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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

the hint intimated before Because the people of God take their eye off God and the promise and fix it upon Second causes Why the people of God reason thus unbelievingly in their straits Isa 33.10 Isa 15.17 because they do not wisely consider Gods times how that the Churches despairing times are Gods helping times Now will I rise c. They do not wisely ponder Gods methods Moses might have remembred how that God when he made Abraham a promise of bringing his seed out of Egypt he shewed him also as in a glasse the Methods he would use in doing of it in that Embleme of the smoking furnace Gen. 15.7 and the burning Lamp the smoking furnace passeth before Abraham first an Embleme of black opposition of sad and affrighting discouragement and trouble and then comes the burning Lamp an Embleme of JOYFUL AND GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE Psal 97.11 Light is sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart Alas Moses might have thought with himself and have said to God Lord this opposition of Pharaoh this doubling of thy peoples bondage is nothing else but the vision thou shewedst to thy servant ABRAHAM whereby we know assuredly the WORK IS BEGUN it is the arrow of the Lords deliverance we are now Lord in the SMOKING FURNACE the BURNING LAMP WILL APPEAR SHORTLY O hasten it Lord and help thine Israel well thorow this Smoking furnace that they may not be weary nor faint in their mindes nor sin against thee by IMPATIENCE and UNBELIEF till thou pleasest to cause the BURNING LAMP TO ARISE upon us c. And with these words he might have quieted and still'd the people also But the people of God have their failings and faintings their short spiritednesse and short sightednesse they look not to the time and methods of God they eye not the ends and aims which God hath in these kinde of dispensations of his providence and hence it is that they give way to Vnbelief and misgiving thoughts And therefore since by this short hint you see what the bottom of the disease is labour to make a Cure of this Discovery Take heed of hard thoughts of God Second Use Examination And yet in the Second place though in such Exigencies and Emergencies as these be we should labour to keep up good thoughts of the Cause 1 King 8.47 and good thoughts of God yet there is great reason that we should at such times turn in upon our selves and bring back to heart our own ways and our own doings to see what the CAUSE may be on our parts why Gospel-designes Church-deliverances stick so long in the birth meet with such desperate retardings and retrograde motions for this is certain Deliverance seldom sticks in the birth but there is some sin and folly at the bottom Ephraim is an unwise son Hos 13 13. for he should not stay long in the place of bringing forth children A metaphorical expression importing thus much that he should not have stayed so long for his deliverance out of Babylon had there not been some great folly bound up in his heart Prov. 22.15 which was to be fetcht out with this rod of Correction Truely Honourable and Beloved Christians we had need then to lay our hand upon our heart and bring our selves to the Bar this day This is certain God is angry wrath is gone forth against us we have great cause to fear Object You will surely say What cause the War goes on prosperously never had Joshua better swifter successe in the conquering of Canaan then our Armies in all places of the Kingdom almost have had in reducing this almost-lost nation Eighty admirable successes in eight months We have had as much successe as we could desire more by oddes then we could expect The War is as good as finisht Answ It is true Brethren if you will look upon these progresses as Mercies we have great cause to be thankful but if we would look upon them as evidences I see not any strong argument of rejoycing in them I see not any bottom in them upon which a man if he will look with both his eyes can build any clear conjecture what God will yet do with us My Reason is this The War goes on I but does the Work go on Oh there is as sad a face of things in the Kingdom as ever was either since the War or since the Parliament began and sadder in as much as now the obstructions do arise from our selves whereas formerly they have risen from our enemies And O happie Israel it was when the obstruction of their deliverance lay on Pharaoh's hand onely it stuck but a few days there God quickly conquered those briars and thorns he went thorow them and burnt them together But when the obstruction lay upon Israel's part in those days God began to cut Israel short the Deliverance stuck there many yeers Quest. But how may we know whether the work rest on our part or on Gods and the enemies Answ Truely very easily Take this Rule When there be but difficulties in the way though huge and many Enemies may be in it and God over-ruling those enemies and their designes to his own ends For this cause I have raised thee up Exod. 9.16 to shew my power c. But when we see sin in the way then know the work sticks upon a peoples hands and this may make us tremble Truely as I say when we consider how God carries on his work it looks as if it would be a Deliverance God works as if he were in good earnest and we have cause to turn our days of mourning into days of rejoycing But when we consider how we work truely it looks as if we were in jest or as if we we afraid of Deliverance afraid of Reformation and we have cause to turn days of Thanksgiving into days of Humiliation and mourning For thus it is while God is working wildernesse-wonders we are working wildernesse-sins wildernesse-prevocations I appeal else to the List and Catalogue of those sins which on the Delivereds part you have seen to be the great obstructions and set-backs to their Deliverance Sins of England First Pride doth not the Pride of England testifie to our very faces Alas neither Judgements nor days of humiliation have taken down the pride of our hearts Oh the pride of Apparel the pride of Houses the pride of our Tables but above all the pride of Judgement and the pride of Heart that is found in the midst of us to this day England is very proud Again Vnbelief Heb. 3.12 Is there not yet an unbelieving heart in the midst of us causing us to depart from the living God to depart from his Truths and to depart from his Commands and to depart from his Promises Surely we have not faith enough left to carry us from one miracle to another Though God hath caused us to walk upon the waters yet if there do but arise one

Fourthly Vnprayerfulnesse in Reformers and Deliverers is a great Obstruction and Set-back to their work when relying upon the goodnesse of their Cause they withdraw prayer and leave all to God It is Master Calvins observation upon Psal 17. vers 1. Hear the right O Lord attend unto my cry Psal 71.1 give EAR UNTO MY prayer Though David was sure he was in the Right yet he goes to God by prayer to own both it and him Hear attend give ear Saepe contingit prophanos quoque homines jure gloriari de bona cousa quia tamen non agroscunt mundum divinitus gubernari subsidunt in conscientiae suae theatro a● fraenum rodentes contumaciter magis quam constanter ferunt injurias quia ex fide invocatione Dei nullam perunt consolationem At fideles non tantum nitumur causae suae bonitate c. Calv. in Psal 17.1 Judg. 20. he prays and multiplies prayer He prays and Jacob like wrestles with God in prayer so the repetition of the words implies Calvin I say observes that the children of God do not trust meerly to the goodnesse of their Cause but make their continual addresses to God by prayer for his counsel and patronage in the managing of it The neglect hereof was the miscarriage of Two famous Battels wherein God himself sent the children of Israel to do execution upon their Brethren the children of Benjamin who refused to give up their Delinquents to the hand of Justice in the first whereof they lost Two and twenty thousand in the second Eighteen thousand men and all because they went out to the work full of carnal confidence trusting to the goodnesse of their Cause their Commission in their hand with the broad Seal of heaven to it but did not go forth with that fear and trembling with that humiliation and seeking of God by prayer as became a Service of that nature and importance You may know what the cause of their miscarriage was by their Recovery for when in the 26 verse you finde them going up to the House of the Lord with FASTING and WEEPING and SUPPLICATIONS c. then they go forth and prosper Oh God takes it very ill when men think they can do their work alone without God and leaves them to encounter with desperate difficulties and opposition to convince them of their follie while he may justly say unto them Nay if you have done praying I have done helping A Fifth Cause of miscarriage or obstruction 5. Self-ends on the Deliverers part is When they are acted by personal interests self-ends when they seek their own not the things of Jesus Christ as the Apostle complains Phil. 2.21 Oh when the enemies of the Churches Peace and Reformation can spie such tempers and dispositions among the Heads of the Tribes they will be sure to be tampering with and operating upon them ply them with sutable and powerful temtations Dan. 11.32 Just the Kings plot KING ANTIOCHUS Such as deal treacherously against the Covenant he shall corrupt by flatteries Observe mens tempers and boyl up your temptation to the height spice it well with rich and sparkling ingredients an hundred to one but it will take promise Offices Honours Estates Pleasures you may easily make your party strong they shall warp cool grow flat be no more like the men they were then if they were not the same Others that will not serve the designe let them be discountenanc'd cross'd obscur'd unlesse they be men of high principles and ponderous spirits in time they will be discouraged and if they do not come up to act with you they will have no great stomack to act against you they will sit still and let things work as they may I do not know I Cease ye indeed from man c. Aaron himself hath a spice of this disease He and his sister the Prophetesse speak against Moses Num. 12. Num. 12.1 Why what is the matter the Ethiopian woman is laid in his dish I but that was but the pretence there lay somewhat else at the bottom Self was at the bottom Moses his GLORY obscured theirs he had more respect then came to his share they are no-body now Hath the Lord indeed onely spoken by Moses Vers 2. and hath he not also spoken by us This breeds ill blood they care not for stirring any further in the work if Moses must have all the honour let him do all the work What an Obstruction was this like to prove I Ah Lord what influence self-ends and interests may have upon the very godly to publike prejudice if they do not narrowly watch their own hearts I Oh it is extremely sad and ominous when men come once to drive private Designes in stead of a Reformation 6. Over-credulity Sixthly not lesse mischief may come to Publike designes by Over-credulity in them that manage them to the fair and specious Overtures of Accommodations and Peace made by the Enemies It cost his Excellencie dear Gedaliah the General of the Jews Forces and I know not how many hundreds or thousands of Jews and men of War lost their lives by his too easie belief of PRINCE ISHMAEL'S FLATTERIES Jer. 41.14 15 16. with Chap. 42.1 2 3 though he were sufficiently caution'd of his bloody intentions And so it had fared with them at their return from Babylon the Adversaries of Judah pretend to build but intend to slay an Accommodation at the top Ezra 4.1 2 but a Massacre at the bottom Nehem. 4.11 and it had taken as sure as can be had not God given Zerubbabel and Jehoshuah a singular spirit of providence and discerning Oh the mischiefs that have redounded to the Church and her Reformation by unwary Treaties all the Massacres and bloody treacheries which you read of in Ecclesiastical histories almost Dan. 11.25 have been ushered in by Treaties witnesse king Antiochus KING CHARLES the ninth of France that bloody Massacre of above Sixty thousand Protestants was nothing but a covered dish served in under the pretence of Peace and Marriage confirm'd by Oaths and Sacraments The Church never got by Treaties how should she since not love of Peace but want of Power brings the enemy to Articles which he will keep no longer then he wants opportunity and advantage to break them 7. Preposterous methods Seventhly Preposterous methods have been mighty Set-backs to Reformation when Reformers begin at the wrong end As long as they cried Hagg. 1.2 4. The time is not come the time that the Lords House should be built is not yet come and began with their own houses the work stuck they made no earnings of it they put their wages into a broken bag Vers 6. you cry saith the Prophet It is not time it is not time the truth is saith he if you had not wanted hearts more then time the work had been done before now half so much time and cost on Gods house as on your own on the