more frequently printed, or more universally read and esteemed,
than the elegant and judicious discourses of Mr. Binning, which were
published after his death, at different times, in four small volumes. As
there was a great demand for these valuable writings, about twenty six
years ago; so these printed copies of them were compared with his own
manuscript copy now in my hand, carefully revised, and then printed, in a
large 4to of 641 pages, by Robert Fleming, Printer at Edinburgh, in the
year 1735, to which was prefixed a short account of his Life, chiefly
taken from the large memoirs of his Life, that the Reverend Mr. Robert
M'Ward, some time minister of the gospel at Glasgow, wrote, in a long
letter to the Reverend Mr. James Coleman, Minister of the gospel at Sluys
in Flanders, who translated Mr. Binning's Sermons into High Dutch, and
printed them for the benefit of the Christian congregations in Holland and
Flanders. Some of the most memorable particulars of this great man's life
have been also published, anno 1753, by the reverend, learned, and
industrious Mr. John Wesley, late Fellow of Lincoln college, Oxford, in
his Christian Library, which contains about fifty volumes in 8vo of
Extracts from, and Abridgments of, the choicest pieces of practical
Divinity, we have printed in our language. It is prefixed to Mr. Binning's
Sermons upon the first and part of the second chapters of the first
Epistle of John, in the 29th volume of that useful work.(427)

Mr. Binning's elegant and judicious Treatise of Christian Love was first
printed from a manuscript in my hand, at Edinburgh, 1743, in an octavo
pamphlet of forty-seven pages, in short print, by Robert Fleming, to which
he hath prefixed a short preface. And the publisher tells us, "That he had
revised about twenty four sermons, upon very edifying and profitable
subjects, to print in a separate volume, from which they [his readers]
should receive as great improvement and satisfaction, as from any of his
printed treatises, which every person may easily discover from the style
and language to be Mr. Binning's genuine compositions, as his manner of
writing can scarcely be imitated by any other person." These sermons were
carefully transcribed some little time ago, and revised by the assistance
of a friend, and are now printed in this small volume.... And not to
detain the reader further from the serious and candid perusal of this
book, I shall only add, that I have faithfully