Ver. 15.—1. That every circumstance of the Scripture is instruc- tive. 2. God hath filled the Scripture with truth.
472 SUMMARY OF DOCTRINAL AND [CHAP. Ili. 16,
Ver. 16.—1. Many hear the word or voice of God to no advan- tage, but only to aggravate their sin. 2.In the most general and visible apostasies of the church, God still preserves a remnant unto himself, to bear witness unto him and for him by their faith and obedience. 3. God lays a few, ofttimes a very few, of his secret ones in the balance against the greatest multitude of rebels and trans- gressors.
Ver. 17.—1. God is not displeased with any thing in his people but sin. 2. Public sins, sins in societies, are great provocations of God. 3. God sometimes will make men who have been wickedly exemplary in sin righteously exemplary in their punishment. 4. Great destructions in a way of judgment and vengeance are insti- tuted representations of the judgment and vengeance to come.
Ver. 18.—1. All unbelief is accompanied with contumacy and rebellion. 2. Unbelief not only justifies but glorifies the greatest severities of God against them in whom it prevails. 3. The oath of God is engaged against no sin but unbelief. »
Ver. 19.—1. Whatever we consider in sin, God principally con- siders the root and spring of it in unbelief, as that which maketh the most direct and immediate opposition unto himself. 2. Unbe- lief is the immediate root and cause of all provoking sins. 3. To disbelieve God with respect unto any especial design of glorifying himself, is the greatest and highest provocation. 4, Unbelief de- prives men of all interest in or right unto the promises of God. 5. No unbeliever shall ever enter into the rest of God.
Cuap. IV. Ver. 1.—1. The gospel, in the dispensation thereof, is not only attended with promises and rewards, but also with threaten- ings and punishments. 2. Gospel comminations ought to be managed : towards all sorts of professors promiscuously, be they true believers, temporary, or hypocrites 3. Fear is the proper object of gospel comminations, which ought to be answerable to our several condi- tions and grounds of obnoxiousness unto those threatenings. 4. It is a matter of great and tremendous consequence, to have the pro- mises of God left and proposed unto us. 5. The failing of men thrgugh unbelief doth no way cause the promises of God to fail or cease. 6. The gospel state of believers is a state of assured rest and peace. 7. Many to whom the promise of the gospel is proposed and preached do or may, through their own sins, come short of the enjoy- ment of the things promised. 8. Not only backsliding through unbelief, but all appearances of tergiversation in profession, and occasions of them in times of difficulty and trials, ought to be care- fully avoided by professors. 9. They who mix not the promises of the gospel with faith shall utterly come short of entering into the rest of God.
CHAP. IV. 6.] » PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 473
Ver, 2.—1. It is a signal privilege to have the gospel preached unto us. 2. Barely to be evangelized, to have the gospel preached unto any, is a privilege of a dubious issue and event. 3. The gospel is no new doctrine, no new law. 4. God hath graciously ordered the word of the gospel to be preached unto men, whereon depends their welfare or their ruin. 5. The sole cause of the promise being ineffectual unto salvation,in and towards them to whom it is preached, is in themselves and their own unbelief. 6. There is a failing, tem- porary faith with respect unto the promises of God, which will not advantage them in whom it is. 7. The great mystery of useful and profitable believing consists in the mixing and incorporating of truth and faith in the souls and minds of believers.
Ver. 3.—1. The state of believers under the gospel is a state of blessed rest. 2. It is faith alone which is the only way and means of entering into this blessed state of rest. 3. There is a mutual in- being of the promises and threatenings of the covenant, so that in our faith and consideration of them they ought not utterly to be separated. 4. God hath shown us in his own example that work and labour is to precede our rest. 5. All the works of God are per- fect. 6. All the works of God in the creation were wrought and ordered in a subserviency unto his worship and glory thereby.
Ver. 4.—1. Whatever the Scripture saith in any place, being rightly understood and applied, is a firm foundation for faith to rest upon, and for arguments or proofs in matters of God’s worship to be deduced from. 2. It is to no purpose to press any thing in the worship of God, without producing the guthority of God for it in his word. 3. What the Scripture puts an especial mark upon is especially by us to be regarded and inquired into.
Ver. 5.—Many important truths are not clearly delivered in any one single testimony or proposition in the Scripture, but the mind of God concerning them is to be gathered and learned by comparing of several Scriptures, in order and respect to one another.
Ver. 6.—1. The faithfulness of God in his promises is not to be measured by the faith or obedience of men at any one season, in any one generation; nor by their sins whereby they come short of them, nor by any providential dispensations towards them. 2. The pro- mises of God are such as belong only to the grace of the covenant, or such as respect also the outward administration of it in this world. 3. Some, yea, many promises of God, may have a full accomplish- ment, when very few, or it may be none at all, know or take notice that so they are accomplished. 4. Some promises of God, as to their full accomplishment, may be confined unto some certain time and season, although they may have, and indeed have, their use and benefit in all seasons; and until this come there can be no failure