Chapter 23.—Rule Regarding the
Narrative of Sins of Great Men.
33. And when he reads of the sins
of great men, although he may be able to see and to trace out in
them a figure of things to come, let him yet put the literal fact
to this use also, to teach him not to dare to vaunt himself in his
own good deeds, and in comparison with his own righteousness, to
despise others as sinners, when he sees in the case of men so
eminent both the storms that are to be avoided and the shipwrecks
that are to be wept over. For the sins of these men were recorded
to this end, that men might everywhere and always tremble at that
saying of the apostle: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he
standeth take heed lest he fall.”
1879
For there is hardly a page of
Scripture on which it is not clearly written that God resisteth the
proud and giveth grace to the humble.
1880
1879
1 Cor. x. 12
.
1880
Comp.
Jas. iv. 6 and 1 Pet. v. 6
.