Therefore all hypocritical saints, all wicked hypocrites, who boast of being called Christians, yet will not suffer for the name of Christ, may well be ashamed. Christ may justly say to them: If I be your Lord, why do you not keep my commandments? if I be your Master, why do you not hear and believe my words? Mal. 1:6; Luke 6:46. Well then, let all hypocrites, and falsely prudent, unfaithful servants, and falsely wise disciples of Jesus Christ, depart from their Lord and Master, we nevertheless, through the grace of God, intend to adhere to Christ, and are ready to suffer for his sake, even as he suffered for our sakes. But he suffered as Lord, and we as disciples; hence we servants and disciples must not bear the cross reluctantly seeing our Lord and Master himself bore it.
In the third place, we must follow Jesus, but not as did many Jews, who followed him, because they had eaten of the loaves; which, alas! many false Christians still do, who join the Christian church, not because they truly seek Christ Jesus, not because they love the truth, but that they may be aided and fed by the Christian church (whom they perceive to be the most charitable). But to follow Christ in this manner is nothing but a mockery of God, and Christ will not have such followers, as we may clearly understand from the case of the scribe whom Christ condemned, because he wanted to follow him from covetousness; for the Lord beheld the heart of the scribe, and therefore did not answer him according to his words, but according to his thoughts, saying: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58. Just as if Jesus had intended to say: If you will follow me, follow me in the manner in which I go before you. For Christ well knew his intention, namely, that he wanted to follow him for gain, and thought that Christ should give him power to perform wonderful signs and miracles, as he had given to his apostles, by which he might have sought gain. But such designs are not good, and cannot succeed; for the Lord himself was poor (Zech. 9:9), as he declares: If I the Lord and Master am poor, it is evident that my servants are poor, and that my disciples do not seek or desire riches. As though the good Lord had meant to say: He that would follow me, must follow me in the poverty in which I walk before him. But, alas! many people at the present day think that gain is godliness, as Paul says (1 Tim. 6:5), and, under the semblance of the Gospel and the Christian name, seek their own profit. O what perverted men! who will not go in the right way, but follow the way of the traitor and thief Judas, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, when he received the awful punishment of his wickedness, as every one knows. Matt. 27:6; Mark 14:18; John 12:4. O what blinded men, who can not take to heart that Ananias and Sapphira were put to such great shame, and punished, for their equivocation, by which the Almighty Lord God has undoubtedly given us an example, that all hypocritical and double minded men shall be thus put to shame and punished; as we find in Jesus Sirach: Woe unto those that are of a double heart, to those of wicked lips that enter the land by two ways. Therefore the wise man also teaches us, that our hearts should be without any deceit and dissimulation, saying: “Be not obstinate, and distrust not the fear of the Lord ... and come not unto him with a double heart. Be not a hypocrite in the sight of men, and take good heed what thou speakest. Exalt not thyself, lest thou fall, and bring dishonor upon thy soul, and so God discover thy secrets, and cast thee down in the midst of the congregation, because thou camest not in truth to the fear of the Lord, but thy heart is full of deceit.” Sir. 1:28–30.