after the recounter, admiring Mr Binning’s abilities and parts, said, “Where hath this young man got all this learning and reading?”.(102) When he had finished his trials, he had the unanimous approbation of the presbytery, nay, their declaration and testimony of his fitness to be one of the ministers of the city, upon the first vacancy. And I am assured, that at the very same time the Masters of the University had it in their view to bring him back again to their society, whenever the profession of Divinity should become vacant. He was, considering his age, a prodigy of learning, for before he had arrived at the 26th year of his life, he had such a large stock of useful knowledge, as to be philologus, philosophus, and theologus præstans,(103) and might well have been an ornament to the most famous and flourishing university in Europe. This was the more astonishing, if we consider his weakness and infirmity of body, not being able to read much at one time, or to undergo the fatigue of assiduous study. But this was well supplied, partly by a memory that retained every thing he heard or read, and partly by a solid penetrating judgment, whereby he digested it well, and made it his own, so that with a singular dexterity, he could bring it forth seasonably, and communicate it to the use and advantage of others, drained from the dregs he found about it, or intermixed with it; insomuch that his knowledge seemed rather to be born with him, than to have been acquired by hard and laborious study.