Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	diligence_n	patience_n	temperance_n	1,750	5	11.3528	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.

built by God eternal in the Heavens from a Tabernacle to a Temple And having mention'd her Courage I might shew that although it be a Virtue not so often to be found nor expected to be found in that Sex yet that she had it to an Heroick degree I will set before you but one instance which hath been brought to me by good Information It was in the late time of Rebellion and Usurpation when they threatned to level all degrees of men and women and had no respect to Honour either in Titles or in real Worth and Dignity but did studiously and affectedly seek to affront and pour contempt upon those chiefly who by their Birth and Place might challenge Honour as due to them as Propriety and Inheritance could Intitle any to whatsoever they possessed Having cut down Honour in its great Emblem the Royal Oak intending that in this our Druina no Loyal Oak should be left none to give shelter to any of the Royal Branches although Providence confuted them literally but as they could and by degrees to extirpate all the Loyal Nobility I say when they had dried up the Fountain of Honour in their King it was too great an eye-sore to behold the lustre of it in his Subjects to let any Noble but especially Loyal Blood run in the Streams that derived their Honour from that Fountain It was even then that this couragious Lady dared to own her self Loyal then when they had filled her Castle with Souldiers and those of fierce and phanatical spirits and none more fierce than they The Head of those Locusts like those in the Revelation 9. 7. armed and crowned for then every fanatical Head fancied himself to have or deserve a Crown They were the Saints and they must Reign Holiness you know gives great pretence to govern in Temporals as well as in Spirituals The Head of those who at that time oppressed this Noble Lady was one whom even his great Harrison Master himself looked upon as under a Dispensation more terribly phanatical than any in his Host terrible even to himself and his usurped Power This dreadful man quartered himself under the Roof of this Noble Lady had made suspitious inquiries or rather declared his presumptions of Her sending Assistance privately where he was conscious that Loyal Duty required and her affection might wish it if there had been means with safety to convey it but being not able to make proof of that he would needs know her opinion and dispute her out of her Loyalty at a time when she slept and lived but at his mercy giving her Alarms night and day when he listed If she had now shrunk and seem'd to yield to his Opinion she might pretend the Learned Philosopher's excuse who disputing with a great General and yielding up the truth of the Cause pleaded to those who upbraided him that he had done wisely to be confuted by him who had so many Legions such an Army to prove what he list near and at his Command But this undaunted Lady would not so easily yield but would be superiour in the Dispute having Truth and Loyalty on her side she would not betray them at the peril of her Life and Fortune but boldly asserted that she did love the King that she would live and dye in her Loyal thoughts to the King and so with her Courage dulled the edge of so sharp an Adversary that by God's merciful restraint he did her no harm at that time Diligence was a noted Virtue in her her active Soul filling up all the Gaps of Time with something useful or delightful to her self or others But to undertake to describe this and her other Virtues that is her Life were endless and not necessary none could describe it but her self that lived it And indeed by her great diligence she did describe much of it but if I should tell you how much possibly you would neither Credit me nor Commend so much as Admire her But she had such a desire to know review and reflect upon all the occurrences passages and actions of her Life as thinking it an especial mean to apply her heart to Wisdom by so numbring her days that none of them might be wholly lost That as St. Bernard advised her actions in passing might not pass away she did cast up the account of them and see what every day had brought forth she did set down what was of more remark or dictated and caused much of it to be set down in Writing in some certain seasons which she contrived to be vacant from Addresses judging her time to be better spent thus than in that ordinary Tattle which Custom ha's taught many of her Sex especially who have no business and know no greater duty of Life than to see and be seen in formal visits and insignificant parly As if it were a Game to play away Time in which all parties cheat each other yet never feel that they are Couzened of a Jewel most pretious and irreparable which he that wins from another is sure to lose himself Whatsoever kind of Censure others may pass of this exactness of Diary as too minute and trivial a Diligence I think we may thence charitatably conclude a serenity of Conscience clear at least from foul and presumptuous sins which durst bring all past actions of Life to a Test and Review Who of a thousand is there that can produce a thousand witnesses such is Conscience of the innocency of their Life that can or dare tell even themselves all that they have done or said and open their own Books to rise in Judgment for or against themselves Oh that we could do so This were praejudicium summi illius Judicii a fore-judging of our selves that we might not be judged at least not condemned with the world I confess I have been informed that after some reviews these were laid aside and some parts of these Diaries were summed into Annals As she had been a most Critical Searcher into her own Life so she had been a diligent Enquirer into the Lives Fortunes and Characters of many of her Ancestors for many years Some of them she hath left particularly described and the exact Annals of divers passages which were most remarkable in her own Life ever since it was wholly at her own disposal that is since the Death of her last Lord and Husband Philip Earl of Pembroke which was for the space of six or seven and twenty years But this I will say that as from this her great Diligence her Posterity may find contentment in reading these abstracts of Occurrences in her own Life being added to her Heroick Father's and Pious Mother's Lives dictated by her self so they may reap greater fruits of her Diligence in finding the Honours Descents Pedigrees Estates and the Titles and Claims of their Progenitors to them comprized Historically and Methodically in three Volumes of the larged size and each of them three or four times fairly written over which