124: JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 



the dead must be preliminary to their entrance into either of the 

 future states, and that the nature and even existence of these states 

 and even the mere fact that there is a futurity of consciousness, can 

 be known only through God's revelation of Himself in the Person 

 and the Gospel of His Son." P. 389. 



And now hear Priestley : 



" Man, according to this system (of materialism), is no more than 

 we now see of him. His being commences at the time of his con- 

 ception, or perhaps at an earlier period. The corporeal and mental 

 faculties, in being in the same substance, grow, ripen, and decay to- 

 gether; and whenever the system is dissolved it continues in a state 

 of dissolution till it shall please that Almighty Being who called it 

 into existence to restore it to life again."" Matter and Spirit," 

 p. 49. 



And again : 



" The doctrine of the Scripture is, that God made man of the 

 dust of the ground, and by simply animating this organised matter, 

 made man that living percipient and intelligent 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 resurrection of the whole man at some distant pe- 

 riod ; this assurance being sufficiently confirmed to ns both by the 

 evident 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." Hid., 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 lawn, be- 

 come diabolical when held by a mere dissenter.* 



* Not only is Priestley at one with Bishop Courtenay in this matter, but 

 with Hartley and Bonnet, both of them 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 Immortality of the 

 Soul : " By the mere light of reason it seems difficult to prove the im* 



