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Binning, however, it will be found, did not give his sanction to the views of those who confounded faith in Christ and the assurance of salvation. This was one of the numerous errors of the day. It was prevalent in England, and along with other heresies, it had no doubt insinuated itself, by means of the parliamentary soldiers, into some parts of Scotland. So far from the assurance of salvation being of the essence of faith, or a constant attendant upon it, there are some sincere Christians, we have reason to believe, who are all their lifetime strangers to it; while they who have attained to it, from discovering in themselves the fruits and evidences of faith, have it oftentimes clouded and suspended. This is consistent with the personal experience of many humble and pious persons, and with what we read in the Diaries of many, whose life when upon the earth was the best of all proofs that the Spirit of God dwelt in them. It is likewise confirmed by the recorded experience of the man according to God's own heart. If he was at one time elevated with hope, he was at another time depressed by fear. If, when meditating upon the divine love and mercy, he was on some occasions filled with peace and joy, he was on other occasions, when contemplating his own guilt and unworthiness, a prey to grief and perplexity. If he was heard to exclaim, “Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work, I will triumph in the works of thy hands,” he was also heard to cry out, “Will the Lord cast off for ever? And will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up [pg xxv] his tender mercies?” A man who believes Christ to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, if he has searched the scriptures, has been made acquainted with the deceitfulness of the human heart, and the devices of our great adversary. It is on this account he does not always feel assured of his salvation. He is afraid that he may be deceiving himself, and be thinking more highly of himself then he ought to think. He has learned, from the parable of the sower, that some “receive the word with joy,” and “for a while believe,” but as they have “no root,” they “in time of temptation fall away.” This leads him to examine himself, and to prove himself, whether he be in the faith. This indeed is what the apostle has enjoined us all to do, thereby showing that a man may be in Christ Jesus, and yet be doubtful of his salvation; and, on the other hand, that a man may have a complete assurance of his salvation, and yet be still “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” It is from the fruits of the Spirit, therefore, that in himself as well as in others, the believer discovers the presence of the Spirit. “Both in philosophy and divinity, yea, in common sense, it is allowed to reason from the effects to the causes. Here is burning, therefore here is fire. Here is the blossoming of trees and flowers, therefore it is spring, and the sun is turning again in his course. Here is perfect day light, therefore the sun is risen. Here is good fruit growing; therefore here is a good tree. 'Tis a consequence no less sure and infallible, here is unfeigned love to the brethren, therefore here is regeneration. Here are spiritual motions, affections, desires, acts, and operations, therefore here is spiritual life.”58

These were plainly the sentiments of Binning. He distinguished, with logical precision, between faith in Christ and its consequences. In regard to the doctrine of the Antinomians, he says, “That every man is bound to persuade himself at the first, that God hath loved him, and Christ redeemed him, is the hope of the hypocrite—like a spider's web, which, when leaned to, shall not stand. That man's expectation shall perish, he hath kindled sparks of his own—a wild fire, and walketh not in the true light of the word, and so must lie down in sorrow.”59 Employing language very similar to that of Gillespie, which it would almost seem he had before him at the moment, he also says, “If the question be, as it is indeed, about the grounds of our assurance, and knowledge of our own faith, certainly it is clear as the noonday, that as the good tree is known by the fruits thereof, and the fire by the heat thereof, so the indwelling of faith in the heart is known by its purifying of the heart and working by love. It makes a man a new creature, so that he and others may see the difference. Neither is this any derogation to the free grace of Christ, or any establishing of our own righteousness, except men be so afraid to establish their own righteousness, that they will have no holiness at all, but abandon it quite, for fear of trusting in it, which is a remedy worse than the disease, because I make it not a ground of my acceptation before God, but only a naked evidence of my believing in Christ, and being accepted of God, it being known that these have a necessary connexion together in the scriptures, and it being also known that the one is more obvious and easy to be discerned than the other.”60

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 Assembly still extant in manuscript.68 About the time, however, when Binning began to 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 into our hearts to change them. But when it pleaseth him, who at the first, by a word of power, commanded light to shine out of darkness, he can scatter that cloud of ignorance, and draw away the vail of unbelief, and can by his power and art, so transform the soul, as to remove its earthly quality, and make it transparent and pure, and then the light will shine into the heart, and get free access into the soul. But though this darkness were wholly removed, there is another darkness, that ariseth not from the want of light, but from the excessive superabundance of light—caligo lucis nimiæ, that is, a divine darkness, a darkness of glory, such an infinite excess and superplus of light and glory above all created capacities, that it dazzles and confounds all mortal or created understandings. We see some shadows of this, if we look up to the clear sun. We are able to see nothing for too much light. There is such an infinite disproportion here between the eye of our mind, and this divine light of glory, that if we curiously pry into it, it is rather confounding and astonishing, and therefore it fills the souls of saints with continual silent admiration and adoration.”76

The comparisons, employed by Binning, have sometimes a degree of quaintness in them which is far from being displeasing, if it does not heighten their effect, as when he observes of that Great Being, whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, that he “speaks in our terms, and like nurses with their children, uses our own dialect.”77 He employs an equally vivid, though somewhat quaint comparison, when he observes, that “the best way to behold the sun, is to look at it in a pail of water, and the surest way to know God by, is to take him up in a state of humiliation and condescension, as the sun in the rainbow, in his words and works, which are mirrors of the divine power and goodness, and do reflect upon the hearts and eyes of all men the beams of that uncreated light.”78 We are offended, however, with the homeliness of such expressions as these, “sin's ugly face,”79 “our legs are cut off by sin,”80 “the legs of the soul,”81 men opposing God are “like dogs barking at the moon,”82 “the pull of the Father's arm,”83 the Christian is “on speaking terms with God,”84 “he drives a trade with heaven,”85 Christ “took up a shop, as it were, in our flesh, that he might work in us.”86 Nevertheless, an obvious excuse suggests itself to us for the employment, by the author, of these, and such like familiar expressions, which are besides of singularly rare occurrence in his writings. The great object which a Christian minister, like Binning, will constantly propose to himself, when addressing his people, will be, to make himself useful to them. But he knows he cannot be useful, without being intelligible to his audience. He is thus led sometimes to lower his style, as well as to simplify his ideas, that he may reach the understandings and hearts of the youngest and the most illiterate among his hearers. This was evidently Binning's case. To the least intelligent of those whom he addressed, he sometimes spoke in their own dialect, or, to adopt his own comparison, “like nurses with their children.” In so far as he did this, he followed the maxim of the great German Reformer. Hi sunt optimi ad populum concionatores, said Luther, qui pueriliter, populariter, et quam simplicis sime docent. “They are the best preachers to the people, who teach them in a plain, familiar, and perfectly simple way.”

A preacher, however, who is desirous to make his instructions exceedingly simple, is in danger of bringing his language too low, or of expressing himself in a manner which may not please persons of refined taste. His own good sense will teach him to avoid this if possible. But in the hurry of writing or speaking, he may not always succeed. When this happens, the fault into which he has been betrayed ought to be overlooked by those who are aware, that the business of a minister of Christ is not to interest merely, but to convince, not to afford pleasure, but to enlighten, reclaim, and admonish, “rightly dividing the word of truth.”

It is right that the reader should know what changes have in the present edition been made upon the text of the author. To make the work as perfect as possible, it has been carefully collated with the earliest editions which could be procured of [pg xxxi] his different writings. From his style being so much in advance of that of his countrymen in general, at the time he lived, it may be supposed that his language has been modernised to a considerable extent. But such is not the fact. The orthography has been altered. Greater attention than formerly has been paid to the punctuation. This was so defective in many places, as completely to obscure and pervert the meaning of the author. The references to scripture have also been corrected in numerous instances. But beyond this, nothing almost whatever has been done, with the exception of the occasional emendation of what, according to existing rules, would now be considered an ungrammatical expression, or the substitution of a modern word for one that was obsolete or provincial. The text itself, however, will show that very few changes indeed of this description have been ventured upon. It was thought better, for various reasons, that the author should be allowed to speak in his own familiar tongue, than that he should be transformed into a modern preacher. The remodelling of his style might have made it more agreeable to some readers, but it would no longer have been the style of Binning, nor characteristic of his age and country. His language, moreover, would have lost much of its raciness in the attempt to mellow it.

An explanation of such words as have been employed by Binning, and are not now in common use, or generally understood beyond the limits of Scotland, has been given in the Notes. Many of his Latin quotations, when not translated by himself, have likewise been explained, and verified, and their authors pointed out. This, it is confessed, has been a very irksome and laborious undertaking. As the classical quotations of the author, like his quotations from scripture, have not unfrequently been made from memory, the difficulty of tracing them to their proper sources was thereby much increased. The necessary books were not always at hand to consult, and even when these were obtained, it was sometimes found to be impossible, after the most patient research, to discover the place where the saying of some ancient writer was concealed. There are few notes comparatively attached to the first part of the work, as the printing of it commenced sooner than was expected. To supply this defect, some Notanda have been inserted after the Life of the Author.

But in addition to some of the classical quotations of the author, various historical allusions required to be elucidated, along with certain obscure references to passing events, and the opinions and proceedings of different sects and parties. It is not pretended that every thing of this kind has had light thrown upon it. But I can say this much with confidence, that it has been my constant endeavour to discover the latent or partially disclosed meaning of the author, and to give to the candid reader the benefit of my researches, and of any knowledge, which, in consequence of my position, I possessed, of a minister of the Church of Scotland, of whom I deem it no small honour to have been a successor.

* * * * *

When this edition of the works of the Rev. Hugh Binning had nearly passed through the press, the Editor had unexpectedly put into his hands a manuscript volume of the sermons of the author. About fifty of these, he finds, on examination, have never been printed, most of which have been transcribed by the Rev. Robert Macward, whose handwriting is perfectly well known. The remaining part of the volume contains the forty sermons on the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, entitled “The Sinner's Sanctuary.” These are believed to be in the handwriting of Binning himself. There can be no doubt whatever that this is the manuscript volume in folio, which is described in the preface to “Several Sermons upon the most important Subjects of Practical Religion,” dated “Brousterland, Sept. 12th, 1760.” It is there said to have been for “many years concealed in the library of John Graham, a pious and learned man, much abstracted from the world, who was a near relation of Mr. M'Ward's, with a large collection of Mr. M'Ward's own papers, which are yet among the curious and large collection of manuscripts, that were left by Mr. Wodrow, the author of the History of the Sufferings of this Church, to his sons” (Pp. xix, xx.). The writer of that preface also tells us, that he [pg xxxii] had in his possession a “quarto volume” of manuscript sermons, belonging to Binning. The Editor has not been able to ascertain what has become of this latter volume; nor can any thing be learned of the “Course of Philosophy,” which the author of Binning's Life, states, he was assured was in the hands of a gentleman in Edinburgh, at the time he wrote that Life, which was about the year 1735. (See Life of the Author, p. liv.) The sermons which have not hitherto been printed, and which are contained in the manuscript volume now brought to light, may be expected to be given to the world at no distant period.