me."

"At the same time, the Rump, or Commonwealth, which so much abhorred
persecution, and were for liberty of conscience, made an order that all
ministers should keep certain days of humiliation, to fast and pray for
their success in Scotland; and that we should keep days of thanksgiving
for their victories; and this upon pain of sequestration so that we all
expected to be turned out; but they did not execute it upon any, save one,
in our parts. For myself, instead of praying and preaching for them, when
any of the committee or soldiers were my hearers, I laboured to help them
to understand what a crime it was to force men to pray for the success of
those who were violating their covenant and loyalty, and going, in such a
cause, to kill their brethren,--what it was to force men to give God thanks
for all their bloodshed, and to make God's ministers and ordinances vile,
and serviceable to such crimes, by forcing men to run to God on such
errands of blood and ruin,--and what it is to be such hypocrites as to
persecute, and cast out those that preach the gospel, while they pretend
the advancement of the gospel, and the liberty of tender consciences, and
leave neither tenderness nor honesty in the world, when the guides of the
flocks, and preachers of the gospel, shall be noted to swallow down such
heinous sins. My own hearers were all satisfied with my doctrine, but the
committee men looked sour, yet let me alone."(14)

With regard to Binning's own opinion of those whom he calls "our enemies
the invaders," we find that expressed in his Case of Conscience. "They
think themselves," says he, "godly and righteous, yet are not purged from
their filthiness. They are given up to strong delusions to believe lies;
and there is no lie greater than this, that they are a godly party, in a
godly cause and way. They wipe their mouth after all their bloodshed, and
say, I have done no evil. They wash their hands, as Pilate, as if they
were free of the blood of those just men, whose souls cry under the
altar."(15)

Like his friend Principal Gillespie, however, Binning appears to have kept
up an amicable intercourse with some of the Independents in the army of
the Commonwealth. He even gave the use of his church to the chaplain
attached to Colonel Overtoun's regiment, and not only went himself to hear
him preach, but exhorted his people likewise to do so. Such conduct, on
his part, will be viewed differently by different people. It will