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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	king_n	year_n	3,100	5	4.5726	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85505	Things now-a-doing: or, The chvrches travaile of the child of reformation now-a-bearing. In a sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons, at their solemne fast, Iuly 31. 1644. By Stanley Gower, sometimes Rector of Brompton-Brian in the County of Hereford, now Preacher of Gods Word at Martins Ludgate, London: and one of the Reverend Assembly of Divines. Published by order of the said House.	Gower, Stanley.	1644 (1644)	Wing G1462; Thomason E3_25; ESTC R2879	23,719	43

all times being the words of the Holy Ghost but also seasonable for so they are at this time they are our very Crisis 1. The Times alike purifying whitening trying times 2. The Persons alike some wicked some wise 3. The Properties alike they act accordingly none of the wicked understand but the wise doe understand So that I may say of my text as our Saviour Christ did of his taken out of another Prophet This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your eares We reade that the same day that the Lord thundred and rained the people greatly feared the Lord This day God thunders many wayes and in my text he also lightens God grant the effect may be answerable So much for the Time Scope I come now to the text Many shall be purified c. It is propheticall and in such we consider The Credit of the Prophet Prophesie it selfe The Credit of the Prophet is not only this that he was an excellent man as we have shewed but that he was also the Holy Ghosts pen-man Wicked Porphyry enemy to Christian Religion makes him little better than an impostor and affirmes this booke was an History writ by some prophetick-wise that lived in or after the dayes of Antiochus Epiphanes but the Septrogint have translated this booke into Greeke 100. yeares before that Antiochus and Iosephus tells how Iaddus an high-Priest shewed Alexander the Great that Prophesie in this booke which fore-told of a King of Graecia that should destroy the Persian Monarchy in confidence whereof Alexander proceeded to that warre and this was at least 60. yeares before Antiochus as Chronologers compute Some Robbins dreame that the booke was writ by the wisemen of the great Synagogue who were in the time of Ezra but how came it then that Daniel is so oft named in the booke and that the Title of the booke in Hebrew is The booke of Daniel But both the one and the other are confuted by our Saviour Christ which determines it both to Daniel and that he was a Prophet and bids us by the way when we reade consider the words of Daniel the Prophet in the verse next following my text And therefore this booke is not to be placed amongst those Scriptures which they call Holy writings but amongst those they call Prophets The Prophesie it selfe of these words is you see of great siding and each side acting accordingly something before the time of the Iewes conversion In which consider two different Subjects Wicked Wise Predicates Different in Effects Many shall be purified made white tried but the wicked shall doe wickedly Degree None of the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand Now if the least filing of gold is pretious then of Truth yet shall I but name some severals and insist only according to my time and your patience upon one Proposition I might observe then 1. Godly men are wise and wicked men are soules This appeares from the opposition of subjects Wicked Wise It should be either Wicked Godly or Foolish Wise By rendring therefore as opposite to wicked wise it shewes that wicked are not wise and by tearming those that are not wicked wise it imports that the wise are not the wicked but the godly indeed the word used for wise is applied to godly Teachers ver 2. but when it is opposed as here to wicked it signifieth not teachers only but others too Receive it therefore for a divine maxime I pray you That piety is the best pollicie and godly men are in the Holy Ghosts judgement the wisest men 2. There are many godly wise If many shall be purifide made white and tryed then God be thanked and the Lord encrease the number of them there are many such and not only many but many great men too the word in the Originall signifies both many and great many in number and great in condition as when it is said Many are the troubles of the righteous that is to say many in number great in nature It is indeed rare to have great men good a little goodnesse stands for a great summe amongst great men but yet it is no singular thing there are many such be not ashamed therefore you that are great to be and to be thought to be godly 3. Best may mend and shall be mended They shall be purifide made white and tried that their drosse may be purged The Lord hath his ●laile to thresh out their chaffe his water and sope to make them white and his fire to melt and try them and therfore they are proud not perfect that think they have sound an Hercules pillar to write a ne plus ultra upon 4. Wicked men doe and shall doe wickedly 5. The reason why they doe so is because none of the wicked shall understand 6. The godly wise shall understand when none of the wicked shall Now none of these severals I can insist upon what of them my time and your patience will permit me to speake of I shall graspe in this one Proposition that containes the summe of the verse That the same times and troubles in them which make godly wise men better make wicked men worse And I will not speake so much of Times which comes in more properly in the verse following as of troubles in those times these are hinted in the words purified made white and tried My method for the doctrinall part shall be to shew 1. What tribulations they are by which God doth purifie make white and try his people 2. How they are by these purified made white and tried 3. What is the reason that they have such different effects upon the godly and the wicked For the first They are not all of one sort nor size Here there are three sorts lighter sprincklings in allusion to Iewish purifyings heavier rubbings in allusion to Iewish cleansings and sharpest trials in allusion to Iewish trials The Apostle else-where reduceth them to two Inward fightings outward feares but it matters not so much what they are as whereto they serve for they are but a meanes to an end their bettering and therefore as we say of meanes so much as will serve so doth the Lord proportion the tribulation to the good of his people so much and no more as will serve to purifie m●ke white ●●● try them For the second I will shew you how the Lord by these doth 1. Purifie 2. Make White 3. Try them The Iews had their purification so have Christians There is Christs Blood Heb. 9. 14. Word Ioh. 15. 3. Spirit Mat. 3. But I am no● speaking of these which doe directly and properly tend thereto but of afflictions which by accident serve to that end as you may see Isa. 4. 4. By these now Gods people are purified 2. wayes First From sin committed both originall sin and actuall For originall Solomon tells us Folly is

Lord spake concerning Eli when he begins he will also make an end Thus craving your pardon and which is more your acceptance as you have my faith so shall you have my prayers that what Caesar once said of Rome He found it brick but left it marble may much more Honourably be said of you you found our Church and State Atheisticall Prelaticall you leave the beames of our house Cedar and our galleries firre famous for durablenesse acceptable for sweetnesse by laying in the walls of the Church such solid and eternall truths of God as may hold out instead of Socinianisme Arminianisme and many moe and by setting up such Worship and Discipline and Governement as may keepe off wind and weather that Gods people may walke hand in hand together as in galleries of firre Your Honours both at the throne of grace and in the worke of Christ STANLEY GOWER Things Now-a-doing DAN. 12. 10. Many shall be purified and made white and tried but the wicked shall doe wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand YOu heard in the morning Right Honourable and the rest dearely beloved in the Lord Jesus God by Ieremy counselling to amend your wayes and your doings Heare now God promising by Daniel that many shall be amended and this promise illustrated by the contrary but the wicked shall doe wickedly be as attentive I beseech you to God promising as unto God perswading These words stand in the nature of a Parenthesis the verses before and after cohere well enough without them the former as Daniels question v. 8. what shall be the end of these things the latter as the Angels answer thereunto v. 11. From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the abomination that maketh desolate set up there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety dayes My text comes in betweene as a propheticall prognostick of that time Daniel would so faine know ver. 8. and the Angel somewhat obscurely calculates ver. 11. Some copies insert the word Interim and reade Complures interim meane time many c. which show the verse to be dependent and indeed we must consider a little the time and scope ere we can bring home the prophecie and I shall give you both very briefely The Time fore-told is the call of the Iewes thy people sayes ver. 1. for Daniel was a Iew not second son to David by Abigail of whom you reade long before but a Prophet of the Princely tribe of Iudah and if we may credit Iosephus of the blood Royall also He is elsewhere spoken of as a very excellent man but we must here looke upon him as withall pen-man of the Holy Ghost and that of a very choice peece the Iewish story Solomon beloved of God called therefore Iedidia● son of David King of Israel writes the Churches Epithalamia and Love-songs S. Iohn the blessed Evangelist beloved Disciple and amongst the 12. Apostles paralell to Ioseph amongst the 12. Patriarchs as Evangelist writes his Gospell as Apostle his Epistles and as Prophet his Revelation to the Churches And this our Daniel eminent with men whose wisedome grew into a proverbe Thou art wiser then Daniel powerfull for men and greatly beloved of God writes the history of the Iewish Church then the only people of God and as yet beloved for their fathers sa●e in the six first Chapters and their prophesie in the six latter Chapters as some have made the distribution of this Booke or as others their troubles under the foure great Monarchies to this twelfth Chapter and their deliverance under the fifth perpetuall Monarchy which the stone cut out without hands shall set up as Christ is called in this booke in this twelfth Chapter King Solomon admires the rise of the Gentile Church in his song and admires after that the rise of another Church which he calls a Shulamite alluding to Shalom the ancient name of Ierusalem the mother City of the Iewes looking forth as the morning because that Church shall rise out of the Easterne Countries that her nut should be crackt the shell which was over her kernell the veile which was over her heart should be taken away and that she should be as a flourishing Vine and budding Pomgranate bringing forth wholesome fruit to refresh God and man is matter of admiration and no lesse indeed than a resurrection from the dead to which it is resembled in this Chapter and elsewhere S. Paul would not have us ignorant of this mistery That we might not be so we have a two-fold assurance of it in this booke One by dreame of Nebuchadnezzar as we see at large in the second Chapter The other by vision of Daniel himselfe in the seventh Chapter of both which I may say as Ioseph of Pharaohs two dreames It is doubled twi●e because the thing is established by God and God will shortly bring it to passe How soone let him that hath understanding count from the verse following where there are two 〈…〉 s 1. From the taking away of the daily sacrifices that was when Ierusalem was destroyed the place of sacrificing 2. From the setting up of the abomination of desolation which is supposed by good Authours to be in the dayes of Iulian the Apostate ●360 yeares after Christ or thereabouts Cyrill of Ierusalem observing how they had taken up every stone of the old foundation and were dispersed ere they layed a new one as they had thought said the words of our Saviour There shall not be left a stone upon a stone was then fulfilled and if so then the time comes out in the yeare 1650. as appeares to any that shall adde 1290. to 360. Then shall the Turkish power be broken also as appeares from another account ver. 7. and then shall Hallelujahs ring for the marriage of the bride the Lambs wife and before these things come to passe Rome shall be destroyed whose last scene is now acting and her ruine at hand and the things that shall come upon her make hast This is the Time and it is a desireable Time The scope now of Daniel in this Chapter is to comfort the hearts of Gods people against the troubles and trials of that time by giving them two prognosticks of this great deliverance viz. The Troubles ver. 1. of that Time The Trials ver. 10. of that Time The Troubles of that time shall be such as never was since there was a Nation even to that same time c. The Trials of that time shall be such as makes godly men better wicked men worse For so saith my text Many shall be purified made white tried but the wicked shall doe wickedly c. And now Right Honourable if a word fitly spoken be as apples of gold with pictures of silver then these words begg your acceptance as being not only profitable for so they are at