In our Lord’s conversation at the well (John iv. 29), Christ had surprised the Samaritan woman with an allusion to a single particular in her domestic situation, “Thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.”  The woman, soon after this, ran back to the city, and called out to her neighbours, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did.”  This exaggeration appears to me very natural; especially in the hurried state of spirits into which the woman may be supposed to have been thrown.

The lawyer’s subtilty in running a distinction upon the word neighbour, in the precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” was no less natural than our Saviour’s answer was decisive and satisfactory. (Luke x. 20.) The lawyer of the New Testament, it must be observed, was a Jewish divine.

The behaviour of Gallio (Acts xviii. 12-17), and of Festus (xxv. 18, 19), have been observed upon already.

The consistency of Saint Paul’s character throughout the whole of his history (viz. the warmth and activity of his zeal, first against, and then for, Christianity) carries with it very much of the appearance of truth.

There are also some properties, as they may be called, observable in the Gospels; that is, circumstances separately suiting with the situation, character, and intention of their respective authors.

Saint Matthew, who was an inhabitant of Galilee, and did not join Christ’s society until some time after Christ had come into Galilee to preach, has given us very little of his history prior to that period.  Saint John, who had been converted before, and who wrote to supply omissions in the other Gospels, relates some remarkable particulars which had taken place before Christ left Judea, to go into Galilee.  (Hartley’s Observations, vol. ii. p. 103.)

Saint Matthew (xv. 1) has recorded the cavil of the Pharisees against the disciples of Jesus, for eating “with unclean hands.”  Saint Mark has also (vii. 1) recorded the same transaction (taken probably from Saint Matthew), but with this addition:  “For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands often, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders:  and when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not:  and many other things there be which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables.”  Now Saint Matthew was not only a Jew himself, but it is evident, from the whole structure of his Gospel, especially from his numerous references to the Old Testament, that he wrote for Jewish readers.  The above explanation, therefore, in him, would have been unnatural, as not being wanted by the readers whom he addressed.  But in Mark, who, whatever use he might make of Matthew’s Gospel, intended his own narrative for a general circulation, and who himself travelled to distant countries in the service of the religion, it was properly added.