LITMIR.BIZ

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preach, the version now universally adopted seems to have become much more common. Binning generally employs it. But he occasionally quotes from the Geneva translation, and sometimes from memory. It is easy to conceive that, in this transition state of the two versions, he may have been nearly equally familiar with both, and unable from his recollection at the moment to distinguish the [pg xxviii] words of the one from those of the other. We therefore find, in point of fact, that when trusting to his memory, he quotes a passage of scripture, he sometimes gives it, partly in the language of the one, and partly in the language of the other translation. One of the texts of his first sermon is Rom. xi. 36. The English reading of that text, according to the Geneva version is, “For of him, and through him, and for him are all things;” but according to the authorized version, it is, “For of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” Any person, however, who reads the sermon attentively, will be convinced, that when the author wrote it, he must have had before him at the time, the Geneva version, and not the other. “ ‘All things,’ says he69 are of him, and for him; but man in a peculiar and proper way. As God in making of man, was pleased of his goodness to stamp him with a character of his own image—and in this he puts a difference between man and other creatures, that he should have more plain and distinct engravings of divine majesty upon him, which might show the glory of the workman—so it appears that he is in a singular way made for God, as his last end. As he is set nearer God, as the beginning and cause, than other creatures, so he is placed nearer God as the end. All creatures are made ultimo, lastly, for God, yet they are all made proxime, nextly for man.”

      The sacred scriptures are the Christian teacher's treasury. The knowledge of these evinced by the young and interesting author, apprizes us that he had carefully studied them, as his rule of faith and manners. But his beautiful and appropriate illustrations were not derived from the Bible alone. The stores of profane history, philosophy, and science, the apologues and mythology of the ancients, were all made tributary to him. His scholastic habits evidently gave a tinge to his discourses. When perusing some of these, we could almost imagine we are listening to the youthful Regent, while delivering, within the walls of the University of Glasgow, his dictates to a class of admiring and enthusiastic students. We are at once reminded of the “Professor of Philosophy,” for instance, when we find him borrowing from Plato, and other ancient philosophers, such names as these, applied by them “to the unknown God” αυτο ον,70 αυτο πνευμα,71 and primum intelligibile, et primum intelligens,72 when he makes mention of “the astronomers” who “do cut and carve in their imagination cycles, orbs, and epicycles, in the heavens, because of the various and different appearances and motions of stars in them, whereas it may be, really, there is but one celestial body in which all these various lights and motions do appear,”73 and when he tells us, that “if two superficies were exactly plain and smooth, they could join so closely together, that no air could come between them, and then they could hardly be pulled asunder.”74 All the while, however, it is evident that the knowledge of the philosopher is made subservient to the nobler purposes of the divine. The idea never occurs to us, that his secular learning is produced for display, and not to give interest to a sacred subject, or to furnish him with the means of explaining it.

      The following extract will show the holy use to which the pious author consecrated his knowledge of “physiology,” which, when a Regent he was bound to teach, by the foundation charter of the University—“We can do nothing except we have some pattern or copy before us, but now, upon this ground which God hath laid man may fancy many superstructures. But when he stretched out the heaven, and laid the foundation of the earth, ‘who, being his counsellor taught him?’ At whom did his Spirit take counsel? Certainly, none of all these things would have entered into the heart of man to consider or contrive, Isa. xl. 12, 13. Some ruder spirits do gaze upon the huge and prodigious pieces of the creation, as whales and elephants, &c., but a wise Solomon will go to the school of the ant to learn the wisdom of God, and choose out such a simple and mean creature for the object of his admiration. Certainly there are wonders in the smallest and most inconsiderable creatures which faith can contemplate. O the curious ingenuity and draught of the finger of God, in the composition of flies, bees, flowers, &c. Men ordinarily admire more some extraordinary things, but the truth is, the whole course of nature is one continued wonder, and that greater than any of [pg xxix] the Lord's works without the line. The straight and regular line of the wisdom of God, who, in one constant course and tenor, hath ordained the actions of all his creatures, comprehends more wonders and mysteries, as the course of the sun, the motion of the sea, the hanging of the earth in the empty place upon nothing. These, we say, are the wonders indeed, and comprehend something in them which all the wonders of Egypt and the wilderness cannot parallel. But it is the stupid security of men, that are only awakened by some new and unusual passages of God's works beyond that straight line of nature.”75

      From an eloquent passage in his sermon on the text (1 John i. 5,) “God is light,” it will likewise be seen that if Binning spoke, like a philosopher, of the properties of light, his was the language of a Christian philosopher—“The light is, as it were, a visible appearance of the invisible God. He hath covered his invisible nature with this glorious garment, to make himself in a manner visible to man. It is true, that light is but, as it were, a shadow of that inaccessible light, umbra Dei. It is the dark shadow of God, who is himself infinitely more beautiful and glorious. But yet, as to us, it hath greater glory and majesty in it, than any creature besides. It is the chief of the works of God, without which the world would be without form and void. It is the very beauty of the creation, that which gives lustre and amiableness to all that is in it, without which the pleasantest paradise would become a wilderness, and this beautiful structure, and adorned palace of the world, a loathsome dungeon. Besides the admirable beauty of it, it hath a wonderful swift conveyance throughout the whole world, the upper and lower, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It is carried from the one end of heaven to the other in a moment, and who can say by what way the light is parted? Job xxxviii. 24. Moreover, it carries alongst with it a beautiful influence, and a refreshing heat and warmness, which is the very life and subsistence of all the creatures below. And so, as there is nothing so beautiful, so nothing so universally and highly profitable. And to all this, add that singular property of it, that it is not capable of infection, it is of such absolute purity, that it can communicate itself to the dunghill, as well as to the garden, without receiving any mixture from it. In all the impurities it meets withal, it remains unmixed and untainted, and preserves its own nature entire. Now you may perceive, that there is nothing visible that is fitter to resemble the invisible God, than this glorious, beautiful, pure, and universally communicable creature, light. …

      “Then add unto this, to make up the resemblance fuller, the bounty and benignity of his influence upon the world, the flowings forth of his infinite goodness, that enrich the whole earth. Look, as the sun is the greatest and most universal benefactor—his influence and heat is the very renovation of the world. It makes all new, and green, and flourishing; it puts a youth upon the world, and so is the very spring and fountain of life to all sublunary things. How much is that true of the true light, of the substantial, of whom this sun is but a shadow! …

      “And to complete the resemblance more, there may be something of the infallibility and incomprehensibility of the divine majesty here represented. For though nothing be clearer than the light, yet there is nothing in its own nature darker than light, that which is so manifest to the eyes, how obscure is it to the understanding. Many debates and inquiries have been about it, but yet it is not known what that is by which we know all things. Certainly such is the divine light. It is inconceivable and inexpressible, therefore is he said to dwell in light inaccessible and full of glory, 1 Tim. vi. 16. There is a twofold darkness that hinders us to see God, a darkness of ignorance in us, and a darkness of inaccessible light in him. The one is a vail upon our hearts, which blinds and darkens the souls of men, that they do not see that which is manifest of God even in his works. O that cloud of unbelief that is spread over our souls, which hinders the glorious rays of that divine light to shine into them. This darkness Satan contributes much to, who is the prince of darkness, 2 Cor. iv. 4. This makes the most part of souls like dungeons within, when the glorious light of the gospel surrounds them without. This earthliness and carnality of our hearts makes them [pg xxx] like the earth, receive only the light in the upper and outward superfice, and not suffer it to be transmitted

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