PRINTED BY R. CLAY, LONDON, FOR MACMILLAN & CO. CAMBRIDGE. London: BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STREET. Dublin: WILLIAM ROBERTSON. Edinburgh: EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. Glasgow: JAMES MACLEHOSE. Oxford: J. H. AND JAS. PARKER. THE 3090 GOSPEL OF A Series of Discourses. BY FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A. CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN. "Johannes redet schlect und einfältig wie ein Kind, und lauten seine Worte SECOND EDITION. Cambridge: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1857. Real. Mu. PREFACE. I MADE many attempts to write a commentary on the Gospel of St. John. All of them proved abortive; though each of them made me more alive to the duty of endeavouring to impart to others some of the lessons which I had received from it. At length I was convinced that unless I studied the Gospel first of all with reference to my own congregation, and used it as a lesson-book for them, I never should be able to express what was in my mind to men whom I did not know. Critics, I doubt not, will know excellent reasons why a book of Scripture cannot be satisfactorily expounded in pulpit discourses. I certainly shall not dispute their opinion. No one is more aware than myself that I have not satisfactorily expounded this book of Scripture. I have not hoped to do that. But I believe I may have given my hearers and my readers some encouragement to seek a better Expositor of it than I or any much wiser teacher can be. If a few have been led by my words to hope for that guidance, and to place themselves under it, I trust they will ask for themselves and for that we may never desert it for any other, least of all me, for our own. |
