474 SUMMARY OF DOCTRINAL AND -[ CHAP. IV. 7.
charged, though they be not fulfilled. 5. There are many promises whose signal accomplishment God hath not limited to any especial season, but keeps it in his own will to act according to them towards his church as is best suited to his wisdom and love. 6. Some con- cerns of the glory of God in the world may suspend the full and outward accomplishment of some promises for a season. 7. When the accomplishment of promises seemeth to be deferred, we are not to faint in our duty.
Ver. 7.—1. In reading and hearing the Scripture, we ought to consider God speaking in it and by it unto us. 2, Divine inspira- tion, or the authority of God speaking in and by the penmen of the Scripture, is the ground and foundation of our faith, and is that which gives them authority over our consciences and efficacy in them. 3. The holy Scripture is an inexhaustible treasury or repository of spiritual mysteries and sacred truths. 4. Many important truths lie deep and secret in the Scripture, and stand in need of a very dili- gent search and hard digging in their investigation, and for their finding out. 5. For searching the Scriptures aright there is re- quired a peculiar humble and teachable frame of spirit; 6. Earnest prayer for the guidance, direction, assistance, and illumination, of the Holy Ghost, to enable us to find out, discern, and understand the deep things of God; 7. Endeavour, in all inquirings into the word, to mind and aim at the same ends which God hath in the giving and granting of it unto us. 8. They that would search the Seriptures, to find out the sacred truths that lie hid in them, ought to take care that they entertain no corrupt lusts in their hearts and minds. 9. Sedulity and constancy in this duty are a great help to a profitable discharge of it. 10. In our search after truth, our minds are greatly to be influenced and guided by the analogy of faith; 11. A due consideration of the nature of the discourse wherein any words are used. 12. The proper grammatical sense of the words themselves is duly to be inquired into and pondered.
Ver. 8.—1. There is no true rest for the souls of men but only in Jesus Christ by the gospel. 2. Other things will not give rest to the souls of men. 38. The gospel church-state is a state of spiri- tual rest in Christ. 4. It is a great mercy and privilege to have a day of rest and worship given unto us.
Ver. 9.—1, Believers under the new testament have lost nothing, no privilege that was enjoyed by them under the old. 2. It is the people of God alone who have a right unto all the privileges of the gospel, and who in a due manner can perform the duties of it. 3. The people of God, as such, have work to do, and labour incumbent on them. 4. God hath graciously given his people an entrance into rest during their state of work and labour, to sweeten it unto them,
CHAP. IY. 13.] PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 475
and to enable them for it. 5, Believers may and do find assured rest in a due attendance unto and performance of the duties of the gospel. 6. There is a weekly sacred rest appointed for believers under the gospel.
Ver. 10.—1. The whole church, all the duties, worship, and privi- leges of it, are founded in the person, authority, and actions of Jesus Christ. 2. The first day of the week, the day of the resurrection of Christ, when he rested from his work, is appointed and determined for a day of rest or Sabbath unto the church, to be constantly ob- served in the room of the seventh day, appointed and observed from the foundation of the world under the old testament.
Ver. 11.—1, That great oppositions will and do arise against men in the work of entering into God’s rest. 2. That as the utmost of our labours and endeavours are required to our obtaining an entrance into the rest of Christ, so it dgth very well deserve that they should be laid out therein, 3. There is a present excellency in and a pre- sent reward attending gospel faith and obedience. 4. Precedent judgments on others are monitory ordinances to us. 5. It is better to have an example than to be made an example of divine dis- pleasure. 6. We ought to have no expectation of escaping ven- geance under the guilt of those sins which others, in a like manner guilty of, have not escaped.
Ver. 12, 13.—1. It is the way of the Spirit of God, to excite us unto especial duties, by proposing unto us and reminding us of such properties of God as the consideration whereof may in an especial manner incline us unto them. 2. The life and power of Christ are continually exercised about the concerns of the souls of professors. 3. The power of Christ in his word is irresistible, as to whatever effects he doth design in it. 4 Though men may close and hide things from themselves and others, yet they cannot exclude the power of Christ in his word from piercing into them. 5, The Lord Christ discerneth all inward and spiritual things, in order to his pre- sent and future judgment of those things, and the persons in whom they are. 6. It is no trouble or labour to the Word of God to dis- cern all creatures, and all that is of them and in them, seeing that there is nothing but is evidently apparent, open, and naked, under his all-seeing eye. 7. It is a great and difficult matter really and practically to convince professors of the practical judging omni- science of Jesus Christ in the word of God. 8. That the beginnings or entrances into declensions in profession, or backslidings from Christ and the gospel, are secret, deep, and hardly discoverable. 9 A due and holy consideration at all times of the all-seeing eye of Jesus Christ is a great preservative against backslidings or declensions in profession. 10. A due and holy consideration of the omnisciency