The theory of Materialism has been maintained by Dr.Priestley and others, in conjunction with a professed, and, as we believe, sincere belief in a future state of rewards and punishments.

The sleep of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection, and its ultimate awakening by an immediate and miraculous interposition of Divine power, are equally held to be true,--the one on the ground of a natural evidence, the other on that of the authority of Revelation.

But the natural evidence is defective, since it depends entirely on the assumption that "thought" is produced by and dependent on a certain material organization, without which it could not exist; and the supernatural authority is still less to be relied on, since it _seems_, at least, to recognize the existence of disembodied spirits, and unequivocally declares that the soul cannot be killed as the body may.

If the soul be material, as Dr.Priestley says it is, it must be, equally with the body, affected by the stroke of death; yet our Lord says,--and His authority cannot be declined when the doctrine of a future resurrection is made to depend on the mere testimony of Scripture,--"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."[175] And the soul is represented as existing in a state of conscious happiness or misery, even during the interval between death and the resurrection, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, as well as in the statement of the apostle that "he was in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better."[176] In its most recent and refined form, the theory of Materialism represents "mind" as a subtle product, evolved out of matter, and destined to an endless existence,--an ever-ascending progression; and in this form of it, the doctrine of a distinct, personal immortality is, no doubt, far better preserved than in its earlier and grosser forms, which spoke of the utter destruction of individual consciousness at the hour of death, and of our material particles passing merely into other kinds of organic or inorganic being.
But then, it is placed on a very precarious ground,--the mere supposition of a material product, which can never be established by proof, and which, if there were no other objection to it, might well seem to be sufficiently discredited by the mere fact that it ascribes to _the effect_ properties and powers, of a very high and peculiar order, which do not exist in _the cause_.
2.

The doctrine of "future rewards and punishments," or of "man's responsibility" as a subject of the Divine government, is also materially affected by the theory of Materialism, in some, at least, of its forms.