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The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning. Hugh Binning
Читать онлайн.Название The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
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isbn 4064066104801
Автор произведения Hugh Binning
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
It will be thought that the Latin quotations, which the author has introduced into his sermons, might have been spared. These show a mind richly stored with classical learning. They are not forced or unnatural. All of them are appropriate, and many of them singularly felicitous. Still it will be conceived that they would have appeared with more propriety and better effect, in an academical disquisition, or a concio ad clerum, than in sermons preached in a country church. But in justice to Binning, it is proper to observe, he did nothing more than follow the example of the most celebrated preachers who had preceded him. Bishop Burnet remarks with considerable severity of the English divines, who appeared before Tillotson, Lloyd, and Stillingfleet, that their sermons were “both long and heavy, when all was pye balled, full of many sayings of different languages.”61 The sermons of the learned Joseph Mede, who died in 1638, are filled not only [pg xxvi] with Greek and Latin quotations, but with Hebrew, and Chaldee, and Syriac. But his biographer very ingenuously admits, that when he had occasion to quote from a work written in any of the Eastern languages, if the testimonies were long, Mede usually gave a Latin version of them, “as judging it perhaps more fit and useful to quote them in a language which might be understood by all that heard him, even by the younger students, than to make an astonishing clatter, with many words of a strange sound, and of an unknown sense to some in the auditory.”62 In the discourses of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, who outlived Binning we likewise meet with innumerable quotations, both in Greek and Latin, from the classics and from the fathers. And though we might be disposed to infer the contrary, those discourses were not composed for the benefit of the learned members of a university. As the author himself has informed us they were all preached at Golden Grove, to the family and domestics of his patron and perhaps in addition to these, to a few of their neighbours and as many of the peasantry on the estate as could understand English.63 The common people in England were so much accustomed in those days to hear Latin spoken in the pulpit, that they were sometimes led to undervalue a preacher who did not make some use of it. When Dr. Pollock, the celebrated orientalist, was presented to the rectory of Childry, near Oxford, he considered it to be his duty to adapt his instructions to what he thought to be the capacity of his rustic parishioners. This made some of them lament to one of his friends that he was “no Latiner.”64 An unseasonable display of learning by Dr. Manton, on the other hand, when preaching in St. Paul's, on some public occasion, instead of awakening admiration, subjected him to a reproof which he felt very keenly. On returning home in the evening, a poor man following him, gently pulled him by the sleeve of his gown, and asked him if he were the gentleman who had preached that day before my Lord Mayor. He answered he was “Sir,” said he, “I came with earnest desires after the word of God, and hopes of getting some good to my soul, but I was greatly disappointed, for I could not understand a great deal of what you said—you were quite above me.” The Doctor replied, with tears in his eyes, “Friend, if I did not give you a sermon, you have given me one.”65 Massillon was one of the first French preachers who abstained, in the pulpit, from the use of citations from profane authors. In the first sermon of his “Petit Careme,” he has a quotation from Sallust. But he does not name the author, nor does he give the words in the original. He merely gives the meaning of them, introducing his quotation in this manner, as one of the ancients says, “comme dit un ancien.” This, it is believed, is the only instance of the kind that is to be found in the sermons of that eloquent preacher.66
Some may be desirous to know how it was that a practice so different from ours, and so much opposed to the good sense and the good taste of modern times, was formerly so common, or by what arguments it was attempted to be defended. Abraham Wright, one of the Fellows of St. John the Baptist's College, Oxford, undertook this task. He published a book in 1656, under this title, “Five Sermons in Five several Styles, or Waies of Preaching.” These different ways of preaching were what he characterized as Bishop Andrews' way, Bishop Hall's way, Dr. Maine and Mr. Cartwright's way, the Presbyterian way, and the Independent way. All of the sermons, with the exception of the last, contain specimens of the “Babylonish dialect” of the age. But this, in the estimation of Abraham Wright, was not their least recommendation. “You are also taught from these leaves,” says he,67 “that secular learning is not so heathenish, but it may be made Christian. Plato, and Socrates, and Seneca, were not of such a reprobate sense, as to stand wholly excommunicate. The same man may be both a poet and a prophet, a philosopher and an apostle. Virgil's fancie was as high as the Magi's star, and [pg xxvii] might lead wise men in the West as clearly to their Saviour, as that light did those Eastern sages. And so, likewise, Seneca's positions may become Saint Paul's text; Aristotle's metaphysicks convince an atheist of a God, and his demonstrations prove Shiloes advent to a Jew. That great apostle of the Gentiles had never converted those nations, without the help of their own learning. It was the Gentiles oratorie, yet not without the Holy Ghost's rhetorick, that did almost perswade Agrippa to be a Christian; and it was the Gentiles poetrie, but not without a Deitie in the verse, that taught the Athenians to know an unknown God. By which you see it is possible that Gamaliel's feet may be a step to an apostleship.” This failed to convince the pious editor of the Works of the ever-memorable John Hales of Eaton, if ever he chanced to see it. The learned prebendary, for the purpose of enforcing his arguments against intemperance, chose to quote the concluding words of the Symposium of Xenophon. Lord Hailes was of opinion that this was “improper in a popular discourse,” and therefore he used the liberty to leave out the quotation in his edition of the works of the author.
But this much may likewise be stated in behalf of Binning. He did not engage, like some other preachers, his contemporaries, in nice critical discussions, which could be appreciated, or understood, by none but scholars like himself; and when he brought forth a classical quotation in his sermons, if a literal translation did not accompany it, he took care at least to put all who heard him in possession of the sentiment which it contained. In this way, none of his hearers were left ignorant of what he said, while the varied and attractive form in which the important truths he inculcated were exhibited, may have recommended them to that portion of his audience whose minds were more highly cultivated, among whom it is not unlikely were some, who, on account of his fame, may have come to hear him, more or less frequently, from the contiguous city and university.
When Binning quotes the sacred scriptures, it will be perceived he does not always make use of the authorized version. In the Case of Conscience, he appears to do this; but we find from the old manuscript already referred to, that he sometimes contented himself with mentioning the chapter and verse to which he wished to direct attention, without giving the words. These, therefore, we may suppose, were added by the transcriber, when the work was about to be printed. It was not till after the death of the author that the nation generally can be said to have adopted the translation of the scriptures which was completed in the reign of King James, and which is now in common use. Before the introduction into Scotland of what is called the Geneva Bible, the translation of Tyndale and Coverdale was employed. This was superseded in a great measure by the Geneva Bible, which was an English version of the scriptures that was executed in Geneva in the year 1560, by Protestant refugees from England. In the year 1575, the General Assembly required that every parish kirk in Scotland should be provided with a copy of Bassandyne's edition of the Geneva Bible. The first edition of the present authorized version was published in 1611. But as many preferred the Geneva Bible to it, the former continued to maintain its place in Scotland for some time longer. In Boyd's “Last Battle of the Soul,” printed at Edinburgh in 1629, the Geneva translation is used. It was likewise used by Dr. Balcanquhall in a sermon which was preached by him in the presence of Charles the First, in the year 1632, and published under the title of “The Honour of Christian Churches, and the Necessitie of frequenting Divine Service, and Publike Prayers in them.” And we learn from Dr. Lee, that so late as the year 1639, the celebrated Alexander Henderson, in preaching before the General Assembly at Edinburgh, read a long text from the Geneva Bible, which, he tells us, appears from the proceedings of that