Hugh Binning, Works, p. 356:
When once a man comes to see God, and know him in a lively manner, then he sees his own weakness and vileness in that light, and cries out with Isaiah, “Woe is me, I am a man of polluted lips;” and he discerns in that light, the amiableness and loveliness of God, that ravisheth his heart after it; and then, as Jeremiah saith, he will not glory in riches, or strength, or beauty, or wisdom, but only in this, that he hath at length gotten some discovery of the only fountain of happiness. Then he will not think so much of tongues and languages, of prophesyings, of all knowledge of controversies; neither gifts of body nor of mind, nor external appendages of providence will much affect him. He would be content to trample on all these, to go over them into a fuller discovery and enjoyment of God himself.
When once a man comes to see God, and know him in a lively manner, then he sees his own weakness and vileness in that light, and cries out with Isaiah, “Woe is me, I am a man of polluted lips;” and he discerns in that light, the amiableness and loveliness of God, that ravisheth his heart after it; and then, as Jeremiah saith, he will not glory in riches, or strength, or beauty, or wisdom, but only in this, that he hath at length gotten some discovery of the only fountain of happiness. Then he will not think so much of tongues and languages, of prophesyings, of all knowledge of controversies; neither gifts of body nor of mind, nor external appendages of providence will much affect him. He would be content to trample on all these, to go over them into a fuller discovery and enjoyment of God himself.
