2G JOSEPH PRIESTLEY i 



orc:anized matter, mmle man that living percipient and in- 

 telligent being that he is. According to Revelation, death 

 is a state of rest and insensibility, and our only though sure 

 hope of a future life is founded on the doctrine of the resur- 

 rection of the whole man at some distant period ; this as- 

 surance being sufficiently confirmed to us both by the evi- 

 dent tokens of a Divine commission attending the persons 

 who delivered the doctrine, and especially by the actual 

 resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is more authentically 

 attested than any other fact in history." — Ibid., p. 247. 



We all know that " a saint in crape is twice a 

 saint in lawn; '' but it is not yet admitted that the 

 views which are consistent with such saintliness in 

 hiwn, become diabolical when held by a mere dis- 

 senter.* 



I am not here either to defend or to attack 

 Priestley's philosophical views, and I cannot say 

 that I am personally disposed to attach much 

 value to episcopal authority' in philosophical ques- 

 tions; but it seems right to call attention to the 

 fact, tliat those of Priestley's opinions which have 

 brought most odium upon him have been openly 



* Not only is Priestlov at one with Bishop Courtenay in 

 this matter, but with fTnrtloy and Bonnet, both of thcin 

 stout champions of Christianity. Moreover. Archbishop 

 Whately's essay is little better than an expansion of the 

 first paragraph of Hume's famous essay on the Immortnlity 

 of the Soul: — *' By the mere light of reason it seems diffi- 

 cult to prove the immortiility of the soul ; the arguments 

 for it are commonly derived either from metaphysical 

 topics, or niornl. or physicil. But it is in reality the Gos- 

 pel, and the (lo'^pel alone, that has brought life ni\d iynmnr- 

 tnlitij to ligJit.'"' It is impossible to imagine that a man of 

 Whately's tastes and acquirements had not read Hume or 

 Hartley, though he refers to neither. 



