Not that he was wholly indifferent to the opinion entertained of him
by his fellow men. Had be been so, he would not have undertaken his
own defence as in these epistles, A measure of esteem was necessary to
his usefulness in the ministry. Had all who heard him thought him the
enemy of God, he could have done no good in it. Therefore his endeavor
to rectify their mistakes. And the rather because he held the truth as
it is in Jesus; so that in rejecting him, and the doctrines which he
taught, they turned aside into errors which might fatally mislead
them. But he did not wrong his conscience to please them, or depart
from truth to gain their approbation--"Do I seek to please men? For if
I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Had Paul
been chiefly concerned to please men, he would have continued a
Pharisee.

The person who would please Christ, while paying such deference to the
opinions of men as fairly to weigh every objection against his faith
or practice, and try them by the divine rule, must be careful to
conform to that rule, whatever opinions may be entertained of him. Of
the meaning of the rule he must judge for himself before God--"calling
no man master." The reasons of his faith and practice, and his
construction of the divine rule, he may lay before his fellow men, to
remove the grounds of prejudice; but he must rise so far above their
frowns a------atteries, as not to be influenced by them to disguise
his sentiments, or counteract his own judgment of the law of God, of
the gospel of Christ, or of the duties incumbent on him.

It is not by human judgments that we are to stand or fall. It is happy
that this is the case; that the good man hath a judge more just and
candid than his fellow servants; one who knows and pities his