Excerpt from An Exposition of the Parables, Vol. 1 of 5: And of Other Parts of the Gospels To enter at large into a statement of the reasons which induced him to embark upon the present undertaking, would both occupy too much of the reader's time, and pro bably be a very uninteresting detail to any but the author himself. It is enough to observe, that if those views, re specting the distinction of kinds in the parables, and the corresponding distinction in the uses and purposes to which these kinds were respectively designed to be subservient, which he has laboured to establish in his General Introduc tion, are admitted to be just and reasonable; he feels as sured that he shall stand acquitted of the charge of pre sumption, or of obtruding an unnecessary work upon the religious world, in the composition and publication of anew Exposition of the Parables, according to the principles which he has laid down. To what portions of the gospel-narrative, the author considers the name of Parables properly to belong, will appear from the list of such as he proposed to explain, given in the first chapter of his General Introduction. The three volumes which are at present published, bring down this Exposition to the seventeenth in that list, the pa rable of the prodigal son. The remaining ten parables, are reserved for explanation in the two concluding volumes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.