ure, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes
taken away, but rather established." It follows that if there be either
on earth or in heaven any free cause, or any moral and responsible
agent, his nature is not changed, nor is the character of his agency
altered, by that providential government which God exercises over all
His creatures and all their actions; he still continues to develop,
within certain limits imposed by unalterable laws, his own proper
individuality, or his personal character, in its relation to the law and
government of God.

We answer, thirdly, that the moral and responsible agency of man cannot
be justly held to be incompatible with the Providence and Supremacy of
God, unless it can be shown that, in the exercise of the latter, God
acts in the way of physical coaction or irresistible constraint, and
further, that man is not only controlled and governed in his actions,
but compelled to act in opposition to his own will. But no enlightened
advocate either of Providence or Predestination will affirm that there
is any "physical necessity," imposed by the Divine will, which
constrains men to commit sin, or that God is "the author of sin." "Let
no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be
tempted of evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted,
when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed."[222]

We answer, fourthly, that when a "moral necessity" or _moral inability_
is spoken of by divines as making sin certain and inevitable in the case
of man, we must carefully distinguish between the _constitution_ and the
_state_ of human nature,--its constitution as it was originally created,
and its state as it at present exists. There might be nothing in the
original constitution of human nature which could interfere in any way
with the freedom of man as an intelligent, moral, and responsible being;
and yet, in consequence of the introduction of sin, his state may now be
so far changed as to have become a state of moral bondage. But the
constitution of his nature, in virtue of which he was at the first, and
must ever continue to be, a moral and accountable being, remains
unreversed; from being holy, he has become depraved, but he has not
ceased to be a subject of moral government, and the evils that are
incident to his present position must be ascribed, not to God's
_creative will_, but, in the first instance, to man's voluntary
disobedience, and, in the sec