This showed me, that if a man of partially unsound and visionary mind made the angel Gabriel a fourth person in the Godhead, it might cause no difference whatever in the actings of his spirit The great question would be, whether he ascribed the same moral perfection to Gabriel as to the Father.  If so, to worship him would be no degradation to the soul; even if absolute omnipotence were not attributed, nay, nor a past eternal existence.  It thus became clear to me, that Polytheism as such is not a moral and spiritual, but at most only an intellectual, error; and that its practical evil consists in worshipping beings whom we represent to our imaginations as morally imperfect.  Conversely, one who imputes to God sentiments and conduct which in man he would call capricious or cruel, such a one, even if he be as monotheistic as a Mussulman, admits into his soul the whole virus of Idolatry.

Why then did I at all cling to the doctrine of Christ’s superior nature, and not admit it among things indifferent?  In obedience to the Scripture, I did actually affirm, that, as for as creed is concerned, a man should be admissible into the Church on the bare confession that Jesus was the Christ.  Still, I regarded a belief in his superhuman origin as of first-rate importance, for many reasons, and among others, owing to its connexion with the doctrine of the Atonement; on which there is much to be said.

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The doctrine which I used to read as a boy, taught that a vast sum of punishment was due to God for the sins of men.  This vast sum was made up of all the woes due through eternity to the whole human race, or, as some said, to the elect.  Christ on the cross bore this punishment himself and thereby took it away:  thus God is enabled to forgive without violating justice.—­But I early encountered unanswerable difficulty on this theory, as to the question, whether Christ had borne the punishment of all or of some only.  If of all, is it not unjust to inflict any of it on any?  If of the elect only, what gospel have you to preach? for then you cannot tell sinners that God has provided a Saviour for them; for you do not know whether those whom you address are elect.  Finding no way out of this, I abandoned the fundamental idea of compensation in quantity, as untenable; and rested in the vaguer notion, that God signally showed his abhorrence of sin, by laying tremendous misery on the Saviour who was to bear away sin.

I have already narrated, how at Oxford I was embarrassed as to the forensic propriety of transferring punishment at all.  This however I received as matter of authority, and rested much on the wonderful exhibition made of the evil of sin, when such a being could be subjected to preternatural suffering as a vicarious sinbearer.  To this view, a high sense of the personal dignity of Jesus was quite essential; and therefore I had always felt a great repugnance for Mr. Belsham, Dr. Priestley, and the Unitarians of that school, though I had not read a line of their writings.