Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	faith_n	godliness_n	temperance_n	4,434	5	11.5825	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91806	A sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Honorable Anne, Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery who died March 22, 1675/6, and was interred April the 14th following at Appleby in Westmorland : with some remarks on the life of that eminent lady / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Edward, Lord Bishop of Carlile.	Rainbowe, Edward, 1608-1684.	1677 (1677)	Wing R142; ESTC R11144	35,773	69

She did not always consider what was great or what might by value make the present worth acceptation or how it suited to the condition of the Person but what as her pleasant fancy suggested might make her memorable to the person who was to receive it Now for the Building or Repairing or Adorning all these kinds of Houses of which I have spoken the Material and Houses literally taken or her Houshold her Family of Children Servants Allyes and the rest she had a Providence and Fore-cast with her self and also an After-cast as you may call it and casting up her expence and consulting with her Officers She well understood and followed the advice of our Wise King Prov. 24. 27. Prepare thy work without and make it fit for thy self in the Field and afterward build thine house That is be sure you have Materials in readiness for Building Now the most material thing to be prepared and in readiness is that which provides all materials in every kind that is in plain English Money which the same Wise man tells in another place Money answereth all things all things useful to be prepared claim it crave it call for it and if it be present it answers them all with satisfaction Before she began to build a Tower to build in any kind she first sat down and counted the cost as our Saviour intimates wise Builders will do she kept exact accounts weekly in Books of her own Method and the Totals were duely signed with her own hand This way of strictness indeed hath been slighted in this looser Age as an impertinent piece of Providence in persons of great Birth and Estate but yet the total neglect of it hath not onely frustrated the designs of many who had laid good Foundations for Building and could get no higher but hath let fall many well-built Houses for want of Means to hold them up and indeed hath been the occasion of ruin to many Noble Houses and Families while making no reckoning of what they did or might spend have brought themselves or their Successors to an easie and even reckoning to have nothing left in remainder or nothing proportionable to support and hold up the Honour of those Families and Houses which their Progenitors erected This was wisely fore-seen and prevented by this Noble Person by which means she was able to hold up and inlarge her Houses and so left them and her Patrimony intire to her Posterity which otherwise might have been wholly wasted and dilapidated But yet we have not taken any view of the Chief of her Houses the immaterial inward House of her Soul so termed by Hugo so by Bede the former speaks of building the Moral Fabrick by Virtue the other the Spiritual House by Grace And here I must seriously profess my self to have been perplexed in my thoughts where to begin and how to make an end and in what Method to proceed If I should say was well furnish'd with materials of every kind to build up this House of her Soul that is with all Virtues belonging to her Sex and Condition if I should say these Virtues were perfected with Divine Graces I believe I should have plenty of Witnesses who now hear me Virtues Intellectual Moral Theological they were conspicuous in her Sayings in her Doings in her Conversation and the manner of her Life As to her Self in great Humility Modesty Temperance and Sobriety of Mind as to the World in Justice Courtesie and Beneficence and to God in Acts of Piety Devotion and Religion These have so flowed so crowded together into my Meditations that as they brake into my thoughts tumultuously as it were and without Order so I must crave your pardon and leave if I shall take them up as they came and speak of some few of them without that exactness of Order which might be thought requisite To have attain'd to the Title in the Text to have been Wise might as I have intimated before comprehend all Intellectual nay indeed all Moral Virtues and Divine Graces Whoso is truly Wise hath all these in some measure or must use all diligence to have them he must add to faith 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7. virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly-kindness and to brotherly-kindness charity He that will build for Heaven or as St. Peter there speaks be partaker of the divine nature or as our Saviour expresseth it would take the Kingdom Mat. 11. 12. of Heaven by violence he must addere Pelion Ossae accumulate add all those Virtues one to another He that will build his hopes in Heaven must be provided of all these materials reckon'd up by St. Peter and when he hath cleared the ground from Bryers and Thorns purged out Lust got clear from the Corruptions which is in the World through Lust he must lay the Foundation of Faith and then must add Virtue Knowledge Temperance Patience c. all kinds of Virtue and Grace I might first tell what advantages she had for intellectual Virtues even from Nature it self which had endowed her Soul with such excellent Abilities as made her ready to build up her self in the knowledg of all things decent and praise-worthy in her Sex She had great sharpness of Wit a faithful Memory and deep Judgment so that by the help of these much Reading and Conversation with Persons eminent for Learning she had early gain'd a knowledg as of the best things so an ability to discourse in all Commendable Arts and Sciences as well as in those things which belong to Persons of her Birth and Sex to know She could discourse with Virtuoso's Travellers Scholars Merchants Divines States-men and with Good Houswives in any kind Insomuch that a Prime and Elegant Wit well seen in all humane Dr. Donne Learning and afterwards devoted to the study of Divinity by the encouragement and command of a Learned King and a rare Proficient in it is reported to have said of this Lady in her younger years to this effect That she knew well how to discourse of all things from Predestination to Slea-silk Meaning that although she was skilful in Houswifry and in such things in which Women are conversant yet her penetrating Wit soar'd up to pry into the highest Mysteries looking at the highest example of Female Wisdom Prov. last Although she knew Wool and Flax fine Linnen and Silk things appertaining to the Spindle and the Distaff yet ver 26. she could open her Mouth with Wisdom knowledge of the best and highest things and if this had not been most affected by her Solid Wisdom knowledg of the best things such as make wise unto salvation if she had sought Fame rather than Wisdom possibly she might be ranked among those Wits and Learned of that Sex of whom Pythagoras or Plutarch or any of the Antients have made such mention But she affected rather to study with those Noble Bereans Acts 17.

and keeping them to Religious Orders and Observances such were her Rules for more than three and twenty years for so long these twelve Sisters and a Mother had been her Eleemosynaries after her own hands had laid the foundation of the House and led the whole number at first into it and placed them in their several Rooms I have hitherto spoken of her bulding by her Virtues but I am not yet come to her main Building her Temple that is her Religion and the Worship of God at which she daily wrought serving of God night and day framing fitly both the outward Porches and the Body of it composing her Body and Soul to constant and reverent Addresses to God and by inward Acts of Piety and Grace ceased not until she had finished the Sanctum Sanctorum in her Soul had as to some good degree perfected holiness in the fear of God I have mentioned before her outward building or repairing the Houses of God a good sign of inward Devotion that she affected not a cheap Religion was not willing it should cost her nought she thought it not decent to repair her own Houses and let God's House lye waste But it is her inward building of her Spiritual House which we now speak of her Faith Patience Mortification Devotion and Holiness of Life For her Religion and professing of the true Faith she did boldly upon all occasions acknowledge what it was but especially upon one remarkable occasion and it was this About the same time when the Sword-men usurped Dominion over the Persons and Estates of all the Loyal in the Land they permitted their Spiritual Emissaries to exercise Dominion over their Faith and they were busy in Catechising but whom not Children in the Church no more than they cared to Baptize them there But they must Catechise Men and Women of all Ages and Ranks whatsoever in their Houses or where they appointed them to appear Well this great Lady was not more dreaded for her Loyalty than suspected for her Religion and therefore as they had brought her to the Touch-stone for the one they must bring her to the Test and Tryal for the other Whether it were a Committee with a Club of their Divines Lay-elders and Superintendents over all that were appointed I have not been informed but to gain countenance they drew in with them some Ministers of better temper and came to her Castle which had a Garrison no good Guests to her but sure Friends to them They bring her to be examined what their Questions were I have not particularly learned onely by her Answer I may suppose one in general to have been What Faith and Religion she professed One might well have thought in a Person of her Quality Age and Spirit Disdain at such Insolency should have kept her from answering or saying any thing except in reproaching their Arrogancy and proud Hypocrisy But she having learned another Lesson 1 Pet. 3. 15. To be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear her readiness and meekness made her willing to give a reason of her Hope Hope which is built upon Faith and she told them to this or like Effect That her Faith was built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles that is upon the Holy Scriptures the Word of God as delivered and Expounded by the Church of England whose Doctrine Discipline and Worship as by Law established she was bred in and had imbraced and by God's Grace would persist in it to her Lives end This general with other more explicit Answer was so apposite delivered with such firmness of mind that some Ministers whom they had drawn in with them to give a colour to their presumption observing that this well-taught Lady had purchased a good degree of boldness in the Faith observing I say the stedfastness and tryal of her Faith more precious than Gold that perisheth they knew that Gold she would easily let go upon all occasions very liberally but saw she would hold fast the Faith once delivered to her they left her one of them going out weeping amazed and confounded to find such Knowledg Constancy and Courage in a Woman her Faith so sound and laudable and mixed with so much Christian meekness and Condescention The rest also being no doubt astonished at her Understanding and Answers left her a glorious Confessor willing enough no doubt to have been a Martyr and to have sealed to the truth by undergoing any more fiery tryal And she was after this so resolute to stick to the Order of the Church in the main point of Practice partaking of the holy Eucharist that when there was a kind of Interdict on the Land a forbidding to administer the Sacraments according to the Common-Prayer She would not what danger soever might happen communicate any other way sticking close to the Rules and Forms of sound words prescribed by the Rubrick to which she had always been accustomed and had approved it by her own Judgment having suck'd also as it were with her Mothers Milk wholsom Institutions who train'd her up as an obedient daughter of the Church of England Her self being also observant of those Rules and that Ladies great Piety is not only mentioned often in the Annals which this her affectionate Daughter dictated but also taken notice of by the Learned and Godly Mr. Perkins who dedicates one of his Practical Treatises to Margaret Countess of Cumberland the Mother of this Lady which I the rather note that some may take notice who so readily follow him in doubtful Disputations and yet scruple to walk with him in his practice of Conformity to the Rules of the Church She was I say devoted to the Church of England notwithstanding that she was compassionate and charitable to some Dissenters She would tell that Her Family had furnished this Diocess with one Vipont Bishop and that by her assistance an Eminent Prelate now living was made a Christian of which B. of W. and of whom she would often make mention with great contentment For her Devotion some thought less of it because she had no Domestick Chaplain and it was an Objection which I knew not how to answer until I was assured that although she had no Chaplain Menial in her House yet she had six Houshold Chaplains at every one of her Houses the Parochial Ministers did Officiate to her Family as well as at their Cures and they wanted not all due encouragements from so good a Patroness Indeed when Age had deprived her of the benefit of her Limbs her hearing also being much decayed her Chamber as I intimated was her Oratory a house of Prayer not that the Morning and Evening Service were performed daily there especially of late when her Hearing failed But she seldom ommitted Morning and Evening and at Noon to offer up her private Devotions to God and in whatsoever Posture she was to send up