5. if they would--"were willing to"
      testify--but this, of course, they were not, it being a strong point in his favor.
      after the most straitest--"the strictest."
      sect--as the Pharisees confessedly were. This was said to meet the charge, that as a Hellenistic Jew he had contracted among the heathen lax ideas of Jewish peculiarities.

JFB.