John ix. 35—­40.  “Jesus heard that they had cast him (the blind man above mentioned) out:  and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?  And he answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?  And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.  And he said, Lord, I believe; and he worshipped him.  And Jesus said.  For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”

All that the reader has now to do, is to compare the series of examples taken from Saint John with the series of examples taken from the other evangelists, and to judge whether there be not a visible agreement of manner between them.  In the above-quoted passages, the occasion is stated, as well as the reflection.  They seem, therefore, the most proper for the purpose of our argument.  A large, however, and curious collection has been made by different writers, (Newton on Daniel, p. 148, note a.  Jottin, Dis., p. 218.  Bishop Law’s Life of Christ.) of instances in which it is extremely probable that Christ spoke in allusion to some object, or some occasion then before him, though the mention of the occasion, or of the object, be omitted in the history.  I only observe that these instances are common to Saint John’s Gospel with the other three.

I conclude this article by remarking, that nothing of this manner is perceptible in the speeches recorded in the Acts, or in any other but those which are attributed to Christ, and that, in truth, it was a very unlikely manner for a forger or fabulist to attempt; and a manner very difficult for any writer to execute, if he had to supply all the materials, both the incidents and the observations upon them, out of his own head.  A forger or a fabulist would have made for Christ, discourses exhorting to virtue and dissuading from vice in general terms.  It would never have entered into the thoughts of either, to have crowded together such a number of allusions to time, place, and other little circumstances, as occur, for instance, in the sermon on the mount, and which nothing but the actual presence of the objects could have suggested (See Bishop Law’s Life of Christ).

II.  There appears to me to exist an affinity between the history of Christ’s placing a little child in the midst of his disciples, as related by the first three evangelists, (Matt. xviii. 1.  Mark ix. 33.  Luke ix. 46.) and the history of Christ’s washing his disciples’ feet, as given by Saint John. (Chap. xiii. 3.) In the stories themselves there is no resemblance.  But the affinity which I would point out consists in these two articles:  First, that both stories denote the emulation which prevailed amongst Christ’s disciples, and his own care and desire to correct it; the moral of both is the same.  Secondly, that both stories are specimens of the same manner of teaching, viz., by action; a mode of emblematic instruction extremely peculiar, and, in these passages, ascribed, we see, to our Saviour by the first three evangelists, and by Saint John, in instances totally unlike, and without the smallest suspicion of their borrowing from each other.