Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	faith_n	godliness_n	temperance_n	4,219	5	11.6041	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.

Christian expressions which soon after I did receive from herself and several times after when she was pleased to renew the remembrance of it with much admiration and acknowledgment of the secret wayes of Gods Judgements and Mercies on which she could inlarge with many heavenly expressions But now Patience through all these experiences began to draw its work to perfection which it never doth except it dye with them whom it hath supported in Life A little before Her death Patience and Meekness and low thoughts of Her self which had been Her practice were now Her Argument Discoursing frequently with one of her nearest Attendants and seeing her and others passionatly concern'd and busie about her she willed them not to take so much pains for her who deserved less expostulating why any her self especially should at any time be angry why any of these outward things should trouble her who deserved so little and had been blessed with so much By which it might appear that she had brought into subjection all great thoughts she had cast down imaginations every high thing bringing into Captivity every high thought and submitting the World and her Soul to the Obedience of Christ her passions were mortified and dead before her So that for three or four dayes of her last sickness for she indured no more she lay as if she indured nothing she called for her Psalms which she could not now as she usually had done read her self the greatest Symptome of her extremity she caused them to be read unto her But that Cordial of which I have spoken kept in Rom. 8. and in her heart this her Memory held to the last this she soon repeated No doubt to secure her Soul against all fear of Condemnation being now wholly Christs having served him in the spirit of her mind and not loved to walk after the Flesh having as often as she affectionatly pronounced the words of this Chapter called in the Testimony of the Spirit to bear her witness that she desired to be delivered from this Bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God and so to strengthen her Faith and Hope by other comfortable Arguments contein'd in the rest of that Chapter being the last words of Continuance which this dying Lady spoke The rest of the time as if it had been spent in Ruminating Digesting and speaking inwardly to her Soul what she had utter'd with broken words she lay quiet and without much sign of any Perturbation after a while in a gentle breath scarce perceptible she breathed out that Soul which God had breathed into her rendring it even to that God which gave it So breathed her last and quietly slept not to be awakened again but by the Archangel's Trumpet when it shall call her to the Resurrection of the Just Thus fell at last this goodly Building Thus died this great wise Woman who while she lived was the Honour of her Sex and Age fitter for an History than a Sermon Who having well considered that her last Remove how soon she knew not must be to the House of Death she built her own Apartment there the Tomb before your eyes against this day on which we are all now here met to give her Reliques Livery and Seizin quiet possession And while her Dust lies silent in that Chamber of Death the Monuments which she had built in the Hearts of all that knew her shall speak loud in the ears of a profligate Generation and tell that in this general Corruption lapsed times decay and downfal of Vertue The thrice Illustrious Anne Countess of Pembroke Dorset and Montgomery stood immovable in her Integrity of Manners Vertue and Religion was a well built Temple for Wisdom and all her train of Vertues to reside in is now removed and gone to inhabit a Building of God an House not made with Hands eternal in the Heavens To which blessed Mansions let us all endeavour to follow her by treading in the steps of her Faith Vertue and Patience That having fought the good Fight finished our Course and kept the Faith we may receive the Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give at that day to all that love his appearing Now unto the King Eternal Immortal the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen THE END