Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

462 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDlie ruled all things with law; and the world will-ingly obeyed his will. And this common lawpassed through all things, so that evil mixed withgood resulted in a general order. Thus theycould address him as Father and as King, guidingall things with justice ; and this being they termedJupiter. But this is only a poetic45 exhibition oftheir genuine thought and meaning, which was,that " all which was real was corporeal; matterand force are the two chief principles ; matter initself is motionless and formless, but capable ofassuming every motion and every form. Forceis the active, moving, and forming principle ; itis indivisibly joined with matter: the operatingforce in the whole of the world is the Godhead. "4(;" By the names "World-soul, World-reason, Nature,Universal Law, Providence, Fate, the same thingis indicated, the one Primal Force determiningeverything with absolute regularity, interpenetratingthe whole world." " And even the oppositionbetween the material and the spiritual descriptionof the Godhead disappears upon closer examination,for on Stoic principles the Godhead can onlythen be considered as real when considered asbody.47 It was to such a unity that Greek phi-45 Cleanthes preferred expressly the poetic form ; see the note inZeller, vol. iii. part 1, p. 289 : for poetry and music are better suited toreach the truth of divine contemplation than the bare philosophicalexpression.46 Ueberweg. i. p. 195.47 Zeller, vol. iii. pp. 130, 131: see the many authorities he produces,pp. 12G-131.