1869
IN issuing this book anew, I have scarcely anything to add to what I wrote in issuing it before. I have very carefully revised it, more than once or twice; not so much, however, it is fair to say, with a view to its being more learned or critical, as with a view to its bringing out more clearly what I thought I had ascertained to be the Apostle’s general line of thought.
I have accordingly—still making my table of contents a sort of index or analysis of the teachings of the Epistle—made some slight alterations upon it. I do not think it possible indeed to reduce this warm outflow of the loving Apostle’s heart into regular and exact logical order; and if I indicate successive parts, it is with the full apprehension of the thoughts and feelings brought out in them running into one another. But I fasten on three emphatic words: Light, Righteousness, Love; “God is light,” “God is righteous,” “God is love;” and with a preliminary statement of the general idea of the Apostolic fellowship, and a fourth or concluding part about its prevalence over the fellowship of the world and the wicked one in whom the world lies, I am inclined to hope that I have indicated somewhat better than I did before the general lie of the country.
It is fair also to say that, in revising these lectures, I have not lost sight of my teaching as to the Fatherhood of God, on which, as I have explained in the Preface to my former edition, the study of this Epistle had a material influence. I hope to follow up this new issue of my Exposition of 1 John, with a corresponding re-issue of my Cunningham Lectures.
