot over the fire and it will break and flee in your face so will men of empty hollow spirits over a fiery trial which is therefore called Gods fire and Gods furnace Isa 31.9 and 48.10 because thorow this fiery furnace God will bring his choice ones to be vessels of honour Oh what a discovering time hath this time of Jacobs troubles been I how many hundreds and thousands of Hypocrites and rotten spirits of all ranks have been discovered that had the work of Reformation go on as we vainly hoped at first it would have done had lien hid to this day I and I am almost confident God hath not done his discovering-work yet Goldsmiths use to run their metal more then once thorow the fire Look to your hearts the furnace is not yet extinguisht 2. To humble his people To Humble his people also God doth this the last quotation told you so beforehand TO HUMBLE THEE and prove thee Proud men are not fit for a Reformation