very heathens have born reproaches; and let that provoke you, in
And Austin observed, that though there were many thousands put to
death for professing Christ, yet they were never the fewer for being
slain.
Ah! young men, you may, by a wise and gracious bearing of
reproaches for Christ, be instrumental to win others to Christ; and
therefore never plead there is a lion in the way. But I must hasten;
and therefore,
8. In the eighth and last place, consider, How bravely several of the
very heathens have born reproaches; and let that provoke you, in
the face of all reproaches, to seek and serve the Lord in the morning
of your youth, etc.
When one came and reproached Xenophon, says he, You have
learned how to reproach, and I have learned how to bear reproach.
And Aristippus, the philosopher, said, You are fit to cast reproaches,
and I am fit to bear reproaches.
When one wondered at the patience of Socrates towards one who
reviled and reproached him, If we should meet one, says he, whose
body were more unsound than ours, should we be angry with him,
and not rather pity him? Why, then, should we not do the like to him
whose soul is more diseased than ours?
Augustus Caesar, in whose time Christ was born, bid Catullus the
railing poet to supper, to show that he had forgiven him.
It is a notable example that we find of one Pericles, who, as he was
sitting with others in a great meeting, a foul-mouthed fellow bitterly
reproached him, and railed all the day long upon him; and at night,
when it was dark, the fellow followed him, and railed at him even to
his door, and he took no notice of him; but when he came at home,
this is all he said, Friend, it is dark, please let my servant light you
home.
Josephus reports of that Herod that is made mention of in Acts
12:23, that when one Simon, a lawyer, had grievously reproached
and scandalized him before the people, he sent for him, and caused
him to sit down next to him, and in a kind manner he spoke thus to
him: Tell me, I pray you, what thing you see fault-worthy or
contrary to the law in me. Simon not having anything to answer,
besought him to pardon him, which the king did, and was friends
with him, and dismissed him, bestowing gifts on him.
Ah! young men, young men, shall the very heathen make nothing of
reproaches? shall they bear up so prudently and bravely under the
greatest loads of reproaches, and will not you? Will not you, who in
your light, in your mercies, and in all gospel engagements, are so
highly advanced above them? Oh that none of them may be called to
the bar in the great day to witness against any of you into whose
hands this treatise shall fall. And so much by way of answer to the
third objection. But,