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Tertullus having prepared the judge, presently falls upon the matter, and charges St. Paul with being a pestilent fellow, a seditious person, a disturber of the nation, a profaner of the temple, a ring-leader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
And adds, that out of mere zeal to the Jewish religion, they had themselves before now dispatched him out of the way, but that he was violently rescued out of their hands by Lysias, the chief captain, and brought thither to be tried.
Concluding, that these things which he had spoken were the sense of all those that came down with him as witnesses, The Jews also assented, and said that these things were so. Act_24:9
Here note, 1. What an heavy load of reproaches and false accusations our innocent apostle laboured under; he is accounted, and called, a walking pestilence. Thus the holy and faithful servants of God are esteemed by the world, the plague and bane of the place and nation where they live: although it is really for their sakes that God staves off plagues and judgments from falling upon the world; We have found this man a pestilant fellow.
It is not the greatest holiness towards God, nor righteousness towards men, that can sufficiently shield and defend a saint from censure and slander, from calumny and false accusation.
Note, 2. Besides the general charge that the apostle was the very pest and plague of mankind; we have a threefold accusation brought against him, That he was a mover of sedition, a profaner of the temple, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
Lord, how should thy faithful ministers and ambassadors prepare themselves for, and comfort themselves under, the most hellish reproaches, when we find the great apostle, (whom St. Chrysostom honours with this character, "That the earth never bare a better man since it bare our Redeemer,") yet thus miscalled and accounted a pest, a plague, the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things!
O why should such worthless worms as we murmur, when we meet with much less reproaches! Lord! help us in imitation of thy example, for the joy that is set before us, to despise the shame, as well as to endure the cross. The best men that ever the world had, have fallen under the lashes of envenomed tongues. What foul aspersions hath malice cast upon innocency itself! Our blessed Saviour, in the clearest act of innocency, his casting out of devils, suffered the most horrid imputation, even of casting out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of devils, Mat_9:34.
Now the servant must not expect to be above his master: if Christ thus suffered, needs must Christianity, needs must Christians, needs must ministers and ambassadors.