Reading Thomas Manton

Last Saturday's Stott reading was on John 17 (page 238 of Through the Bible Through the Year).  He writes of it in part:

 [It] is one of the profoundest chapters of the Bible.  Whole books have been written to expound it.  Thomas Manton, for example, at one time Oliver Cromwell's chaplain, preached forty-five sermons on it it.  When published in a book, it ran to more the 450 pages.

I didn't know who Thomas Manton was, but got a start here.  Following a link from Wiki, I tracked down his "works' to this site.  I did not buy the whole set.  I kept looking and found that I could buy the book on John 17 alone here, at the publisher's web site.

(The publisher, Sovereign Grace Publications, describes itself as a "Primitive Baptist Bookseller."  My great-great grandfather, on my mother's side, a Lanford, was a Primitive Baptist minister.)

The book came yesterday.  I can't get past the first two pages of the first chapter, which is on the first verse of John 17.  I am not having trouble with the 17th century Puritan prose.  It is what Manton exposes so clearly.  I have to stop and think about it, and then talk about it to Carol.  (Who is a marvelous listener.)

John 17 is "the Lord's Prayer."  The one that Jesus taught his followers has been better described as "the Disciples' Prayer."  I believe it.