Infallible God

Hugh Binning was born in 1627 and died in 1653. He entered the University of Glasgow in 1641 at the age of thirteen and graduated in 1646. In November of 1646, at the age of only 18, Binning was elected regent in philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Binning taught at Glasgow for three years before ordination in the Church of Scotland. He resigned his university position to become minister of the parish of Govan near Glasgow. In this excerpt from one of his lectures, he shines a light on God’s strength of action and purpose:

“Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” (Ephesians 1:11)

“He is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth.” (Job 23:13)

[T]he Lord hath from eternity purposed within himself and decreed to manifest his own glory in the making and ruling of the world; that there is a counsel and purpose of his will which reaches all things, which have been, are now, or are to be after this. This is clear, for he works all things “according to the counsel of his own will.”

[H]is mind and purpose is one mind, one counsel. I mean not only one for ever, that is, perpetual and unchangeable, as the words speak, – but also one for all, that is, with one simple act or resolution of his holy will he hath determined all these several things, all their times, their conditions, their circumstances.

[W]hatsoever he hath from all eternity purposed, he in time practices it, and comes to execution and working; so that there is an exact correspondence betwixt his will and his work, his mind and his hand. He works according to the counsel of his will, and whatsoever his soul desireth that he doeth.

[H]is purpose and performance is infallible, – irresistible by any created power. Himself will not change it, for ‘he is in one mind;’ and none else can hinder it, for ‘who can turn him?’ He desireth and he doeth it, as in the original. There is nothing intervenes between the desire and the doing, that can hinder the meeting of these two. (“Of the Decrees of God,” Lecture 14 on Christian Doctrine)