ommand only; and lastly, that there is something [Greek:
eph' hemin], or that we are _so far forth_ principals or masters of our
own actions as to be _accountable_ to justice for them, or to make us
guilty or blameworthy for what we do amiss, and to deserve punishment
accordingly." All these fundamentals of true religion are explicitly
recognized in the Christian doctrine of Providence, which stands out,
therefore, in striking contrast with the Atheistic, and even Theistic,
theories of Fate which he condemns; and they are as zealously maintained
(whether with the same _consistency_ is a different question) by
Edwards, Chalmers, and Woods, on the one side, as they ever were by
Cudworth, Clarke, and Tappan, on the other.

It may be said, however, that the doctrine of Providence, especially
when taught in connection with that of Predestination, does unavoidably
imply some kind of _necessity_, incompatible with free moral agency, and
that, to all practical intents, it amounts substantially to Fate or
Destiny. But we are prepared to show that there is neither the same kind
of _necessity_ in the one scheme which is implied in the other, nor the
same reason for denying moral and responsible agency in the case of
intelligent beings. In doing so, we must carefully discriminate, in the
first instance, between the various senses in which the term _necessity_
is used. Dr. Waterland has given a comprehensive division of "necessity"
into _four_ kinds, denominated respectively, the Logical, the Moral, the
Physical, and the Metaphysical.

"Logical necessity" exists wherever the contrary of what is affirmed
would imply a contradiction; and in this sense we call it _a necessary
truth_ that two and two make four, that a whole is greater than any of
its parts, and that a circle neither is nor can be a square. It amounts
to nothing more than the affirmation, that the same idea or thing _is
what it is_; and it relates solely to the connection between one idea
and another, or between one proposition and another, or between subject
and predicate. This is "logical necessity;" we cannot, with our present
laws of thought, conceive the thing to be otherwise without implying a
contradiction.

"Moral necessity," again, denotes a connection, not between one idea and
another, or between the subject and predicate of a proposition, but
between _means_ and _ends_. It is not necessary absolutely that any man
should continue to live; but it is necessary