Ver. 11.—1. Our profession will not be preserved, nor the work of faith and love carried on, unto the glory of God and our own sal- vation, without a constant studious diligence in the preservation of the one and the exercise of the other. 2. Ministerial exhortation unto dutyis needful even unto them who are sincere in the prac- tice of it, that they may abide and continue therem. 3. Whereas there are degrees in spiritual saving graces and their operations, we ought continually to press towards the most perfect of them. 4 Hope, being improved by the due exercise of faith and love, will grow up into such an assurance of rest, life, immortality, and glory, as shall outweigh all the troubles and persecutions that in this world may befall us on the account of our profession or otherwise.
Ver. 12.—1. Spiritual sloth is ruinous of any profession, though otherwise never so hopeful. 2. Faith and patient long-suftering are the only way whereby professors of the gospel may attain rest with God, in the accomplishment of the promises. 3. All the chil- dren of God have a right unto an inheritance. 4, The providing of examples for us in the Scripture, which we ought to imitate and follow, is an effectual way of teaching, and a great fruit of the care and kindness of God towards us.
Ver. 13-16—1. We have need of every thing that any way evidenceth the stability of God’s promises to be represented unto us, for the encouragement and confirmation of our faith. 2. The grant and communication of spiritual privileges is a mere act or effect of sovereign grace. 3. Where the promise of God is absolutely en- gaged, it will break through all difficulties to a perfect accomplish- ment. 4, Although there may be privileges attending some pro- mises that may be peculiarly appropriated to some certain persons,
AS4 SUMMARY OF DOCTRINAL AND [CHAP. VI. 17.
yet the grace of all promises is equal to all believers. 5. Whatever difficulty and opposition may lie in the way, patient endurance in faith and obedience will infallibly bring us unto the full enjoyment of the promises. 6. Faith gives such an interest unto believers in all the promises of God, as that they obtain even those promises,—that is the benefit and comfort of them,—whose actual accomplishment in this world they do not behold. 7. There is, as we are in a state of nature, a strife and difference between God and us. 8. The pro- mises of God are gracious proposals of the only way and means for the ending of that strife. 9. The oath of God, interposed for the confirmation of these promises, is every way sufficient to secure be- lievers against all objections and temptations, in all straits and trials, about peace with God through Jesus Christ. 10. That the custom of using oaths, swearing, cursing, or imprecation, in common com- munication, is not only an open transgression of the third command- ment, which God hath threatened to revenge, but it is a practical renunciation also of all the authority of Jesus Christ, who hath so expressly interdicted it. 11. Whereas swearing by the name of God in truth, righteousness, and judgment, is an ordinance of God for the end of strife amongst men, perjury is justly reckoned amongst the worst and highest of sins, and is that which reflects the greatest dishonour on God, and tendeth to the ruin of human so- ciety. 12. Readiness in some to swear on slight occasions, and the ordinary impositions of oaths on all sorts of persons, without a due consideration on either hand of the nature, ends, and properties of lawful swearing, are evils greatly to be lamented, and in God's good time, among Christians, will be reformed.
Ver. 17-20.—1. The purpose of God for the saving of the elect by Jesus Christ is an act of infinite wisdom, as well as of sovereign grace. 2. The life and assurance of our present comforts and future glory depend on the immutability of God’s counsel. 3. The pur- pose of God concerning the salvation of the elect by Jesus Christ became immutable from hence, that the determination of his will was accompanied with infinite wisdom. 4. Infinite goodness, as act- ing itself in Christ, was not satisfied in providing and preparing good things for believers, but it would also show and declare it unto them, for their present consolation. 5. It is not all mankind universally, but a certain number of persons, under certain qualifications, to whom God designs to manifest the immutability of his counsel, and to communicate the effects thereof. 6. God alone knows the due measures of divine condescension, or what becomes the divine nature therein. 7 So unspeakable is the weakness of our faith, that we
stand in need of inconceivable divine condescension for its confirma- .
tion, 8. Fallen, sinful man stands in need of the utmost encourage-
a
CHAP. VI. 20.] PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 485
ment that divine condescension can extend unto, to prevail with him to receive the promise of grace and mercy by Jesus Christ. 9. Sense of danger and ruin from sin is the first thing which occasions a soul to look out after Christ in the promise. 10. A full conviction of sin is a great and shaking surprisal unto a guilty soul. 11. The reve- lation or discovery of the promise, or of Christ in the promise, is that alone which directs convinced sinners into their proper course and way. 12. Where there is the least of saving faith, upon the first discovery of Christ in the promise, it will stir up the whole soul to make out towards him and a participation of him. 18. It is the duty and wisdom of all those unto whom Christ in the promise is once discovered, by any gospel means or ordinance once set before them, to admit of no delay of a thorough closing with him. 14. There is a spiritual strength and vigour required unto the securing of our interest in the promise, xparjous, “to lay fast and firm hold upon it.” 15. The promise is an assured refuge unto all sin-distressed souls who betake themselves thereunto. 16. Where any souls, con- vineed of sin by the charge of the law, and of their own lost condition thereon, do betake themselves unto the promise for relief, God is abundantly willing that they should receive strong consolation. 17. All true believers are exposed to storms and tempests in this world. 18. These storms would prove ruinous unto the souls of believers, were they not indefeasibly interested by faith and hope in the pro- mise of the gospel. 19. No distance of place, no interposition of difficulties, can hinder the hope of believers from entering into the presence of and fixing itself on God in Christ. 20. The strength and assurance of the faith and hope of believers is invisible unto the world. 21. Hope firmly fixed on God in Christ by the promise will hold steady, and preserve the soul in all the storms and trials that may befall it. 22. It is our wisdom at all times, but especially in times of trial, to be sure that our anchor have a good hold-fast in - heaven. 23. After the most sincere performance of the best of our duties, our comforts and securities are centred in Christ alone. 24. As the minds of men are greatly to be prepared for the communi- cation of spiritual mysteries unto them, so the best preparation is by the cure of their sinful and corrupt affections, with the removal of their barrenness under what they have before learned and been in- structed in. 25. This same Jesus is our Saviour in every state and condition,—the same on the cross, and the same at the right hand of | the Majesty on high. 26. The Lord Jesus having entered into hea- yen as our forerunner, gives us manifold security of our entrance thither also in the appointed season. 27. If the Lord Christ be entered into heaven as our forerunner, it is our duty to be following him with all the speed we can. 28. We may see whereon the secu-