If miraculous power holds him up and makes good his daring, he is more than man; but if otherwise, to have failed will break all his bones.

I can no longer give the same human reverence as before to one who has been seduced into vanity so egregious; and I feel assured _a priori_ that such presumption _must have_ entangled him into evasions and insincerities, which _naturally_ end in crookedness of conscience and real imposture, however noble a man's commencement, and however unshrinking his sacrifices of goods and ease and life.
The time arrived at last, when Jesus felt that he must publicly assert Messiahship; and this was certain to bring things to an issue.

I suppose him to have hoped that he was Messiah, until hope and the encouragement given him by Peter and others grew into a persuasion strong enough to act upon, but not always strong enough to still misgivings.

I say, I suppose this; but I build nothing on my supposition.

I however see, that when he had resolved to claim Messiahship publicly, one of two results was inevitable, _if_ that claim was ill-founded:--viz., either he must have become an impostor, in order to screen his weakness; or, he must have retracted his pretensions amid much humiliation, and have retired into privacy to learn sober wisdom.