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 t