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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56599	Angliæ speculum a glass that flatters not : presented to a country congregation at the late solemn fast, April 24, 1678, in a parallel between the kingdom of Israel and England, wherein the whole nation is desired to behold and consider our sin and our danger / by a dutiful son of this church.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1678 (1678)	Wing P744; ESTC R33026	21,160	44

wonderful thing that hath been mentioned we are threatned with the danger of losing our Religion than which nothing ought to be dearer to us I should not have presumed to say it if His Majesty had not told us so in his Proclamation for the last general Fast before this Feb. 4. 1673. where we are invited to the same Duty we are now about because the restless practises of the Romish Recusants whose numbers and insolencies His Majesty there declares are lately increased threaten a Subversion both of Church and State So the words are in that Proclamation without whose Authority my small acquaintance with the state of affairs would have forbidden me to frighten you with so dismal a Calamity which all considerate Persons cannot chuse but look upon as the most fearful Plague that hath yet befallen us It puts me in mind of the swarms of Locusts which covered the Face of the Earth and filled the Houses of Pharoah and the Houses of his Servants and the Houses of all the Egyptians Exod. 10.5 6. which immediately preceded the Plague of thick and palpable darkness which overspread the whole Country And it may justly be thought a prodigious thing that we should be so sleepy so stupid or so negligent and indifferent as to suffer those Romish Sorcerers to come so freely to bewitch us again with their Inchantments Are we become so sottish as to believe the Bishop of Rome ought to have any Authority in this Kingdom There are no stripes severe enough for such Fools backs VVhat in this Age of Light and Learning and in this Kingdom where his Instruments have been so often convicted and stigmatized for Cheats and Cozeners Are these Romish Factors come again in a confident and open manner to play their tricks and to put off their pitiful VVares among us as if we were blind Indians that will take their painted Glass and Bugles for some great Jewels and Precious Stones I cannot but say again that this exceeds all wonder It amazes my thoughts and I cannot tell what to call the blindness wherewith we are struck if we let our selves be deceived by them Beloved the Usurpations of the Pope have been so visibly exposed to all Mens view in these later times it hath been so manifestly proved that he hath been the greatest disturber of the Christian VVorld by his incroachments and the Maxims of the Jesuites who are the chief sticklers for him are so apparently horrid and destructive to all Government nay and good Manners and their pretences that the Church of Rome is the sole Catholick Apostolick Church have been proved to be so frivolous or rather ridiculous that our Divines in the Reign of the last King of blessed Memory thought their Pranks to be discovered so plainly to the Eyes of all the People and all their frauds and fooleries so fully detected that they would not venture to appear here again with their Impostures and holy Trumperies but rather go and play their Parts upon the Stages of Japan and Mexico among their new silly Converts and not here in this Kingdom where an Ass is easily known from a Lion I find these very words in an Epistle to the Keeper of the Great Seal in those dayes And yet it seems they are as busie here as ever or rather more active and they brag and vapour we are told in some places as if we were all ready to submit to them by a blind obedience and were but as so many unclean Beasts that will swallow all their Morsels without chewing O God! what Spirit of slumber is this that is fall'n upon us VVhat a Mist have they cast before our Eyes that we cannot discern between things which so vastly differ but are become such tame and easie Fools that they hope it seems to impose upon us that heavy Yoke which our Fathers threw off with so much reason and Christian resolution This looks like a kind of fatal stupidity that we so far follow the old Israelites as to imitate them in their first provocation by entertaining so much as a thought of returning back again into Egypt VVhat shall we assign to be the cause of all these Divine Judgments and that there is so little hope to see any conclusion of them But after all this is come upon us his anger is not yet turned away but his hand is stretched out still and shakes such a Rod over us that all the former are no more to be compared with it than the VVhip of Solomon to the Scorpions wherewith the Israelites were threatned to be chastised by Rehoboam It can be none else but our foul ingratitude to our most gracious God and merciful Father and our bringing forth no better Fruit than that Vine-yard did which his own right hand had Planted We are a sinful Nation a People laden with Iniquity as Isaiah complains of them chap. 1.4 a Seed of evil doers Children that are corrupters who are gone away backward which may justly provoke him to continue our punishments and to send us such strong delusion that we should believe a Lye seeing we received not the truth in the love of it but had pleasure in unrighteousness There are few if any of those sins against every one of which you heard a most terrible VVo denounced that are not to be found among us and if we will not forsake them no not when God hath begun to strike as well as threaten he may in his righteous judgment after all his Plagues on our bodies and goods inflict the greatest of all upon our minds and strike such obstinate Sinners with an incurable blindness V. Now what signs are there that we see of our repentance and turning from those evil wayes in which we have proceeded to such an heighth of provocation what do we do to prevent those judgments which we say we fear VVhat effectual course do we take to avert such an utter destruction as the Israelites brought upon themselves by their continued wickedness You have seen in too many things how little difference there is between us and that People The Lord their God I have shown you cast them into a most excellent Order and admirable Form of Government and Religion in which we have been praised by the Nations round about us Many wonderful deliverances He granted them from those that hated them wherein He hath not been wanting to us neither And all the Bible shows how ungrateful they proved to him as all the VVorld knows and Posterity I believe will be astonished at it how wickedly we have behaved our selves since He hath done the most marvelous things for us And therefore He hath made us you have now heard as like in our punishments as we have made our selves like them in our sins And for any thing yet appears to complete the parallel we are like to imitate them in their impenitence and hardness of Heart notwithstanding all Gods Judgments upon them And so at last to fall under that

ANGLIAE SPECVLVM A GLASS That flatters not Presented to a Country Congregation at the late SOLEMN FAST April 24. 1678. In a PARALLEL between the KINGDOM of ISRAEL and ENGLAND Wherein the whole Nation is desired to behold and consider our SIN and our DANGER By a dutiful Son of this Church LONDON Printed for Richard Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred MAJESTY MDCLXXVIII A GLASS That flatters not Presented in a SERMON At the last Fast ISAIAH v. 25. latter end For all this his anger is not turned away but his Hand is stretched out still WE are assembled here by His Majesties Proclamation to humble our selves before Almighty God for the manifold sins and provocations of this Kingdom to beg his blessing upon it and to beseech him to avert his deserved Judgments from it In Order to which you have heard now read in the first Lesson for Morning Prayer this Day another Proclamation from God himself the King of Kings directed particularly unto us his Ministers by the Mouth of his Prophet Isaiah 58.1 saying Cry aloud spare not lift up thy Voice like a Trumpet and show my People their Transgression and the House of Jacob their Sins For we cannot be humbled for our Sins unless we know them and unless we be sensible also how heynous they are and how displeasing to our Heavenly Father who hath already testified many ways how much He is offended with us Now the best way to understand this will be to consider what Sins they were which heretofore were most provoking to Him and destructive to others causing Him to cast off even the whole House of Israel and Judah his own peculiar People whom He had separated to Himself from all Nations upon the Face of the Earth Whose Condition is so like to that of ours here in England that he is a Man of little observation and of slow conception who is not able to draw the resemblance If I should endeavour to express to the life how God dealt with them and how they requited Him and again how He corrected them for their Ingratitude you would say This is England under other names or Here is Israel again revived The same things are acted over again in the World only the Scene is changed and new Persons are come upon the Stage I know no better way to affect your Hearts and to make you both understand my Text and the dangerous condition wherein we are than by presenting you with some few touches at least of a Parallel between them and us I. First then if we consider the Singular Priviledges they enjoyed above other Nations the Excellent Laws which God gave them and the true Religion which was established and for a time flourished among them you may easily find something to match them here in England Which is a Country that other People have admir'd more than our selves for the Excellent Frame of our Government for the Liberty of its Inhabitants and especially for the Enjoyment of the Blessed Gospel of Christ in great Purity Cleerness and Splendor which hath continued many Years II. And if we consider Secondly what strange deliverances God vouchsafed that People whom He had made so near to himself and those both upon the Sea and upon the Land we are not without some resemblance to them upon that account having been a People very often saved by the Lord who hath marvellously preserved us when we were in great danger of being swallowed up by several Enemies of our Peace and Happiness They have been wonderfully defeated in their open Hostilities and no less miraculously disappointed in their Secret Plots and Conspiracies Witness in the Days of our Fathers the Spanish Invasion and the Gun-powder Treason which can scarce be parallel'd in any Story and the strange Restauration of his present Majesty to the astonishment and confusion of his sworn insolent Enemies of which our own Eyes have been the Witnesses And it were well for us if we could stop here and be able to carry on this Parallel no further if we could only recount the great Favours and Kindnesses of God to us and admire at his unexpected Salvation which He sent us when of our selves we were utterly helpless But alas We must confess also in the third place III. That as their Ingratitude to God was exceeding great and their Rebellion most shameful against him who had been kind above measure to them So we have equalled if not exceeded them in this being a Nation prodigiously forgetful of his benefits and that soon let his wonderful works slip quite out of our minds As it was said of them Psal cvi 7. that they provoked God at the Sea even at the Red-Sea That is immediately after God had vouchsafed an extraordinary deliverance to them from a very fierce Tyrant they made no other use of it but to take the Confidence to affront his Goodness So may it be truly said of us At the Restauration of the King and Kingdom even at the Restauration of the King and Kingdom we provoked him to Anger against us Instantly I mean after He had rescued us from a miserable forlorn and confused condition from the power of Usurpers as insolent as Pharoah and had restored us to Peace and Settlement we betook our selves to our old or worse Wickedness revolting most perfidiously from all the Vows we were apt to make in the time of our trouble and behaving our selves so basely and disingenuously towards Him that it is a wonder he hath indured us thus long or that we dare take the confidence to appear before him and to expect any further favour from Him The Description which the Prophet gives in the beginning of this Chapter of the happy Estate of the Jews by the Divine Favour to them is exceeding beautiful and He no less lively sets forth their Horrid Ingratitude to their Soveraign Benefactor Read the first and second Verses with this brief Exposition of them and you will scarce be able to refrain from thinking with your selves though I should make no comparison how like are we to them in every particular He compares them to a Vineyard in a very fruitful Hill which every one easily conceives is a representation of the prosperous estate of the Jews in an exceeding rich Country abounding with all delightful things This Vineyard He fenced or hedged in by the Law say the Jews whereby He severed them from all other Nations or by his special Providence which was their Guard and Defence securing them from all invasions while they observed his Law And He gathered out the Stones thereof as Men you know are wont to do when they have a very choice peice of Ground that is cast the Gods of Stone and all their Worshippers out of the Land of Canaan as He did the Romish Superstition out of this Kingdom And He planted it with the choicest Vine Joshua and the Judges that is and a number of holy and gallant Men came and took root in that

to succeed it as you may see if you look forward into the Ninth Chapter of this Prophecy V. 11 12. where the same sad words are repeated again upon this Occasion They were so vain as to imagine themselves secure notwithstanding all their Sins from the Power of the Syrians by the Assistance of Tiglath Pelesar the King of Assur who was their Ally and an Enemy to Rezin King of Syria But even these Allies and Confederates in whom they confided at the last turned against them They from whom they expected Succour and Deliverance proved their greatest Adversaries And so the Syrians before and the Philistines behind who always watched Occasions to fall upon the Israelites when they were in distress made a prey of them and devoured them with open mouth and yet for all this his Anger was not turned away but his hand was stretched out still He had not yet done with them because as it follows V. 13. The People turned not unto Him that smote them neither did they seek the Lord of Hosts They never heartily acknowledged their faults nor went about to amend them And therefore He proceeded to punish all the Senators and the Prophets and the leaders of the People together with their young and valiant Men nay the Fatherless and Widows and all because every one was an Hypocrite and an Evil-doer and every Mouth spoke Villany as you may read V. 14 15 16 27. and yet for all this his Anger was not turned away but his Hand stretched out still How should it be expected that He should withdraw his Vengeance when they ceased not to provoke him For as it there follows Wickedness burneth like Fire V. 18. and so through the Wrath of the Lord of Hosts the Land was darkened V. 19. Which seems to have been in the Days of Senacherib King of Assyria when Manasseh was against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh that is some of the Kingdom of Israel joyned with the Enemy and others opposed them they could not agree among themselves but continued their Divisions till all the ten Tribes were subdued and then they were all together joyned against Judah V. 21. And yet for all this his Anger was not turned away but his Hand stretched out still Were not Moses his words strangely fulfilled that their Plagues should be great and of long continuance The Reason was their Sins continued the very same Sins for which they had thus smarted as you read Ch. 10.1 2 3. So that after a New Visitation and a Desolation which came from far V. 4. his Anger was not turned away it is repeated there once more but his Hand was stretched out still The truth is it was stretched out so long against them that they were brought to nothing Jerusalem it self that Impregnable Fortress was laid in Ashes and came down wonderfully as Jeremiahs words are in his Lamentations 1.9 Which sound to me as if he would have us understand that not one tittle of Moses his Prophecy failed who said that their Plagues should be wonderful And what difference I beseech you is there to be found between us and them as their case stood in the Days of this Prophet Isaiah His words and those of Moses are verified again in this Kingdom which hath lain under Plagues great Plagues and of long continuance We that in former Days were the Admiration if not the Envy of our Neighbours for the Happiness we enjoyed became not long ago an Astonishment a Proverb and a By-word by reason of the many very many and sore Calamities which fell upon us Who hath forgotten the bloody and tedious VVar wherein we were embroiled when the Land trembled and our Carcases were torn in the Streets How dreadful is the remembrance of the slaughter of such multitudes of brave men by the Hand of their Neighbours the dethroning nay beheading of the best of Kings the extirpation of Monarchy the abolishing of the Apostolical Episcopacy the defacing of Holy Places with all the rest of the Miserable Desolations which were wrought by our own foolish hands And yet for all this his Anger it is apparent was not turned away but his hand was stretched out still For after His Majesties most happy Restauration how soon were two Branches of the Royal Family lopped off What Floods were there in most parts of the Realm by immoderate Rains which threatned a general scarcity of provisions and were a kind of presage of the deluge of calamities which were coming to sweep us away It was the year after His Majesties return to his Kingdom and there was a general Fast I very well remember appointed meerly for that reason And yet his anger was not turned away but his hand was stretched out still For not long after we were engaged in a new War and that was accompanied with the greatest Pestilence that hath been known in this Nation And yet for all this his anger was not turned away but his hand was stretched out still For the next year followed a most dreadful Fire which consumed the Houses as the former Judgment had done the Inhabitants of our Capital City And yet for all this his anger was not turned away but his hand was stretched out still For not long after part of the Royal Navy the Walls and Bullwarks of this Kingdom were burnt in an ignominious and disgraceful manner And yet for all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still Our Plagues are of longer continuance another War being commenced attended with a great number of ill successes as if the Lord should say I have not yet done with you though all this evil be come upon you Why what can be worse than all this when we may say with the Prophet concerning his People Isa 1.6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in the body of this Realm but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores they have not been closed neither bound up nor mollified with Oyntment It is a great mistake to interpret this as Men commonly do concerning their sins it is plain by what goes before and follows after that he describes the grievousness of their punishments which were so many and so great that the body of the Kingdom was just like the body of a Man who hath been beaten so long that you cannot find one part whole where there is not a bruise or a wound or a putrifying sore and those strokes so continued that there was no time to close one wound before another was made What a mortifying Spectacle is this That is in what a lamentable condition is this poor Nation whose very Picture this seems to be what can we expect but a total dissolution of a body so wounded and putrified for which we can find yet no Plaister no healing what can we expect but that we should fall wonderfully as Jeremiah speaks our Plagues having been so wonderful For now at last which seems to me the most