The former were
high Calvinists, emphasizing the doctrines of election,
predestination, original sin, and eternal punishment. The latter
comprised many of the younger clergy who had been touched by the
rationalistic tendencies of the century, and who were blamed for
various heresies--notably Arminianism and Socinianism. Whatever their
precise beliefs, they laid less stress than their opponents on dogma
and more on benevolent conduct, and Burns had strong sympathy with
their liberalism. He first appeared in their support in an _Epistle to
John Goldie_, a Kilmarnock wine-merchant who had published _Essays on
Various Important Subjects, Moral and Divine_. Though he does not
explicitly accept the author's Arminianism, he makes it clear that he
relished his attacks on orthodoxy. A quarrel between two prominent
Auld Licht ministers gave him his next opportunity, and the
circulation in manuscript of _The Twa Herds: or, The Holy Tulyie_ made
him a personage in the district. With an irony more vigorous than
delicate he affects to lament that
The twa best herds in a' the wast, [pastors, west]
That e'er ga'e gospel horn a blast [gave]
These five an' twenty simmers past--
Oh, dool to tell! [sorrow]
Hae had a bitter black out-cast [quarrel]
Atween themsel, [Between]
and he ends with the hope that if patronage could be abolished and the
lairds forced to give
the brutes the power themsels
To chuse their herds,
Then Orthodoxy yet may prance,
An' Learning in a woody dance, [gallows]
An' that fell cur ca'd 'common-sense,'
That bites sae sair, [sorely]
Be banish'd o'er the sea to France;
Let him bark there.
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