The personality of God, as a living, self-conscious, and active Being, distinct from the created universe and superior to it, is dependent on the "spirituality" of His nature; and in so far as the latter is affected by the theory of Materialism, the evidence of the former must also be proportionally weakened. We find, accordingly, that many Materialists have exhibited a tendency towards a Pantheistic theory of nature, in which the material universe is conceived of as the "body," of which God is the "soul." Some Materialists, indeed, have stopped short of Pantheism; but this may have arisen from their being less consequent reasoners, or more timid thinkers, than others who were prepared to follow out their principles fearlessly to all their logical results; for, assuredly, if there be no evidence sufficient to show that the "mind" is distinct from the "body," it will require a very high kind of evidence to make it certain that "God" is distinct from "Nature." 4. The theory of Materialism comes into direct collision, at several points, with the doctrines of Revealed Religion. The doctrine of Scripture in regard to the "human soul" is manifestly at variance with that theory. In the earliest pages of Genesis, we have an account of its creation, which, when compared with other statements and forms of expression occurring elsewhere, seems very clearly to imply that the "soul" is a distinct substantive being, possessing properties and powers peculiar to itself, and, although now united to the "body," yet capable of existing apart from it, and destined to an immortal existence hereafter.[178] That it is a distinct substantive being, connected with the body, but not dependent on it, at least in the sense of being incapable of existing apart from it, appears from various testimonies of the inspired Word. God is there pleased to call Himself "the Father of our spirits," and that, too, in contradistinction to "the fathers of our flesh." "We have had fathers of our 'flesh' which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of 'spirits' and live?" He is called "the God of the 'spirits' of all flesh," and "the Lord who formeth the 'spirit' of man within him." The historical narrative, too, of man's creation, which declares that he was "made in the image of God," and that his "soul" was infused by an immediate Divine afflatus, seems to imply that there is another and a higher relation subsisting between God and the "soul" than any that subsists between God and "matter." In other passages, the soul is expressly represented as distinct and different from the body:--"Fear not them which can kill the 'body,' but are not able to kill the 'soul.'" "Into thy hands I commit my 'spirit,'" said our Lord, just as his proto-martyr Stephen said, "Lord Jesus, receive my 'spirit.'" There are other passages still which affirm the separate existence of disembodied spirits: "Then shall the dust return to the