tley was
influenced by his peculiar views as a Socinian; for he tells us himself
that the doctrine of Materialism commended itself to his mind as a sure
and effectual means of disproving _the preexistence of Christ_. "The
consideration," he says with singular candor, "that biases me as a
Christian, exclusive of philosophical considerations, against the
doctrine of a separate soul, is, that it has been the foundation of what
appears to me to be the very grossest corruptions of Christianity, and
even of that very Antichristianism that began to work in the apostles'
times, and which extended itself so amazingly and dreadfully afterwards.
I mean the Oriental philosophy of the 'preexistence of souls,' which
drew after it the belief of the preexistence and divinity of Christ, the
worship of Christ and of dead men, and the doctrine of Purgatory, with
all the Popish doctrines and practices that are connected with them, and
supported by them."--"This doctrine (of the preexistence of Christ) is
the point to which all that I have written tends, it being the capital
inference that I make from the doctrine of Materialism." There is also
abundant reason to believe that both Atheists and Pantheists have had
recourse to the theory of Materialism with the view of excluding the
doctrine of a living, personal God, and explaining all the phenomena of
Nature by the eternal laws of matter and motion. Now, if the question
stands related in any way to such themes as these,--the immortality of
man, the preexistence and divinity of Christ, and the personality and
spirituality of God,--it must be confessed to have at least a very high
_relative_ importance, as it bears on some of the most momentous
articles of our _religious faith_; and the question naturally arises,
What relation it bears to the fundamental principles of Theism, and how
far it comports with right views of God, as the Creator and Governor of
the world?

We cannot, in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, bring an
indiscriminate charge of Atheism, or even of irreligion, against all the
advocates of Materialism. It is true that it has often, perhaps most
generally, been associated with infidel opinions, and that in the hands
of D'Holbach, Comte, and Atkinson, it has been applied in support of
Atheism; but it is equally true, that in the hands of Dr. Priestley and
Dr. Good, it is combined with the professed, and, as we believe, the
sincere recognition of a personal God and of