es. We are equally subject to certain "conditions of
existence,"--arising partly from our own constitution, partly from the
constitution of external objects and the relations subsisting between
the two,--which lay us under a moral necessity of using suitable means
for the accomplishment of our purposes and plans. And we are still
further subject to "physical necessity," in so far as our material frame
is liable to be affected by external influences, and even our muscular
powers may be overmastered and subordinated by a more vigorous or
resolute will than our own. These _three_ kinds of "necessity" exist;
they are all constituent parts of that vast scheme of government under
which we are placed; and the question arises, Whether, when the
existence of these necessary laws is admitted, we can still maintain the
doctrine which affirms the providential government of God and the moral
agency of man; or whether we must not resolve the whole series of
events, both in the natural and moral worlds, into the blind and
inexorable dominion of Destiny or Fate?

We answer, first, that there is nothing in any one of these three kinds
of necessity, nor in all of them combined, which, when rightly
understood, should either exclude the idea of Divine Providence, or
impair our sense of moral and responsible agency. We may not be _so_
free, nor so totally exempt from the operation of established laws, as
some of the advocates of human liberty have supposed: but we may be free
enough, notwithstanding, to be regarded and treated as moral and
accountable beings. We may be subject to certain "laws of thought," and
yet may be responsible for our opinions and beliefs, in so far as these
depend on our voluntary acts, on our attention or inattention to the
truth and its evidence, on our use or neglect of the appropriate means,
on our love or our hatred to the light. And so we may be subject to
certain other laws, in various departments of our complex experience,
without being either restrained or impelled by such external coaction as
alone can exempt creatures, constituted as we know and feel ourselves to
be, from the righteous retributions of God.

We answer, secondly, that the doctrine of Providence, even when it is
combined with that of Predestination, represents all events as "falling
out according to the nature of second causes, necessarily, contingently,
or freely;" nay, as falling out so "that no violence is offered to the
will of the creat