fear; many of their number have been shattered and wrecked by the way, but some of them, tossed to and fro for a season, at the last have just weathered the storm, and are safely landed on the heavenly shore: Those, in the third place, who did, in divine reality, find their way to the Saviour; whose heart and mind were truly, and consciously, and delightfully brought under the power of his grace; who could not be satisfied with a distant worship, or a distant hope, a half acceptance, or a divided heart; but like the woman that came to the Lord and touched him, and felt within herself that her plague was healed, so they came to Jesus Christ. They pressed on their way till they came to him. They were truly and powerfully turned from darkness to light, and translated from the bondage of Satan into the glorious kingdom of God's dear Son.

It is surely a duty of self-examination, that each of us frequently ask ourselves, to which of these characters we belong. Are we those who are certainly unconverted, however near to an escape from that sad condition? Are we those who are really partakers of a divine renewing, and therefore assured that we are, by a true and living faith, the saved people of Jesus Christ? Or are we those who are so little moved by the truth as it is in Jesus, or so much blinded by a false estimation of ourselves, that we cannot feel sure, upon good and scriptural ground, or others feel sure concerning us, whose we are, whom we serve, where we are going, or what will become of us when we die?

To assist in this enquiry, we are taking, in succession, those individual cases, which respectively belong to each of these descriptions of character, and which illustrate what they are. And we have now completed our notice of the First Part of this enquiry,

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those five descriptions of defectiveness, of different kinds and degrees, in eight particular cases, which serve to exemplify to us how it is that it happens, that some, even hopeful and promising characters, do yet, to an awful certainty, fall short of the kingdom of God. So that now to sum up those cases, in the way of self-application, we may say to you, brethren, with a strong and positive assurance, that if your state, with respect to revealed truth, is like to that state of Simon, (or the similar one of Ananias,) "baptized, believing, wondering, and continuing," but all the while, your heart not right in the sight of God;" as it is strongly expressed by a late very eminent writer, "Many great services have been performed, many glorious works are wrought by men, which yet are utterly rejected by God, and shall never stand upon record in order to an eternal acceptation, because they took no heed to keep their hearts with God in those duties;" if this is your state, brethren, then it cannot be a state of evangelical conversion: Or if, like Herod, or Judas, in the midst of religious means, and opportunities, and feelings, and enjoyments, you are living in the practice of moral sin: Or if, like Felix, your mind is enlightened to " a perfect knowledge" of the truth, and your conscience "trembles" under it, but your heart is not drawn nor affected by it: Or if, like Agrippa, or the Young Enquirer, you are only “almost persuaded;" your will is not thoroughly turned, however nearly it be so; you shrink from the test which

is given you, "Take up the cross, and follow me:" Or, if you have all these different qualifications, but still, like Demas, you have not abided and persevered in them, but have "forsaken" the way, "having loved this present world:"-then, I say, we must say to you, with a strong and positive assurance, then you are not converted; you are yet a stranger and an alien to the inward work and experience of saving, regenerating, sanctifying grace.

But perhaps, upon close examination, you are not exactly authorised to pronounce this against yourself, that you are in a state of certain and positive unconversion, and therefore in certain danger of final condemnation. Then we have next to remind you, that next to that state of certain danger, there is also the state of uncertain safety, and therefore of fearful and doubtful risk. Is it then a matter of doubt with you, and are you content that it should remain so, whether or not you have fled for refuge to the hope set before you in the Gospel, and are saved and delivered, by a real salvation, from the present evil world? Then, next we must say to you, and prove and testify it, as the Second Part of our subject,—that of all the dangerous uncertainties, in which a human being can be, in the present uncertain existence, surely this is the worst and the most adventurous. A man may have all his worldly property risked in some doubtful speculation. A man may not be able to tell, as to earthly things, what a single day may bring forth to him. He may be uncertain of health for a single hour, or what shall befal him, or how long he shall live, or perhaps how soon he may die. But who would be doubtful, who would be out at risk, what shall be the final end of his pilgrimage, and the state of his soul in the world to come? Who would be in darkness, when he might be in peaceful assurance, what shall become of him after death, and where he is going to, when he must leave this world? I shall therefore endeavour to make these Doubtful Cases,-these doubtful cases of conversion, the subject of one discourse:* "Among the chief rulers," says our text, many believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; but because of the Pharisees

By way of completing this Second Part, upon Doubtfulness of character, I have also appended to this, four other sermons, on the principal points of evidence, viz. on the four chief characteristics of spiritual religion, (see page 124,) in order that it may be better competent to "them that read," to enter thereafter on the cases of Real Conversion, in the Second Volume of the Work,

they did not confess him: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

It is not known to us who all of these rulers were; but three of them are mentioned in other parts of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. They are mentioned in such a way, as to lead us to calculate, that they were the characters here referred to. One was Nicodemus. Another was Gamaliel. Another was Joseph of Arimathea. These were all of them amongst the chief rulers; that is, they were counsellors, members of the senate, or, as it was called, the Sanhedrim. Nicodemus is called a Pharisee," a "ruler of the Jews," a "master in Israel." He is three times mentioned. He ". came to Jesus by night." He ventured to speak in a sort for the Lord in the Sanhedrim, and the question was presently put to him, “Art thou also a Galilean?” He came with Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple, to bury the body of Christ. And, if we can trust the tradition of the Church, he was finally beaten by the Jews, and driven out of the council,* and hid by his uncle Gamaliel, on account of the Christian faith. Gamaliel was also a "ruler," a 66 'Pharisee," a member of the "council," and a "doctor of the law." He was the teacher of St. Paul. He stood up in the council, and spake a word for the apostles; "if their work be of men, it will come to nought, but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it: refrain, and let them alone." Tradition also informs us of him, that he buried the martyr St. Stephen, and buried his nephew Nicodemus by St. Stephen's grave.† Joseph of Arimathea was also a ruler of the Jews. He is called a counsellor," and a "rich and honourable man." He had not 66 sented" to the deed of the council in the death of Jesus Christ. He "buried the body of Jesus," and is de

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Photius Cod. 171. John iii. 1, 2, 10. —vii. 48-52. —xix. 39. + Lucian de St. Steph. invent. Acts. vi. 34, 38, 39. -xxii. 3.

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clared to have been "his disciple;" but then it is also said of him, that he was that disciple 66 secretly for fear of the Jews."*

Now then these were the rulers that believed in the name of our Lord, but did not confess him, for fear of the rest of their sect. With all their degrees of attachment to him, they "loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Whether we can trust the tradition that all of them were converted, and that one of them, Joseph of Arimathea, died as a martyr to the Christian faith, is of course a matter of doubt. Gamaliel appears, as far as we read of him, to have been the farthest off from the truth. Joseph appears to have been the nearest, for it is positively said of him, that he also waited for the kingdom of God." But still they all of them stand before us in the Word, not as decided, bold, devoted Christians, but as persons of whom there is room to doubt. So that when their doings are read by us, the mind unavoidably connects with their history, a sort of uncertain feeling as to their true character.

Many and great are the causes which render it doubtful, in ordinary cases, whether any individual person is a true disciple of Jesus Christ. But to confine ourselves to the particular cases before us, those of these rulers of the Jews; the causes of doubt, as to being a true disciple of Jesus Christ, are principally three.

1. The doubt of adherence.
II. The doubt of knowledge.
III. And the doubt of character.

I. There is, first, the doubt of adherence: that is, the doubt which arises, and must arise, in the mind, *Mark xv. 43. Luke xxiii. 50, 51. John xix. 38.