The Miscellaneous Works of Archibald Mclean

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ... chap. vi. contents and scope. Though the apostle, towards the close of the preceding chapter, reproves the Hebrews for their culpable ignorance of certain first principles of the oracles of God; yet he here informs them, that he does not at present mean to insist on these, or to lay again the foundation of repentance from dead works, &c., but to carry them forward to higher perfection in christian knowledge, if God should permit; therefore he contents himself with barely mentioning these initiatory principles, in which they had been formerly instructed, ver. 1, 2, 3. Meantime, to make them sensible of the danger of their declining state, and to rouse their attention to the discoveries he was about to make to them, he sets before them the aggravated guilt and dreadful punishment of apostacy, ver. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. But lest the severity of his repooof, and what he had said of the awful doom of apostates, should discourage the Hebrews, he softens his reprehension by telling them, that he was persuaded better things of them, and things which accompany salvation, though he thus spake. This persuasion he grounds on the righteousness or faithfulness of God, and on the evidence they had already given, and were still giving, of love towards his name, in ministering to the necessities of the saints: Yet he earnestly exhorts every one of them to persevere in that charitable work to the full assurance of hope unto the end; and that they be not slothful, but imitators of the faithful patriarchs, who through faith and patience inherit tlie promises, ver. 9, 10, 11, 12. This leads him, for their encouragement, to speak of the promise which God made to Abraham, Gen. xii. 2, 3, and afterwards renewed and confirmed to him, Gen. xxiL 16, 17, in which he...