The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning. Hugh Binning
way [pg 094] betwixt him and glory, which look as insuperable. Thou art often emptied into nothing, and stripped naked of all encouragements, and there is nothing remaining but the word of God's promises to thee and to the church, which seems contrary to sense and reason. Now, I say, if thou do indeed believe that the world was made by God, then out of all question thou mayest silence all thy fears with this one thought—God created this whole frame out of nothing, he commanded the light to shine out of darkness then certainly he can give a being to his own promises. Is not his word of promise as sure and effectual as his word of command? This is the grand encouragement of the church, both offered by God, from Isa. chap. xl., and made use of by his saints, as David, Hezekiah, &c. What is it would disquiet a soul if it were reposed on this rock of creating power and faithfulness? This would always sound in its ears—“Faint not, weary not, Jacob, I am God, and none else. The portion of Jacob is not like others.” Be it inward or outward difficulties—suppose hell and earth combined together—let all the enemies of a soul, or of the church assemble—here is one for all. The God that made the heaven and the earth can speak, and it is done, command, and it stands fast! He creates peace, and who then can make trouble, when he gives quietness to a nation, or to a person? Almighty power works in saints, and for saints. Let us trust in him.
Lecture XIX.
Of The Creation 0f Man
Gen. i. 26, 27.—“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.”—With Eph. iv. 24.—“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”—And Heb. iii. 10.—“Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart, and they have not known my ways.”
While we descend from the meditation of the glory of God shining in the heavens, in sun, moon, and stars, unto the consideration of the Lord's framing of man after this manner, we may fall into admiration with the Psalmist, (Psal. viii.) “Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” It might indeed drown us in wonder, and astonish us, to think what special notice he hath taken of such a creature from the very beginning, and put more respect upon him than upon all the more excellent works of his hands. You find here the creation of man expressed in other terms than were used before. He said, “Let there be light,” and it was, “let there be dry land,” &c. But it is not such a simple word as that, but “let us make man in our image,” as if God had called a consultation about it. What! was there any more difficulty in this than in the rest of his works? Needed he any advisement about his frame and constitution? No certainly, for there was as great work of power, as curious pieces of art and wisdom, which were instantly done upon his word. He is not a man that he should advise or consult. As there is no difficulty nor impediment in the way of his power—he doth all that he pleases, ad nutum, at his very word or nod, so easy are impossibilities to him—so there is nothing hard to his wisdom, no knot but it can loose, nothing so curious or exquisite but he can as curiously contrive it, as the most common and gross pieces of the creation, and therefore, “he is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” But ye have here expressed, as it were, a counsel of the holy and blessed Trinity about man's creation, to signify to us what peculiar respect he puts upon that creature, and what special notice he takes of us, that of [pg 095] his own free purpose and good pleasure he was to single and choose out man from among all other creatures, for the more eminent demonstration of his glorious attributes of grace, mercy, and justice upon him, and likewise to point out the excellency that God did stamp upon man in his creation beyond the rest of the creatures, as the apostle shows the excellency of Christ above angels, “To which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son?” Heb. i. 5. So we may say, of which of the creatures said he at any time, “Come, let us make them in our image after our likeness?” O how should this make us listen to hear, earnest to know what man once was, how magnified of God, and set above the works of his hands? There is a great desire in men to search into their original, and to trace backward the dark footsteps of antiquity, especially if they be put in expectation of attaining any honourable or memorable extraction? How will men love to hear of the worth of their ancestors? But what a stupidity doth possess the most part, in relation to the high fountain and head of all, that they do not aim so high as Adam, to know the very estate of human nature? Hence it is that the most part of people lie still astonished, or rather stupid and senseless, after this great fall of man, because they never look upward to the place and dignity from whence man did fall. It is certain, you will never rightly understand yourselves or what you are, till ye know first what man was made. You cannot imagine what your present misery is, till you once know what that felicity was in which man was made—“let us make man in our image.” Some have called man μικροκοσμος “a little world,” a compend of the world, because he hath heaven and earth as it were married together in him—two most remote and distant natures, the dust of the earth, and the immortal spirit, which is called the breath of God, sweetly linked and conjoined together, with a disposition and inclination one to another. The Lord was in this piece of workmanship as it were to give a narrow and short compend of all his works, and so did associate in one piece with marvellous wisdom, being, living, moving, sense and reason, which are scattered abroad in the other creatures, so that a man carries these wonders about with him, which he admires without him. At his bare and simple word, this huge frame of the world started out of nothing, but in this, he acts the part of a cunning artificer—“Let us make man.” He makes rather than creates, first raises the walls of flesh, builds the house of the body with all its organs, all its rooms, and then he puts in a noble and divine guest to dwell in it. He breathes in it the breath of life. He incloses as it were an angel within it, and marries these together in the most admirable union and communion that can be imagined, so that they make up one man.
But that which the Lord looks most into in this work, and would have us most to consider, is that image of himself that he did imprint on man—“Let us make man in our own image.” There was no creature but it had some engravings of God upon it, some curious draughts and lineaments of his power, wisdom, and goodness upon it, and therefore the heavens are said to show forth his glory, &c. But whatever they have, it is but the lower part of that image, some dark shadows and resemblances of him, but that which is the last of his works, he makes it according to his own image, tanquam ab ultima manu. He therein gives out himself to he read and seen of all men as in a glass. Other creatures are made as it were according to the similitude of his footstep—ad similitudinem vestigii—but man ad similitudinem faciei—according to the likeness of his face—“in our image, after our likeness.” It is true there is only Jesus Christ his Son, who is “the brightness of his glory, and the express substantial image of his person,” who resembles him perfectly and thoroughly in all properties, so that he is alter idem, another self both in nature, properties, and operations—so like him that he is one with him, so that it is rather an oneness, than a likeness. But man he created according to his own image, and gave him to have some likeness to himself—likeness I say, not sameness or oneness. That is high indeed, to be like God. The notion and expression of it imports some strange thing. How could man be like God, who is infinite, incomprehensible, whose glory is not communicable to another? It is true, indeed, in those incommunicable properties he hath not only no equal, but none to liken him. In these he is to be adored, and admired as infinitely transcending all created perfections and conceptions, But yet in others he has been pleased to hold forth himself to be imitated and followed. And that this might be done, he first stamps them upon man in his first moulding of [pg 096] him. And if ye would know what these are particularly, the apostle expresses them, “in knowledge,” (Col. iii. 10) “in righteousness and true holiness,” Eph. iv. 21. This is the “image