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BINNING, HUGH, an
extraordinary instance of precocious learning and genius, was the son of
John Binning of Dalvennan, a landed gentleman of Ayrshire. He appears to
have been born about the year 1627. In his earliest years he outstripped
all his seniors in the acquisition of Latin. At Glasgow college, which he
entered in his fourteenth year, he distinguished himself very highly in
philosophy. What was to others only gained by hard study, seemed to be
intuitively known by Binning. After taking the degree of Master of Arts,
he began to study for the church. When Mr James Dalrymple, afterwards Lord
Stair, vacated the chair of philosophy at Glasgow, Binning, though not yet
nineteen, stood a competitor with some men of graver years and very
respectable acquirements, and gained the object of his ambition by the
pure force of merit. Though unprepared for entering upon his duties, no
deficiency was remarked. He was one of the first in Scotland to reform
philosophy from the barbarous jargon of the schools. While fulfilling the
duties of his chair in the most satisfactory manner, he continued his
study of theology, and a vacancy occurring in the church of Govan, near
Glasgow, he received a call to be its minister. Here he married Barbara
Simpson, the daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman in Ireland. As a
preacher, Mr Binning’s fame was very great: his knowledge was extensive,
and there was a fervour in his eloquence which bore away the hearts of his
congregation, as it were, to heaven. At the division of the church into
Resolutioners and Protesters, he took the latter and more zealous side,
but yet was too full of virtuous and benevolent feeling to be a violent
partizan. In order to heal the difference as much as possible, he wrote a
treatise on Christian love. When Oliver Cromwell came to Glasgow, he
caused a dispute to be held between his own independent clergymen, and the
Scottish Presbyterian ministers. Binning having nonplussed his opponents,
Cromwell asked the name of "that bold young man." On being told
that he was called Mr Hugh Binning, the sectarian general said, "He
hath bound well, indeed, but" (clapping his hand upon his sword,)
"this will loose all again." This excellent young preacher died
of consumption in 1653, in his twenty-sixth year, leaving behind him a
reputation for piety, virtue, and learning, such as has rarely been
attained by any individual under that age. Besides his treatise on
Christian love, he wrote many miscellaneous pieces of a pious nature,
which were published, in 1732, in one volume quarto. A selection from
these, under the title of "Evangelical Beauties of Hugh
Binning," appeared in 1829, with a memoir of the author by the Rev
John Brown of Whitburn.
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