The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning. Hugh Binning
his loyalty in the strongest possible terms, and made the following touching, though unavailing, appeal to his judges.—“Albeit, it does become me to adore God in the holiness and wisdom of his dispensations, yet I can hardly refrain from expressing some grief of spirit, that my house and family should not only be so many months together cessed, by a number of English soldiers, and myself kept from the pulpit, for preaching and speaking against the Tender, and incorporating this nation in one commonwealth with England, and that I should thereafter, in time of Oliver Cromwell his usurping the government [pg xvi] to himself, under the name of Protector, be delated by some, and challenged by sundry of his council in this nation, for a paper published by me, wherein he was declared to be an usurper, and his government to be usurpation, that I should have been threatened to have been sent to the court, for writing a paper against Oliver Cromwell his usurping the crown of these kingdoms, that I should have been threatened with banishment for concurring in offering a large testimony, against the evil of the times, to Richard Cromwell his council, immediately after his usurping the government, I say, my lord, it grieves me, that, notwithstanding of all those things, I should now stand indicted before your lordships as intending the eradicating and subverting of the ancient civil government of this nation, and being subservient to that usurper in his designs. The God of heaven knows that I am free of this charge, and I do defy all the world, allowing me justice and fair proceeding, which I hope your lordships will, to make out the same against me.”26
From the Case of Conscience and from some expressions which Binning uttered under strong excitement, and which were repeated to Principal Baillie,27 it would appear that his loyalty was somewhat shaken by the passing of the public resolutions, after the battle of Dunbar if not before that time, by a conviction of the dissimulation of the king. He probably thought, with the framers of the western remonstrance,28 in which he seems to have concurred, that they would not be justifiable in fighting for Charles, without some additional security being provided for the maintenance of their religious privileges, and unless some adequate restraint were imposed upon the exercise of the royal authority. His dread of arbitrary power is strongly expressed in the Case of Conscience “The plea of necessity,” says he,29 “is but a pretence to cover some design, that under its specious and plausible covering, the power of the land may be engrossed in the hands of malignants, and so by this means, all power and trust may return, as the rivers to the sea or fountain, as they judge the king, that so, in his person, there may be established an unlimited and arbitrary power.”
That Binning was the author of the Case of Conscience cannot reasonably be doubted.
I. It was published, in 1693,30 under the name of “Mr. Hugh Binning, sometime Professor of Philosophie in the Universitie of Glasgow, and thereafter minister of God's word at Goven.” Nor, so far as can be ascertained, was it denied to be his by any person, at the time of its publication. It was printed in Holland, and although, as has been objected to it, it has not attached to it the name of the printer, nor the name of the place where it was printed, neither have “The Apologeticall Relation,” “The True Non Conformist,” “The Apology for, or Vindication of, Oppressed Persecuted Ministers,” “The History of the Indulgence,” “Rectius Instruendum,” “The Hind Let Loose,” and various other works by Scottish writers, which, for obvious reasons were printed abroad, after the Restoration. In his dying Testimony, however, it is declared by Mr. Robert Smith, a graduate of Groningen, that the Rev. James Kid, who was subsequently minister of Queensferry, was sent to Holland by the Society people to superintend the printing of the Sanquhar Declaration of 1692, and “Mr. Hugh Binning's piece against association,” that Mr. Kid was imprisoned for this for a considerable time in Holland, and that after he obtained his liberty, he and Kid studied for one session together at the University of Utrecht.31
II. It seems almost certain that the manuscript must have been obtained from the widow of the author, or from his son, both of whom were living when the pamphlet first appeared, and both of whom were intimately connected with the Society people. At a general meeting of the Society people at Edinburgh, 28th May, 1683, [pg xvii] “It was resolved that Mr. John Binning should be desired to wait upon a school, for teaching some young men, and for his pains he was to have twenty five pounds Scots per Quarter. According to this resolution, Mr. Binning did teach Latin to some of these young men for some time.”32 And in a letter from the Rev. James Renwick, to Sir Robert Hamilton of Preston, dated Sept 26th, 1683, and printed from the original, he says, “Likeways, according to your direction, I challenged Mrs. Binning upon her intimacie with your sister, but she says there is noe ground for it, and I think not such as your honour apprehends. As also I challenged her upon the commendation she gave Jo Wilsone, in her letter unto you, but she says she had not then seen his testimonie, and was sorrie when she saw it, it was so contrary both to her thoughts, and to her commendation of him.”33 This letter is curtailed in the printed collection of Renwick's Letters,34 and the passage in it, which refers to Mrs. Binning, is only partially quoted by John Howie of Lochgoin, in a note to Shields' Faithful Contendings.35
III. A copy of the original manuscript is at present in my possession, belonging to David Laing, Esq., Edinburgh, which, so far as one can judge from the orthography and hand writing, must have been written near the time of the author. It formed part of a collection of papers chiefly of that period, of which some are docketed by Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston. It is entitled “The Tractat, proving that there is still a Maligt Party, and that wee should not associate with them, written in Januar 1651”. The writer of the Life of Binning was of opinion that as “Mr. Binning died in the year 1653, and the pamphlet was not published till the year 1693”, some of the Protesters would have published it, in the course of that period, “had they known that Mr. Binning was the author of it.” But various circumstances may have occurred to prevent its being made public at an earlier period. And although it was not printed, it may have been read by many in manuscript. I cannot but think, though he has mistaken the Christian name of the author, that it is to Hugh Binning's Case of Conscience, that Samuel Colvill, the ungodly son of a pious mother, alludes, in that mass of ribaldry and indecency, “The Whigs Supplication,” when describing the library of the Covenanters, he says,
“Some reads the cases of Richard Binning”36
This mock poem of Colvill was printed for the first time in the year 1681, but according to the poet's own statement, it was circulated in MS previous to this.37
IV. The views of Binning are known to have accorded with the general strain of the Case of Conscience. The object of his tractate was to expose and counteract the purposes and proceedings of the Resolutioners. This was likewise Binning's object in the part he acted, on different occasions, in the presbytery of Glasgow. In the Minutes of that ecclesiastical court, he is always found opposed to the Resolutioners, and co operating with Principal Gillespie, and the other Protesters. This will account for the tone in which Baillie speaks of him. “Behold,” says he in a letter from Perth, 2d January, 1651, “the next presbytery day, when I am absent, Mr. Patrick [Gillespie] causes read again the Commission's letter, and had led it so, that by the elders' votes, the men of greatest experience and wisdom of our presbytery were the two youngest we had, Mr. Hugh Binning and Mr. Andrew Morton.”38 The following fact proves that the opponents, as well as the friends, of Binning in the presbytery, knew him to be decidedly averse to the public resolutions. On the 28th of May, 1651, Mr. Patrick Gillespie, Mr. John Carstairs, and Mr. Hugh Binning were chosen by the presbytery to be their representatives at the ensuing General Assembly. But Mr. Robert Ramsay, and the other Resolutioners who were present, protested against their election, on the ground that they had not received notice of what was intended to be done, that Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Binning were opposed to the public resolutions in Church and State, and that the commission of the Church might yet give them some directions as to this matter. Accordingly, when the Assembly met at St. Andrews, from protesting against which as an illegal Assembly, the Protesters derived their name, among the numerous commissions which were objected to on that occasion, were those of Mr. Patrick Gillespie and Mr. Hugh Binning the Resolutioners in the presbytery having, it appears, made a different appointment of commissioners, at a meeting of their own.39 So much opposed, indeed, was Binning to the public resolutions that we find him, on the 20th of June 1651, protesting against the insertion of a letter, from the Commission of the Church regarding them, in the presbytery Minutes. And on the 20th of August, we in like manner perceive him voting against