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 matter are alike underived and eternal, and God is the former of the universe in no other sense than as he has been the necessary efficient cause, by which motion and form have been impressed upon matter. What notions the Stoics entertained of God sufficiently appears from the single opinion of his finite nature; an opinion which necessarily followed from the notion that he is only a part of a spherical, and therefore a finite universe. On the doctrine of divine providence, which was one of the chief points upon which the Stoics disputed with the Epicureans, much is written, and with great strength and elegance, by Seneca, Epictetus, and other later Stoics. But we are not to judge of the genuine and original doctrine of this sect from the discourses of writers who had probably corrupted their language on this subject, by visiting the Christian school. The only way to form an accurate judgment of their opinions concerning Providence, is to compare their popular language upon this head with their general system, and explain the former consistently with the fundamental principles of the latter.