ch 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 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. An