For however vile and shameful it seem in the sight here
of a few worldly wretches, it is lauded and approved for very
precious and honourable in the sight of God and all the glorious
company of heaven, who as perfectly stand and behold it as those
foolish people do. And they are in number more than a hundred to
one; and of that hundred, every one a hundred times more to be
regarded and esteemed than a hundred such whole rabbles of the
other.
And now, if a man would be so mad as to be ashamed, for fear of the
rebuke that he should have of such rebukeful beasts, to confess the
faith of Christ, then, with fleeing from a shadow of shame, he
would fall into a true shame--and a deadly painful shame indeed!
For then hath our Saviour made a sure promise that he will show
himself ashamed of that man before the Father of heaven and all his
holy angels, saying in the ninth chapter of Luke, "He who is
ashamed of me and my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed
when he shall come in the majesty of himself and of his Father and
of his holy angels." And what manner of shameful shame shall that
be, then? If a man's cheeks glow sometimes for shame in this world,
they will fall on fire for shame when Christ shall show himself
ashamed of them there!
The blessed apostles reckoned it for great glory to suffer for
Christ's faith the thing that we worldly wretched fools think to be
villainy and shame.
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