ings are
necessarily produced, and contains the forms of things, which from the
highest regions of the universe, are diffused through every other part
of nature. Seneca, indeed, calls God incorporeal reason; but by this
term he can only mean to distinguish the divine ethereal substance from
gross bodies; for, according to the Stoics, whatever has a substantial
existence is corporeal; nothing is incorporeal, except that infinite
vacuum which surrounds the universe; even mind and voice are corporeal,
and, in like manner, Deity. Matter, or the passive principle, in the
Stoical system, is destitute of all qualities, but ready to receive any
form, inactive, and without motion, unless moved by some external cause.
The con =trary principle, or the ethereal operative fire, being active,
and capable of producing all things from matter, with consummate
skill, according to the forms which it contains, although in its nature
corporeal, considered in opposition to gross and sluggish matter, or
to the elements, is said to be immaterial and spiritual. For want of
carefully attending to the preceding distinction, some writers have been
so far imposed upon, by the bold innovations of the Stoics in the use of
terms, as to inter from the appellations which they sometimes apply
to the Deity, that they conceived him to be strictly and properly
incorporeal. The truth appears to be, that, as they sometimes spoke of
the soul of man, a portion of the Divinity, as an exceedingly rare and
subtle body, and sometimes as a warm or fiery spirit,* so they spoke
of the Deity as corporeal, considered as distinct from the incorporeal
vacuum, or infinite space; but as spiritual, considered in opposition to
gross and inactive matter. They taught, indeed, that God is underived,
incorruptible, and eternal, possessed of intelligence, good and perfect,
the efficient cause of all the peculiar qualities or forms of things;
and the constant preserver and governor of the world; and they described
the Deity under many noble images, and in the most elevated language.
The hymn of Cleanthes, in particular, is justly admired for the grandeur
of its sentiments, and the sublimity of its diction. But if in reading
these descriptions, we hastily associate with them modern conceptions
of Deity, and neglect to recur to the leading principles of the sect, we
shall be led into fundamental misapprehensions of the true doctrine of
Stoicism. For according to this sect. God and matt