AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO
S T. J O H N
It is not
material to enquire when and where this gospel was written; we are sure that
it was given by inspiration of God to John, the brother of James, one of the
twelve apostles, distinguished by the honourable character of that disciple
whom Jesus loved, one of the first three of the worthies of the Son of
David, whom he took to be the witnesses of his retirements, particularly of
his transfiguration and his agony. The ancients tell us that John lived
longest of all the twelve apostles, and was the only one of them that died a
natural death, all the rest suffering martyrdom; and some of them say that he
wrote this gospel at Ephesus, at the request of the ministers of the several
churches of Asia, in opposition to the heresy of Corinthus and the Ebionites,
who held that our Lord was a mere man. It seems most probable that he
wrote it before his banishment into the isle of Patmos, for there he wrote his
Apocalypse, the close of which seems designed for the closing up of the
canon of scripture; and, if so, this gospel was not written after. I cannot
therefore give credit to those later fathers, who say that he wrote it in his
banishment, or after his return from it, many years after the destruction of
Jerusalem; when he was ninety years old, saith one of them; when he was a
hundred, saith another of them. However, it is clear that he wrote last of the
four evangelists, and, comparing his gospel with theirs, we may observe, 1.
That he relates what they had omitted; he brings up the rear,
and his gospel is as the rearward or gathering host; it gleans
up what they has passed by. Thus there was a later collection of
Solomon's wise sayings (Prov. xxv. 1), and yet far short of what he delivered,
1 Kings iv. 32. 2. That he gives us more of the mystery of that of
which the other evangelists gave us only the history. It was necessary
that the matters of fact should be first settled, which was done in their declarations
of those things which Jesus began both to do and teach, Luke i. 1; Acts i.
1. But, this being done out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, John
goes on to perfection (Heb. vi. 1), not laying again the foundation,
but building upon it, leading us more within the veil. Some of the ancients
observe that the other evangelists wrote more of the ta
swmatika--the bodily things of Christ; but
John writes of the ta pneumatika--the
spiritual things of the gospel, the life and soul of it; therefore some
have called this gospel the key of the evangelists. Here is it that a door
is opened in heaven, and the first voice we hear is, Come up hither,
come up higher. Some of the ancients, that supposed the four living creatures
in John's vision to represent the for evangelists, make John himself to be the
flying eagle, so high does he soar, and so clearly
does he see into divine and heavenly things.
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