A certain section of Scotsmen have lost their heads in idolising Robert Burns. They are not content in praising his poetic genius but exalt him to a high place as a worthy exponent of moral ideals and as a religious leader. His tenderly expressed sentiments set forth in language, at times, of rare beauty is taken as a cloak to cover the moral delinquencies of the unfortunate poet. Sad to say many ministers are among the blind who have been lead captive by the glamour of poetic sentiments which had a sad enough background. The poet’s proud nature smarted when taken to task for his liberties with the seventh commandment. His acid criticisms of those who dealt with him have been hailed by some as a well-deserved blow to hypocrisy when another cause may more justly account for them. In view of all this, it is well that attention should be called to the religious atmosphere in which Burns was brought up.
Mr. Stopford Brooke was not very wide off the mark when he wrote: “I see no trace in Burns’ poetry, that Christ had any meaning for him; I see nothing but a fine Theism.” It is true that the late Prof. H. M. B. Reid, Glasgow University, calls this in question and says Mr. Brooke “has strangely overlooked the familiar line”—
“How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed.”
There is also the succeeding lines in the Cottar’s Saturday Night:—
“How He who bore in heaven the second name
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head.”
But there is nothing in these lines nor in what he wrote in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop in which he describes our Lord as: “Thou amiablest of characters” to conflict with the holding of Arian views. Any Arian would readily subscribe the view presented in the line:
“How He who bore in heaven the second name.”
Much has been written of Burns’ revolt against the living religion and Calvinism of his day. This revolt is usually attributed to the poet’s broad humanitarian views, his love of liberty and his revulsion to what is usually described as the stern frigid Calvinism of his day. The poet’s up-bringing in his father’s home throws new light on Burns’ attitude to the Calvinism of his time. From his religious training at home it appears he was taught doctrines which brought him up against not only the Calvinism of his day but some of the fundamental doctrines of evangelical Christendom. Prof. H. M. B. Reid, already quoted, says: “He would undoubtedly know his Shorter Catechism from beginning to end.” That may be so but Burns was brought up on another catechism. And the verdict of the Rev. J. Hay Colligan, the author of The Arian Movement in England, is probably nearer the mark when he says: “He never learned the Shorter Catechism.”
The poet’s father, William Burnes, influenced by the Arianism he had imbibed from reading some of the books of the English Arians, drew up a catechism which is described by Mr. Colligan in the above cited work as a blend of John Taylor’s Catechism with a philosophy that suggested the principles of Hutcheson, the Glasgow Professor. A limited number of this catechism was printed in 1875 by M’Kee and Drennan, Kilmarnock, under the title: “A Manual of Religious Belief.” John Taylor, referred to above, was one of the most outstanding of the English Arians. He began his career as a Presbyterian minister at Kirkstead, Lincolnshire. Latterly he adopted Samuel Clarke’s view of the Trinity. In 1740 he published his work on Original Sin which is recognised as one of the standard works of the English Arians. This work found many readers in Scotland, especially in the Presbytery of Ayr. This Presbytery adopted Taylor’s Catechism in preference to the Shorter Catechism (The Arian Movement in England, p. 98). We shall see later on that the teaching of Taylor found a fertile soil in the hearts of not a few of the ministers of the Presbytery of Ayr. William Burnes purchased a copy of Taylor’s Book on Original Sin, a work, according to Jonathan Edwards, the famous American divine, which had done more than any other book to uproot orthodox theology in the Western parts of New England. It was after reading this work that William Burnes drew up his catechism. Henley cites the catechism as illustrative of Burnes’ ability to write English “formally, but with clarity.” It must be remembered, however, that it is not an original production as it is dependent on Arian sources for its language and ideas. The catechism was more in keeping with the liberal theology that had found a firm footing in certain circles than with the Shorter Catechism.
The Rev. J. Hay Colligan hazards the statement that Robert Burns had read Taylor’s work on Original Sin before he was 14 years of age. This was certainly a feat for a mere boy. Burns having thus begun early to browse on the Arian literature continued to do so. In 1760 two volumes of sermons had been issued by Samuel Bourn, of Norwich, the English Arian. The sermons were based on the teaching of Francis Hutcheson, whose classes Bourn had attended at Glasgow University. They are described as “ethical, scientific and philosophical.” It is not known when Burns came into contact with Bourn’s sermons, but in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop who had written recommending Bourn’s sermons, he replied saying that he had once read the first volume and was so pleased with it that he could almost have repeated it verbatim (The Correspondence of Mrs. Dunlop and Robert Burns). Bourn issued other two volumes of sermons in 1772 but it is in all likelihood that Burns is referring to the 1760 volumes. Bourn’s sermons, as already noted, were influenced by the philosophy of Hutcheson blended with natural theology. Great stress was laid on immortality and it will be noticed from his writings that these matters entered largely into whatever little religion Burns had. His religion has been summed up by a sympathetic admirer in the following words: “He was not a man of piety if the Shorter Catechism be the standard, either of theology or morals. He was not a Christian in any evangelical sense. He had, however, a deep reverence for that dread Almighty Power, that Governor of the world who spoke to him through the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, the hoary hawthorn, the whistle of the curlew, and the grey plovers on an autumn morning. These sights and sounds of nature elevated him until he was conscious that within him there was something above ‘the trodden clod.’
The story of the leavening of Scottish theology with the new liberalistic ideas cannot fully be entered into here. Arianism showed itself in the West of Scotland and Prof. Simson was brought to trial and had to give up his teaching in Glasgow. This, however, did not stop the movement, for Hutcheson’s appointment to the Chair of Moral Philosophy; and Leechman’s appointment to the Chair of Theology indicated how the wind was blowing. Glasgow University, in all likelihood, on the recommendation of Leechman conferred honorary degrees on Samuel Clarke and John Taylor. We have seen already that the Ayr Presbytery had a warm side to the teaching of John Taylor. When Goldie published his book, which was Taylorian in its theology, Burns linked himself and “Goudie” in a humorous couplet. His tribute to the Ayr Presbytery is further evidence of his sympathy with the liberal theology. In his poem to Rev. John M’Math, the Presbytery is described as “a candid, lib’ral band.” It is not necessary to refer to Burns’ satires. They have been described as good-natured but there is a sharp, venomous sting in them and they were evidently meant to wound. Burns, from his early training, had evidently been influenced by the teaching he received in his younger days. English Arianism was fast travelling along the road to Unitarianism. In Ayrshire, however, it is important to bear in mind that it was the Arianism of John Taylor and Samuel Bourn which influenced William Burnes and his son. From all the evidence it would thus appear that Robert Burns in his revolt against Calvinism was largely influenced by the teaching he received from Arian sources in his youth and from his own reading of Arian works.
Burns was not only brought up in an Arian atmosphere but it is quite evident his revolt from Calvinism was due to Arminian views. “Burns was an Arminian,” says Prof. H. M. B. Reid, “both by natural propensity and by his private life.” He had a strong dislike to that Calvinism which sets a compelling restraint upon “passions wild and strong” and to lay the blame of the possession of these erring propensities at the door of God was a daring challenge to God. In concluding, we desire to utter an emphatic protest against the immoral and God-dishonouring sentiment that genius has a licence to play fast and loose with the Moral Law. Goethe, Byron, Shelley and Burns were all men of genius but their liberties with the laws of Heaven do not exonerate them, any more than ordinary mortals, for the breach of eternal law.