Apples of Gold (continued)
strangely traduced, disgraced, and scandalized. He was called a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of publicans and sinners, and judged to use the black art, casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils, Mat. 9:34,12:24. Christ has suffered the greatest and the worst reproaches; why then should you be afraid to wear that crown of thorns, which Christ has worn before you? There is a great truth in what he said, he who is afraid to suffer cannot be His disciple—who suffered so much. If the master has been marked with a black coal, let not the servant think to go free. I am heartily angry, says Luther, with those who speak of my sufferings as great—which, if compared with that which Christ suffered for me, are not once to be mentioned in the same day. But,
4. Fourthly, I answer, That all reproachers shall at last be arraigned at the highest bar of justice, for all the reproaches that they have cast upon the people of God. "Your former friends are very surprised when you no longer join them in the wicked things they do, and they say evil things about you. But just remember that they will have to face God, who will judge everyone, both the living and the dead," 1 Pet. 4:4-5.
I am in ecstasy, says Picus Mirandula, to think how profane men rail upon those now, whom one day they will wish they had imitated. It was excellent counsel that the heathen orator gave his hearers, let us live as those who must give an account of all at last.