Since you're going four levels deep, you need four styles. If you want the auto-numbering for topic titles and sub-headings within those topics, then you'll most likely want to use the <h1> through <h4> styles.
In the stylesheet (most likely in the print medium unless you want this format for online output, too) set up the following auto-number formats.
For h1: GH: {n+}. --> This results in 1., 2., 3., for the first heading the topic. The GH is telling it to create a global counter so that your numbers don't start over at 1 at each topic. The plus is what tells it to increment.
For h2: GH: {n}.{n+} --> The first brace set (bracelet?) tells it to use the current number of the first set of n, which since it has a global counter will continue to increment from topic to topic. The plus on the second set tells it to increment the second set. This will result in 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 numbering.
For h3: GH: {n}.{n}.{n+}
For h4: GH: {n}.{n}.{n}.{n+}
The system remembers what each value of n is within each brace set. So if you're in a topic and already have an h1, h2, and h3 declared and throw in a few h4 tags, then it'll get the correct values for each set. Note that as you write the topics, they'll always appear to start with the number 1 at the top-most level -- it's only when you build the output that it resolves the numbers so that they increment throughout the file.
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