ABSTRACT
Burns's independent religious view developed as a result of a number of factors interacting upon him: a questioning of the nature of the Bible, a questioning of Calvinist doctrine, his experience of the Church, and his reliance upon the inner light of the heart and mind. All of these factors, except the last, are mediated to him through people as well as books, and sometimes their message is strengthened or weakened in credibility according to the messenger. Burns himself uses the Bible in the same way that he uses other works of literature. Biblical quotations are used to illustrate his own arguments, rather than as things that justified them. Burns's reading was beginning to separate him from some of his contemporaries, both in the Church and in the community, and certainly from the less literate among them. Burns is painting the extreme picture that nevertheless follows the logic of the Doctrine.
