Chapter VIII: Part 2: The purpose continued.--"Delivering thee from the people, and

from the Gentiles, unto whom I now send thee." This, we see, is but a continuation of the same put-off: no revelation, no doctrine, no Gospel here. As to the doctrine--the Gospel--that Gospel which he preached, and which he said was his own, no such Gospel is on this occasion given to him; and, not being so much as reported to have been given to him on any other occasion, was it not therefore of his own making, and without any such supernatural assistance, as Christians have been hitherto made to believe was given to him?

As to the deliverance from the people and from the Gentiles, this is a clause, put in with reference to the dangers, into which the intemperance of his ambition had plunged him, and from whence in part it had been his lot to escape. Here then the sub-king and his Roman superior were desired to behold the accomplishment of a prophecy: but the prophecy was of that sort which came after the fact.--"Unto whom now I send thee..." In this they were desired to see a continuation of the prophecy: for, as to this point, it was, in the hope of the prophet, of the number of those, which not only announce, but by announcing contribute to, their own accomplishment.