For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
Ver. 17. Not to baptize] As my chief work, so Jer 7:22 but to preach and plant Churches, wherein he had a very happy hand; as had likewise Farellus among our late reformers, Qui Mompelgardenses, Aquileienses, Lausanneuses, Genevenses, Novocomenses Ghristo lucrifecit, he gained five cities with their territories to Christ. (Melch. Adam. in Vii. xi.)
Not with wisdom of words] Which yet St Paul could have done as well as another; witness his artificial unstarching of the orator's speech,Acts 24:10,21. But he liked not to put the sword of the Spirit into a velvet scabbard, that it could not pierce, to speak floride plus quam solide, as those self-seekers at Corinth did, that sought more to tickle the ear than to affect the heart. It repented Augustine (and well it might) that when he was young he had preached more ut placeret, quam ut doceret, to please than to profit. And Luther was wont to say, he is the best preacher that preacheth vulgiter, trivialiter, maximeque ad populi captum. Not but that there is a lawful use of rhetoric in sermons, so it be free from ostentation. See the Preface to my God's Love Tokens.