m by the other evangelists, yet, under this
diversity, there is a similitude of manner, which indicates that the
actions and discourses proceeded from the same person. I should have
laid little stress upon the repetition of actions substantially alike,
or of discourses containing many of the same expressions, because that
is a species of resemblance which would either belong to a true history,
or might easily be imitate in a false one. Nor do I deny that a dramatic
writer is able to sustain propriety and distinction of character through
a great variety of separate incidents and situations. But the
evangelists were not dramatic writers; nor possessed the talents of
dramatic writers; nor will it, I believe, be suspected that they studied
uniformity of character, or ever thought of any such thing in the person
who was the subject of their histories. Such uniformity, if it exist,
is on their part casual; and if there be, as I contend there is, a
perceptible resemblance of manner, in passages, and between discourses,
which are in themselves extremely distinct, and are delivered by
historians writing without any imitation of, or reference to, one
another, it affords a just presumption that these are what they profess
to be, the actions and the discourses of the same real person; that the
evangelists wrote from fact, and not from imagination.

The article in which I find this agreement most strong is in our
Saviour's mode of teaching, and in that particular property of it which
consists in his drawing of his doctrine from the occasion; or, which is
nearly the same thing, raising reflections from the objects and
incidents before him, or turning a particular discourse then passing
into an opportunity of general instruction.

It will be my business to point out this manner in the first three
evangelists; and then to inquire whether it do not appear also in several
examples of Christ's discourses preserved by Saint John.

The reader will observe in the following quotations that the Italic
letter contains the reflection; the common letter the incident or
occasion from which it springs.

Matt. xii. 47--50. "Then they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy
brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and
said unto him that told him, Who is my mother; and who are my brethren?
And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said, Behold
my mother and my brethren: for whosoever shall do the will