as taking up our cross and following Christ. Commentary on the religious beliefs expressed The paternal affection and that of the son for the father are expressed in the terms "Dear Son and Dear Father". The religious views expressed are more relaxed than rigid Scottish Calvinism and have been compared to Arminianism, named for the 17th century theologian, Jacobus Arminius, of the University of Leyden. John Calvin insisted on salvation by grace alone whilst Arminians emphasised God's mercy and the freedom of Will, proposing that salvation might be conditional upon an individual good works in life, and that grace can be resisted and lost, that Christ died for all men. The 'Auld Licht' orthodox Presbyterians frequently used the term 'Arminian' as a criticism of the more liberal views of the 'New Licht' ministers such as William Dalrymple who Robert Burns mentions in "The Kirk's Alarm": "D'rymple mild, D'rymple mild, Though your heart's like a child, And your life like the new-driven snaw, Yet that winna save ye, Auld Satan must have ye, For preaching that three's ane an' twa." The pious 'Old Cotter' in Burns's The Cotter's Saturday Night is often thought to have been based on William Burnes however on closer inspection the views he expresses are too severe to match William's liberal theology. The manual for instance insists that pleasure and desire together with the animal soul have a role in Christian life. Such sentiments may have inspired Robert Burns's poetry such as the somewhat controversial lines the light that led astray, was light from Heaven" delivered by Coila in 'The vision', the implications of which were of theological concern to the likes of William Wordsworth. See also Robert Burns's Commonplace Book 1783–1785 Glenriddell Manuscripts Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Edinburgh Edition) Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Second Edinburgh Edition) Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (London Edition) Robert Burns's Interleaved Scots Musical Museum The Geddes Burns Robert Burns World Federation Burns Clubs References Further reading Burnes, William (1875). A Manual of Religious Belief, Composed by William Burnes, (The Poet's Father) for the Instruction of his Children: with a Biographical Preface. Kilmarnock : McKie & Drennan. Leask, Nigel ed., Commonplace Books, Tour Journals, and Miscellaneous Prose: Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns, vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), ch. 9, pp. 171–286, with annotation on pp. 378–410. Mackay, James (2004). Burns. A Biography