ch 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)