product of ages of cruelty and credulity; and it sufficiently bears
that stamp.

Thus I rested in the Scriptural doctrine, that the _death_ of Christ
is our atonement. To say the same of the death of Paul, was obviously
unscriptural: it was, then, essential to believe the physical nature
of Christ to be different from that of Paul. If otherwise, death was
due to Jesus as the lot of nature: how could such death have anything
to do with our salvation? On this ground the Unitarian doctrine was
utterly untenable: I could see nothing between my own view and a total
renunciation of the _authority of the doctrines_ promulgated by Paul
and John.

Nevertheless, my own view seemed mere and more unmeaning the more
closely it was interrogated. When I ascribed death to Christ, what
did death mean? and what or whom did I suppose to die? Was it man
that died, or God? If man only, how was that wonderful, or how did it
concern us? Besides;--persons die, not natures: a _nature_ is only a
collection of properties: if Christ was one person, all Christ
died. Did, then, God die, and man remain alive! For God to become
non-existent is an unimaginable absurdity. But is this death a mere
change of state, a renunciation of earthly life? Still it remains
unclear how the parting with mere human life could be to one who
possesses divine life either an atonement or a humiliation. Was it not
rather an escape from humiliation, saving only the mode of death?
So severe was this difficulty, that at length I unawares dropt from
Semi-Arianism into pure Arianism, by _so_ distinguishing the Son from
the Father, as to admit the idea that the Son of God had actually
been non-existent in the interval between death and resurrection:
nevertheless, I more and more felt, that _to be able to define my