But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts.
Few temptations assail the preacher more strongly than this one to please men, even if God is not pleased, though with the dim hope that God will after all condone or overlook. Nothing but experience will convince some preachers how fickle is popular favour and how often it is at the cost of failure to please God (Robertson 17).