unbelief." This struggle in the father's heart, between solicitude for
the preservation of his child, and a kind of involuntary distrust of
Christ's power to heal him, is here expressed with an air of reality
which could hardly be counterfeited.

Again (Matt. xxi. 9), the eagerness of the people to introduce Christ
into Jerusalem, and their demand, a short time afterwards, of his
crucifixion, when he did not turn out what they expected him to be, so
far from affording matter of objection, represents popular favour in
exact agreement with nature and with experience, as the flux and reflux
of a wave.

The rulers and Pharisees rejecting Christ, whilst many of the common
people received him, was the effect which, in the then state of Jewish
prejudices, I should have expected. And the reason with which they who
rejected Christ's mission kept themselves in countenance, and with which
also they answered the arguments of those who favoured it, is precisely
the reason which such men usually give:--"Have any of the Scribes or
Pharisees believed on him?" (John vii. 48.)

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