{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050101.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050101.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050101.htm","text":"Chapter 12 [X.]\u2014He Reconciles Some Passages of Scripture.\nThe statement, therefore, \u201cHe that is born of God sinneth not,\u201d 505 is not contrary to the passage in which it is declared by those who are born of God, \u201cIf we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.\u201d 506 For however complete may be a man\u2019s present hope, and however real may be his renewal by spiritual regeneration in that part of his nature, he still, for all that, carries about a body which is corrupt, and which presses down his soul; and so long as this is the case, one must distinguish even in the same individual the relation and source of each several action. Now, I suppose it is not easy to find in God\u2019s Scripture so weighty a testimony of holiness given of any man as that which is written of His three servants, Noah, Daniel, and Job, whom the Prophet Ezekiel describes as the only men able to be delivered from God\u2019s impending wrath. 507 In these three men he no doubt prefigures three classes of mankind to be delivered: in Noah, as I suppose, are represented righteous leaders of nations, by reason of his government of the ark as a type of the Church; in Daniel, men who are righteous in continence; in Job, those who are righteous in wedlock;\u2014to say nothing of any other view of the passage, which it is unnecessary now to consider. It is, at any rate, clear from this testimony of the prophet, and from other inspired statements, how eminent were these worthies in righteousness. Yet no man must be led by their history to say, for instance, that drunkenness is not sin, although so good a man was overtaken by it; for we read that Noah was once drunk, 508 but God forbid that it should be thought that he was an habitual drunkard.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}