Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	eat_v	lord_n	serpent_n	1,942	5	10.1866	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91918	A treatise of humilitie. Published by E.D. parson (sequestred.); Ejercicio de perfección y virtudes cristianas. Part 2. Treatise 3. English	Rodríguez, Alfonso, 1526-1616.; E. D.; W. B.	1654 (1654)	Wing R1772A; Thomason E1544_2; ESTC R208942	125,984	263

and so sweet to our ears that there are no Syrens which can so inchant men nor put them so out of their Wits and therefore we had need to stop our ears and make our selves deaf to them Saint John Climacus advises us when men praise us to call our sins to mind for so shall we find our selves to be unworthy of the praises they give and so shall we draw more Humility and confusion from thence This may therefore be the second thing upon which you may particularly examine your selves Namely that you rejoyce not to be well spoken of and praised by others And to this we may also joyn the being glad when others are well spoken of and praised which is a point of very great importance And whensoever you find either any feeling or motion of envy for the praise of others or else of any complacence or vain contentment in that others speak well of you be sure to set it down for a fault The third thing upon which we may make a particular examination of our selves is concerning the not doing of any thing to the end that we may be seen or esteemed by men And this is that which Christ our Lord advises us in the holy Gospel Mat 6.1 Take heed that ye do not your alms or righteousnes as some copies have it before men to be seen of them otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in Heaven This is a very profitable examination it may be divided into many parts First it may be made upon the not doing of any thing for humane respects Secondly upon the doing things meerly for the love of God And thirdly upon the doing them perfectly well as one who doth them in the presence of God and as one who serves not men but God And this diligence is to be used by us till the works be performed by us in such sort as we may rather seem to be loving God in them then to be working of them The fourth point upon which we may carry our particular examination is not to excuse our selves For this also grows from pride when committing a fault and being told of it we instantly make our excuse and without even marking it we make one excuse sometimes upon another yea and we will yet give another excuse for having formerly excused our selves Saint Gregory up on these words of Job If as a man I have hidden my sin ponders these words very wel Quasi homo as a man and saith that it is the property of a man to desire to cover and excuse his sin because it comes to us by descent from our first parents As soon as the first man had sinned he went instantly to hide himself amongst the trees of Paradise and God reproving him for his disobedience he thus excused himself presently upon his wife O Lord that Woman whom thou gavest me for my companion made me eat of the forbidden fruit And the Woman excused her self in like manner upon the Serpent The Serpent deceived me and I did eat thereof God examined them about their sin to the end that knowing it and confessing it they might obtain pardon for it and so Saint Gregory saith that he did not examine the Serpent because he meant not to pardon the serpent But they instead of humbling themselves and acknowledging their sin towards the obtaining of pardon increase and aggravate it by their excuses yea and by desiring after a sort thus to cast the fault upon God The Woman whom thou gavest me O Lord was the cause As if he had said If thou hadst not given her me for a companion no part of this had been done The Serpent which thou didst create and suffer to enter into Paradise deceived me and if thou hadst not suffered it to enter there I had not sinned S. Greg saith that they having heard from the Devils mouth that they should be like God since they could not become like him in the point of his Divinity they endeavoured to make him like them in the point of their sin and so they made it greater by defending it then they had done by committing it And now as being children of such parents and in fine as being men we still remain with this infirmity and with this defect and ill custome and when we are reproved for any sault we instantly have a mind to cover it with an excuse as under bows and leaves yea and sometimes a man is not content to excuse himself but he must needs be casting the fault upon others One compares such as excuse themselves to he Hedg-hoge which when she perceives that they go about to take her she shrinks in her head and feet with extreme speed and remains as a boul being circled on every side as it were with thorns so that a man cannot touch her without pricking himself first So that you shall sooner see your own blood then her body In this manner saith he be they who are wont to excuse themselves for if you will but touch them by telling them the faults which they made they instantly defend themselves like the hedg-hog som times they prick gaul you give you also to understand that you as well deserve reproof At other times they wil be telling you that there is a rule which forbids one to find fault with another and that there be some who make greater faults which yet men are content to dissemble and in fine do but touch the hedg-hogg and you shall ee whether he will prick you or no. Al this busines grows from our great pride who would not have our faults known nor be held for defective and it troubles us more that they be understood and for the estimation which we think we loose thereby then for having committed them and so we procure to conceal and hide them the most we can Nay there are some so unmortified in this kind that even before you say any thing they prevent you and excuse themselves and give reasons for that which they think you may object and they say If I did this it was for this reason and if I did that it was for that and the like But who in the mean time pricks you now that you must skip so high The goad of pride it is which you carry so deeply rooted in your hearts This is that which pricks you and which makes you leap even before your time It will therefore be well done by him who finds this old and ill custome in himself to examine himself particularly thereof till at length he may come to part with all desire of covering his faults but rather since he committed them let him be glad to be held faulty in shame and punishment thereof yea and though you have made no fault and yet they reprehend you as if you had yet do not you alwayes excuse your selves The fifth is also very good for a man to examine himself upon namely the restraining and cutting of