Ver. 15.—1. The grace, love, and good-will of God, in the adop- tion, justification, sanctification, and glorification of believers, is proposed unto all in the gospel, as that which may infallibly be attained in the due use of the means thereunto appointed, namely, sincere faith in Christ Jesus. 2. The outward profession of the gospel, with the performance of the duties and enjoyment of the privileges thereunto belonging, will not of themselves instate any man in the grace of God, or in an assured interest therein. 3. There is no man who, under the profession of the gospel, comes short of obtaining the grace and favour of God, but it is by reason of himself and his own sin. 4, Negligence and sloth, missing of opportunities, and love of sin, all proceeding from unbelief, are the only causes why men, under the profession of the gospel, do fail of the grace of God. 5. The root of apostasy from God and the profession of the gospel may abide invisibly in professing churches. 6. Spiritual
CHAP. XII. 19.] PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. . 585
evils in churches are progressive. 7. It is the duty of churches, what in them lies, to prevent their own trouble as well as the ruin of others. 8. There is a latent disposition in negligent professors to receive infection by spiritual defilements, if they are not watched against. 9. Church inspection is a blessed ordinance and duty, which is designed by Christ himself as a means to prevent these contagious evils in churches.
Ver. 16, 17.—1. That church which ‘ildehagt in its communion men living in such gross sins as fornication has utterly, as unto its discipline, departed from the rule of the gospel. 2. Apostatizing professors are prone to sins of uncleanness. 3. Evil examples pro- posed in Scripture light, divested of all colours and pretences, laid open in their roots and causes, are efficacious warnings unto be- lievers to abstain from all occasions leading unto the like evils, and much more from the evils themselves. 4. Where there is in any a latent predominant principle of profaneness, a sudden temptation or trial will let it out unto the greatest evils. 5. This principle of profaneness, in preferring the morsels of this world before the birth- right privileges of the church, is that which at this day threatens the present ruin of religion.
Ver. 17.—1. The example of Esau cuts off all hopes from outward privileges, where there is an inward profaneness of heart. 2. Pro- fane apostates have a limited season only wherein the recovery of the blessing is possible. 3. The severity of God in dealing with apostates is a blessed ordinance for the preservation of them that believe, and the edification of the whole church. 4. Sin may be the occasion of great sorrow, where there is no sorrow for sin, as it was with Esau. 5. No man knows whereunto a deliberate sin may lead him, nor what will be the event of it. 6. Profaneness and de- spising spiritual privileges is a sin that God at one time or other will testify his severity against. 7. Steadfastness in faith, with sub- mission unto the will of God, will establish the soul in those duties - which are most irksome unto flesh and blood.
Ver. 18, 19.—1. A view of God as a judge, represented in fire and blackness, will fill the souls of convinced sinners with dread and terror. 2. Where God calls sinners to answer the law, there is no avoiding of an appearance; the terrible summons and citation will draw them out whether they will or not. 3. It is a blessed change, to be removed from the summons of the law to answer for the guilt of sin, unto the invitation of the gospel to come and accept of mercy and pardon. 4, Let no man ever think or hope to appear before God with confidence or peace, unless he have an answer in readiness unto all the words of this law, all that it requires of us. 5. No outward privilege, such as this was, to hear the voice of God,
536 * SUMMARY OF DOCTRINAL AND [CHAP. XII. 22.
is sufficient of itself to preserve men from such sins and rebellions as shall render them obnoxious to divine displeasure. 6. Then is the sinner utterly overwhelmed, when he hath a sense of the voice of God himself in the law. 7. Thespeaking of the law doth imme- diately discover the invincible necessity of a mediator between God and sinners. 8. If the giving of the law was so full of terror that the people could not bear it, but apprehended that they must die if God continued to speak it to them, what will be the execution of its curse in a way of vengeance at the last day?
VER. 22-24.—1. All pleas about church order, power, rights, and privileges, are useless, where men are not interested in this Sion state. 2. It is our duty well to consider what sort of persons they ought to be who are meet to be denizens of this city of God. 3. The church is the safest society in the world. 4. The church is the most honourable society in the world, for all the angels in heaven belong to it. 5. We may hence see the folly of that voluntary humility in worshipping of angels which the apostle condemns, and which is openly practised in the church of Rome. 6. It is the highest madness for any one to pretend himself to be the head of the church, as the pope doth, unless he assume also to himself to be the head of all the angels in heaven; for they all belong to the same church with the saints here below. 7. The revelation of the glorious mystery of this general assembly is one of the most excellent pre- eminences of the gospel above the law. 8. Jesus Christ alone is absolutely the first-born and heir of all. 9. Under the old testament the promises of Christ, and that he was to proceed from that people according to the flesh, gave the title of sonship unto the church of Israel. 10. All the right and title of believers under the old testa- ment unto sonship, or the right of the first-born, arises merely from their interest in him and participation of him who is absolutely so. 11. It is a glorious privilege to be brought unto this blessed society, this general assembly of the first-born. 12. If we are come unto this assembly, it is our duty carefully to behave ourselves as becometh the members of this society. 13. All contests about church order, state, interest, power, with whom the church is, are vain, empty, fruitless, unprofitable, among those who cannot evidence that they belong unto this general assembly. 14. Eternal election is the rule of the dispensation of effectual grace, to call and collect an assembly of first-born unto God. 15. In Jesus Christ believers are delivered from all discouraging dread and terror in the consideration of God asajudge. 16. Such is the pre-eminence of the gospel state above that of the law, that whereas they of old were severely forbidden to make any approach unto the outward signs of the presence of God, we have now an access with boldness unto his throne. 17. As the