There are certain Theological considerations which, if they have not been pleaded as reasons, may yet have been felt as inducements, to the adoption of the theory of Materialism. Not to speak of the difficulty which has been felt in explaining "the traduction or propagation of human souls," occasionally referred to in this controversy, it is plain that many Deists in the last century, and that not a few Atheists still, have been induced to embrace and avow Materialism, with the view of undermining the doctrine of man's immortality, and of a future state of rewards and punishments. It is equally certain that Dr. Priestley 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 preëxistence 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 'preëxistence of souls,' which drew after it the belief of the preëxistence 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 preëxistence 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 preëxistence 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?