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	good_a	temperance_n	1,131	5	11.1758	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91801	A sermon preached at Walden in Essex, May 29th. At the interring of the corps of the right Honorable Susanna, Countesse of Suffolke. Being a modest and short narration of some remarable passages in the holy life and death of that memorable lady. Who dyed May 19th. 1649. / By Edw: Rainbowe. D.D.	Rainbowe, Edward, 1608-1684.	1649 (1649)	Wing R141; Thomason E532_40	25,929	38

Habits or Qualities inherent in our selves or supposed so to be by others yet it is aliquid extra something without us it is that which others apply to us think or speak of us We must distinguish betwixt a Good Name fundamentally meritorious and inward and a Good Name applicatively dispensed and outward To deserve a Good Name or to have a Good Name A Good name really or a Good name onely Nominally in the eyes of God or from the tongues of Men. And so there is a threefold Good name according to a threefold condition of men There are men meerely Naturall others civilly Morall and a third sort Christian and Religious so you may have what every one of these three call a Good name for complyance either with Nature Morality or Grace First for Naturall parts as Judgement Wit Memory Strength Indowments or from great performances by them done Thus you may be said by some men to have a Good Name even for evill actions The world will speak well of you if you live according to the custome of the world Beware saith our Saviour when men speak well of you that is when you have a Good Name with the men of this world their praise is an ill sign none hath a Good Name with them except they run to the same excess of Ryot with them This Good Name is no Precious Oyntment but a stain a besmearing it makes no perfume but a stench in the nostrills of men truly nay onely morally Good Examine what Good signifies with wicked prophane men as a Good Gamster a Good Companion a Good Fellow that is a good drinker or good to drive away the precious time here how much the better the worse a Good Name here is a very eare-mark a brand a stigmatizing that is not the Good Name commended in the text the Naturall mans Good-name So a Great Name is not alwaies a Good Name as Alexanders Caesars the Babel-builders no more than his who burnt a temple to be talked of to have a Great Name Secondly the Morall mans Good Name or Fame for acts or habits morally Good either Practicall or Speculative a man may have a Good Name for excelling in his Art or Profession as a Good Physitian a Good Divine in Mechanicks a Good Engineer a Good Artificer but chiefly for the Habits of Morall Vertues as for Justice Temperance Valour Sobriety Thrift and the like for either excelling in some one or some few of these vertues a man may have a Good Name and this Good Name is very commendable in its degree and station especially if it be grounded on Reall not Counterfeit Vertues and these universall sincere not with any mixture of Vice as to have a Name for Justice Temperance Prudence or other vertues is to have a Good Name but not the Good Name here meant Thirdly and lastly to make Morall Vertues complete by the Theologicall or Christian Vertues Faith Hope and Charity this is the Christians Good Name to have Morality baptized to turne Vertue into Grace to plant all those faire Cyens on the Fruitfull stock of Faith to get first that Mother Grace of Faith and then to adde to your Faith Vertue as 2 Pet. 1. 5. Giving all diligence saith he adde to your Faith Vertue Let Faith be first in the number then adde and multiply Adde to your Faith Vertue and to Vertue knowledge and to Knowledge Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godlinesse to Godlinesse Brotherly Kindnesse and to Brotherly Kindnesse Charity Charity in whose wombe lye all the Vertues all the Duties of the second Table he that hath and exerciseth these hath laid a good Foundation hath gained a good Report his Name shall be written Good upon that Foundation hee hath approved himselfe unto God and Men 'T is not the Praises of men but to approve himself and his Conscience to God which he seekes but yet the Generation of the Faithfull shall call him Blessed And this is that which I call the Christians Good Name That 's the first thing what is here meant by a Good Name Now that we may come nearer to the comparison Secondly why is it said Than Pretious Oyntment By Oyntment so set out under the Title of Precious is meant the Richest the most delicious pleasures In those Countries and Times these Oyntments were used for the greatest most sumptuous Delights and Refreshments whether for their fragrancy and aromaticall sweetnesse which ravished the Sence of smelling a sence of great pleasure and delight or else that they were made of healthfull ingredients and compositions of oyle and such as made the face to shine that is conduced to make them chearefull and merry or because they were also soveraign balm and medicinable to heal and strengthen or lastly because the greatest cost that might be was frequently laid out in such Oyntments as that remembred to have been bestowed on our Saviour by the woman of Bethany Mark 14. 3. Spikenard very precious which made such a fragrancy that it hath given a Good Name to that woman according to our Saviours prediction in all places where the Gospel is or hath been preached Although I might shew some other grounds for the similitude the inward fragrancy and the outward diffusion making the face to shine and making the man to shine c. yet these I pass over and many the like The meaning of drawing Precious Oyntment into the comparison is this by a Synechdoche or a comprehending many things under one word A Good Name is better than Precious Oyntment that is better than whatsoever is Delicious Pleasant or Wholsome or Costly in a word it s better than all corporall Pleasures that 's the firme assertion of the Text. And because Contraria juxta se posita c. Contraries placed together appear best place them now in the Scales Vertue Piety Grace in the one Scale Worldly Pleasures and Delights in the other and See with a sound Judgment and steddy hand which will be of most weight and price I will not here shew you the base low and unsatisfying objects of the one such as never quench the thirst of desire and in the other that by them we are carryed up to God the chiefest and only filling Good I need not tell you the one are transitory and fade in a moment that the other carry us to Eternity and remain with us there that the end of Pleasure is pain and shame What pleasure have you in those things whereof you are now ashamed that the end of Vertue and Godliness is Comfort here and Glory hereafter Si quid benè feceris cum dolore c. The saying is eminent if you do any thing well though with travell and pain the paines and travell cease and vanish but the good Conscience of the Deed and the Good Name remaine for ever But on the contrary Si quid malè feceris cum voluptate c. If you do any thing ill with Pleasure the

what shall I say for application should I reprove those who erre in opinion and build their Good Name upon Greatness Glory Fame Naturall indowments Morall accomplishments Beauty Wit Mirth Friendship and the like or any thing not Christian Or should I stir you up to lay a sure foundation for a Good Name in Faith Holiness and Virtue Should I lessen the terrors of Death and hasten any of you in the desires of it which gives so fair a season to this Glorious Flower a Good Name which shuts the door on sin and misery and opens to eternall joyes in all these the text might be a copious theme and I can hardly refrain from inlarging But because Examples have a more lively force on the souls of men than simple Precepts and Practice is the only warrant that rules are Good and that it hath seemed Good to him who hath the issues of Life and Death in his hand to lay such a Pregnant Spectacle before our eyes as may give an exemplary testimony to the truth of this text I shall now take leave to set before your Christian attention some few such observations from and upon the Life and Death of this Eminent Personage whom the uncontrolable Will of the Almighty hath made the sad occasion of our present meeting as may in hance the price of a Good Name and make Death have its true comfort when we see it happen after a well-spent and well-ended life And now well remembring where I am and in whose dreadfull presence before that God of truth who can measure the Deeds and words of men and see what conformity they hold in a Congregation also amongst many of whom the light of her conversation did shine and could not be hid I shall in all sincerity indeavour to speak nothing for Favour Relation Flattery or to gain a Vain-glorious Name to her that is gon or him that speaks but to set forth such reall Virtues as shined in her life that we may all have occasion to glorifie God who was graciously pleased to instamp such lively Characters of his Image upon a poor corruptible Creature and to aspire after all that is praiseworthy in so precious an example that at our Death we all may have lively hopes to be also numbred amongst the living and to leave a Good Name fragrant and refreshing to all those who live after us And now where shall I begin and how shall I find an end both did seem alike difficult to my preparations whereon shall I lay the foundation to build a Precious Name and Memoriall for her who her self had purchased it so many wayes Shall I tell you of her naturall parts and indowments Shall I tell you how her Parents and her self had perfected those by carefull education art and industry Shall I let you know how those were made Gracefull by a meek pleasant and affable Deportment How they were adorned with the choysest Jewels which every Virtue could afford her or which is rarest that all these were consecrated by a Religious even frame and temper and lastly which is the highest Perfection attainable on Earth that she and they were sanctified by the visible operations of the Spirit of God whose Image sat bright and Glorious on her Soul and did shine through all her Conversation These are the solid sure foundations of a Good Name and all these crouded so into my thoughts at once that they were easily lost in the many fair paths and turnings through which look which way soever you would her Excellencies Parts Virtues Graces were ready to invite and draw my meditations But that this universality may not disorder your thoughts as they have done mine I must not seek such arguments for her Praise being dead as have no fast bottom for an Inward Good Name and for which she would not only dispraise but sharply censure me if she were living Namely for any thing she had by nature although from that too in this regard seeing whatsoever Nature had given her she made a Vessell to lay up some Grace or other in If I should tell you of the Sharpness of her Wit I could not better instance to prove it than that in Questions of Religion chiefly Cases of Conscience and difficult places of Scriptures she was most sudden at making Nice Doubts and extraordinary happy in resolving them at least to the satisfying of others although such was her Humility and low esteem of her own Gifts that she would earnestly labour for the resolution of others rather than trust to her own Her Judgment was most sound which might appear as by concurrence with the Wise and Learned in opinions about secular affairs private or publique so chiefly in the Controversies in Religion that amids all those differences and varieties of opinions to the Knowledge of which she was drawn by her carious Soul which had a mighty thirst after all kind of knowledge especially in matters which concerned God Religion and Eternity I say though she knew all Good and Evill yet she had a Discerning Judgment and Exercised Senses to chuse the Good and refuse the Evill not only in points simply necessary to Salvation in which we may believe the Spirit of God would not let her fall but in Speculative truths her opinions were not tainted nor her mind shaken with any of those plausible Errors wherewith the Times havenow so miserably infested and distracted the Church of God and ted Captive many well-meaning Souls but her knowing and well-grounded assent went along first with the Sure Rule the Written Word of God then with those who for sticking to that have been held the Soundest and most Classicall Wheresoever in cases she differd from the most-received opinions it was commonly in Practicall points and seldom but she inclined to the more strict her very Error if it were one deserving its own pardon Her Phancy was most Divine and although she fed it very much with Humane Authors delighting in Wit that was Pure and filled with ingenious and artificiall conceit Poetry especially in the apprehension of which she was very Dexterous and would ever set a Mark upon such expressions as were most emphaticall and quaint many times adding a Grace by her particular interpretation even beyond the intention of the Author but with exceeding fitness and significancy yet she most confined her Phancy to Gather Flowers in Paradise in Gods Garden in his Book and in such as exercised their wits in that Field especially in Divine Poetry in which kind she took an excessive delight to be conversant in Mr. Herberts Temple in which she found out such fit and significant elegancies that when she read or repeated them it was hard to determine whether the Author or she made the sence such innumerable descants would she make upon every single expression there And to shew what delight she took in that heavenly Wit I have heard her more than once seriously aver that if there were no more extent but her copy some

precious vein in the Rich Mine of his Word This was the last continued act of Reason which she performed only when her strength was even spent she owned her Dear relations when they came unto her did let them understand she was now marryed to Christ joyn'd with most heedfull attentions in Prayer with one whom she then desired to doe that office gave signes of approbation and requested that he which poured it out on her behalf would not go out of the room after that within little more than an hour in a quiet kind of sleep the passages of life being stopped she yielded up her Spirit unto God that gave it leaving behind her the bitterest and loudest lamentations of her friends to whom she was the most desired Creature that God ever placed in their eyes and relations Thus dyed Susanna Countesse of Suffolke and thus she lived twenty two years a rare example of early and pregnant Graces And now if I have set her Image so fresh before your eyes that you make haste to meet her there with any of your tears let me as I began draw them to the Text that by the comfort of it they may be wiped away What think you now if we build her a good Name on this Foundation She hath left us all Materials What can be wanting Greatness Goodness Nature Grace Wit Memory a good Vnderstanding a gracious Heart unfeigned Faith look at the Apostles materials and see what is wanting Faith Vertue Knowledge Brotherly Kindness c. 2 Pet 1. 12. As David who had in his heart and purpose to build a Temple to God left all materials Silver and Gold and Precious Stones and the willing hearts of the People for Solomon to build a Temple out of Tryly she hath left us all the materials that may be to build a Temple of her good Name the bright Silver of her Naturall Parts and endowments the purer Gold of her Virtues and purchased habits and above all the shining Jewels of Gods Graces and Image her precious faith as the Apostle phrases it her burning Zeal fervent Charity pure Religion and undefiled She was all for Sanctuary-words Whilst she lived with those wise-hearted Women Exod. 38. that brought for the service of the Tabernacle their blue and purple and Skarlet and fine linnen and their looking-Glasses All her ornaments all her faculties and Phancies all her desires were to build up her self a Tabernacle a Temple for the service of the living God and besides blessed be God she hath left willing hearts behind her the greatest love and the greatest desire of her self that hath been heard of those that have been ready to weep out their eyes for her being dead would willingly have pluckt out their eyes as the Apostle saith to have kept her alive Seeing then Death hath broken this Alablaster Boxe of precious ointment to pour the liquor of it on her head to annoint her to her Burial and to leave a fragrancy which may fill the world with her sweet memoriall let us give her what is better than Precious ointment and what she hath deserved from us as being the gift of God to her A good Name which so often as it shall sound her memory in our ears let her virtues if their be any Virtue any Goodness any Praise come into our minds let the imitation of them be aspired after in one ardent desire that we may bless God who lent us so rich an example and may all laud and glorifie his name who hath give her such a glorious Name and us so clear an assurance that the Day of her Death was better to her than the Day of her Birth FINIS