The first of his works that was printed,(122) is entitled, “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.” Mr. M’Ward speaking of this performance, says, “That it was not designed for the press, that it contained only his notes on those subjects he preached to his flock, and which he wrote (I suppose he means(123) in a fair hand) for the private use and edification of a friend, from whom he had them, and when put into his hand to be revised, he says, he did not so much as alter, or add one word, to make the sense more plain, full, or emphatical.” This book is an excellent exposition of the Westminster Catechism, so far as it goes, viz. to the twenty first question, “Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?” Mr. Patrick Gillespie writes a preface to the reader, wherein he expresses his high opinion of it in the following encomium. “In this book Mr. Binning explains many of the fundamental articles of the Christian faith and had he lived to have perfected and finished this work, he had been upon this single account famous in the church of Christ.” The Assembly’s Catechism has had many expositions by pious and learned ministers, some of them by way of sermon, and others by way of question and answer. But this, so far as it goes, is not inferior to any. A learned layman, Sir Matthew Hales chief justice of the king’s bench, the divine of the state in King Charles II.’s reign, judged the Assembly’s Catechism to be an excellent composure, and thought it not below him, or unworthy of his pains to consider it. For in the second part of his “Contemplations moral and divine,” we have his most instructive meditations upon the first three questions. These had been the employment of his _horœ sacrœ_, and it is a pity he did not go on to the other questions. The shortness of Mr. Binning’s life has deprived us of a complete course of useful catechetical discourses. This book was so greatly esteemed in this country, that before the year 1718, there had been no less than five impressions cast off the press,(124) and all these being sold off, a sixth was made in the said year. As they were much valued at home, so they were highly prized abroad, and as an evidence of this, I find that Mr. James Coleman, minister at Sluys in Flanders, translated them into the Dutch language.(125)