BINNING and BYRES,
Lord, the second title of the earl of Haddington, derived from an ancient
parish in the county of Linlithgow. See HADDINGTON, earl of.
The surname of
BINNIE or BINNY is evidently a contraction of BINNING, which appears to have
been originally French, Benigne being the name of several persons of
learning and distinction both in France and Italy. The first archbishop of
Dijon was named St. Benigne. In the county of Linlithgow there is an
eminence called Binnie Crag, which rises to the height of about four hundred
and fifty feet. In 1307, during the wars of independence under Robert the
Bruce, a peasant named Binny, styled the William Tell of Scotland, by a
successful stratagem, obtained possession of the Castle of Linlithgow, which
was held by an English garrison under Peter Lubard, This daring exploit is
thus related by Tytler in his History of Scotland, (vol. i. p. 291): “Binny,
who was known to the garrison, and had been employed in leading hay into the
fort, communicated his design to a party of Scottish soldiers, whom he
stationed in ambush near the gate. In his large wain he contrived to conceal
eight armed men, covered with a load of hay, a servant drove the oxen, and
Binny himself walked carelessly at his side. When the portcullis was raised,
and the wain stood in the middle of the gateway, interposing a complete
barrier to its descent, the driver cut the ropes which harnessed the oxen;
upon which signal the armed men suddenly leapt from the cart, the soldiers
in ambush rushed in, and so complete was the surprise that with little
resistance the garrison were put to the sword, and the place taken.”
According to tradition six of the armed men concealed in the wain were
Binny’s sons. Bruce rewarded the brave peasant with a grant of the lands of
Easter Binning, and his descendants long survived, bearing in their coat of
arms a hay wain, with the motto, “virtue doloque.”
From the Binnings
of Easter Binning were descended the Binnings of Wallifoord and the Binnings
of Carlowryhall, both of which have been for along period extinct. In
Wallifoord’s charter-chest Nisbet states there was a charter by King James
the First of the lands of Easter Binning to David de Binning, upon the
resignation of William de Binning, his father. Sir Thomas Hamilton, the
first Lord Binning and Byres (created, in 1619, earl of Melrose, a title
which he relinquished for that of earl of Haddington), besides other lands
in Linlithgowshire, had chargers of the lands of West Binny and the
ecclesiastical lands of Easter Binny, 11th Nov. 1601.
About 1722, when
the first volume of Nisbet’s System of Heraldry was published, Mr. Charles
Binning of Pilmuir, advocate, was one of his Majesty’s solicitors-general.
He was a younger son of Sir William Binning of Wallifoord, sometime Lord
Provost of Edinburgh.
BINNING, Lord,
see HAMILTON, Charles
BINNING HUGH,
the Rev., a preacher
of the seventeenth century, of extraordinary eloquence and learning, the son
of John Binning of Dalvennan, a gentleman of landed property in Ayrshire,
was born about 1627. His mother was Margaret M’Kell or M’Kail, a daughter of
Mr. Mathew M’Kail, minister at Bothwell, the brother (some accounts say the
father) of Mr Hugh M’Kail, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and uncle to
the celebrated Hugh M’Kail, the young licentiate who was executed at
Edinburgh, 22d December 1666, for being concerned in the insurrection at
Pentland. At the grammar school he made so great proficiency in the Latin
that he outstripped all his fellows, and before he was fourteen years old he
entered upon the study of philosophy at the university of Glasgow, in which
he made considerable progress. After taking the degree of master of arts,
which he did on the 27th July 1646, he began the study of
divinity. A vacancy having occurred in the chair of philosophy in Glasgow
college, by the resignation of Mr. James Dalrymple, afterwards Lord Stair,
who had been his master, Binning was induced to become a candidate, and his
great acquirements and extraordinary genius caused him to be elected to the
vacant professorship before hi was nineteen years of age. At the expiration
of his third year as professor of philosophy he received a call from the
parishioners of Govan, in the immediate vicinity of Glasgow, to be their
minister, and in January 1650, he was ordained to that charge. Soon after he
married Barbara (or Mary) Simpson, the daughter of a presbyterian clergyman
in Ulster, in Ireland.
When the unhappy
division took place in the church into Resolutioners and Protesters, (for an
explanation of these terms, see life of JAMES GUTHRIE, minister of
Stirling,) he sided with the latter; but with the view of bringing about a
reconciliation, he wrote his ‘Treatise on Christian Love.’ The eloquence,
fervour, and great theological attainments he displayed in the famous
dispute which Oliver Cromwell caused to be held at Glasgow, in April 1651,
between his own Independent clergymen and the Scottish Presbyterian
ministers, astonished even the protector himself. Finding that Binning had
completely nonplussed his opponents, Cromwell asked the name “of that
learned and bold young man.” On being told it was Mr. Hugh Binning, he
replied in the true spirit of Alexander with “the Gordian know,” “He hath
bound well, indeed, but (putting his hand on his sword) this will loose all
again!” Binning died of consumption in 1653, in his 26th year. He
was buried in the churchyard of Govan, where Mr. Patrick Gillespie, then
principal of the university of Glasgow, caused a monument to be erected to
his memory with a Latin inscription. It is a simple marble tablet,
surmounted with a heart, and the emblems of mortality. It was placed in a
niche in the front wall of the old parish church; but, in 1826, when the
present church was erected, it was removed to the vestibule. The inscription
may be turned into English, thus: “Mr. Hugh Binning is buried here, a man
distinguished for his piety, eloquence, and learning, an eminent
philologist, philosopher, and theologian; in fine, a faithful and acceptable
preacher of the gospel, who was removed from this world in the 26th
year of his age, and in the year of our Lord 1653. He changed his country,
not his company, because when on earth he walked with God. If thou wish to
know anything beyond this, I am silent as to anything further, since neither
thou nor this marble can receive it.”
Binning’s
miscellaneous writings, which are chiefly of a religious nature, were
published in one volume, in 1732. A selection from these, entitled
‘Evangelical Beauties of Hugh Binning,’ with a memoir of the author by the
Rev. John Brown of Whitburn, was published in 1829. Binning, says a reviewer
in ‘The Edinburgh Christian Instructor’ for that year, was “a writer of no
common order. There is a depth and solidity of thinking about his works, a
richness of scriptural and pious sentiment, coupled with an exuberance of
beautiful and striking illustration, such as none but a very highly gifted
and sanctified mind could command. We see in them, in fact, a delightful
union of true genius with the most exalted piety; of the fervour and the
flow of youth, with the riper judgment and experience of age. We are not
conscious of overrating his power, when we say that neither in the richness
of his illustrations, nor in the vein of seraphic piety which pervades his
writings, is he at all inferior to Leighton, whom, perhaps, on the whole, he
most resembles.”
Binning’s widow
was afterwards married to one Mr. James Gordon, presbyterian minister of
Comber, in the county of Down, Ireland. His only son John inherited the
estate of Dalvennan at the death of his grandfather, after whom he was
named; but having been engaged in the insurrection of Bothwell Bridge in
1679, his estate was forfeited, and he continued dispossessed of it till the
year 1690, when the forfeiture and fines were by act of parliament
rescinded. It appears, however that one Roderick Mackenzie, who had been a
depute advocate in the reign of James the Seventh, contrived to obtain
possession of the estate, on the pretext of having advanced money for the
benefit of John Binning, far exceeding the value of his land, and that the
latter, having fallen into poverty, taught a school for some time. The
General Assembly showed kindness to him, on different occasions, for his
father’s sake. In 1702, the commission of the Assembly being informed by a
petition from himself of his “sad circumstances,” recommended him to the
provincial synods of Lothian and Tweeddale, and of Glasgow and Ayr, “for
some charitable supply.” In 1704 he applied for relief to the General
Assembly, and stated that he had obtained from the privy council a patent to
print his father’s works, of which twelve years were then unexpired, and
that it was his intention to publish them in one volume. The Assembly
recommended “every minister within the kingdom to take a double of the same
book, or to subscribe for the same.” They likewise called upon the different
presbyteries in the church to collect among themselves something for the
petitioner. The last application he made to the Assembly for pecuniary aid
was in 1717, when he must have been far advanced in life. [Life of
Binning prefixed to Fullarton’s edition of his works, with Notes by Dr.
Leishman.]
The following is a
catalogue of Binning’s works, all of which were published posthumously:
The Common
Principles of the Christian Religion clearly proved and singularly improved;
or a practical catechism, wherein some of the most concerning foundations of
our faith are solidly laid down, and that doctrine which is according to
godliness is sweetly yet pungently pressed home, and most satisfyingly
handled. Glasgow, 1659, 12mo. 5th Impression, Glasgow, 1666. Edin.
1672, 12mo.
The Sinner’s
Sanctuary; being forty sermons upon the eighth chapter of Romans, from the
first verst to the sixteenth. Edin. 1670, 4to.
Fellowship with
God, being twenty-eight sermons on the First Epistle of John, chap. 1st
and 2d, verses 1, 2, 3. Edin. 1671.
Heart Humiliation,
or Miscellany Sermons, preached upon choice texts at several solemn
occasions. Edin. 1671, 12mo.
An useful Case of
Conscience, learnedly and accurately discussed and resolved, concerning
associations and confederacies with idolaters, infidels, heretics,
malignants, or any other known enemies of truth and godliness. 1693, small
4to, pp. 51. Neither the name of the printer, nor the place where it was
printed, is mentioned in the titlepage; hence, it has been questioned
whether this was really a work of Mr. Hugh Binning, but his own name is
given as the author, and it cannot reasonably be doubted that the Case of
Conscience was written by him.
A Treatise of
Christian Love, John xiii. 35. First printed at Edinburgh in 1743, 8vo, pp.
47.
Several Sermons
upon the most important subjects of Practical Religion; first printed at
Glasgow in 1760.
The Works of the
Rev. Hugh Binning, M.A., collected and edited by the Rev. M. Leishman, D.D.
minister of the parish of Govan. Third edition, A. Fullarton and Co. 1851.
Imp 8vo.
Binning’s Common
Principles of the Christian Religion was translated into Dutch by the Rev.
James Coleman or Koelman, minister at Sluys in Flanders, and published at
Amsterdam in 1678, with a Memoir of the Author, furnished in a letter to him
from Mr. Robert MacWard, at one time secretary to Mr. Samuel Rutherford, and
afterwards one of the ministers of Glasgow. all the other works of Binning
which were printed in Mr. Koelman’s lifetime were also translated by him
into the Dutch language. No fewer than four editions of these have been
published at Amsterdam. |