This doctrine affirms, first, the existence and attributes of God, as a holy and righteous Moral Governor; secondly, the real existence and actual operation of "second causes," distinct from, but not independent of, "the First Cause;" thirdly, the operation of these causes according to their several natures, so that, under God's Providence, events fall out "either necessarily, freely, or contingently," according to the kind of intermediate agency by which they are brought to pass; and, fourthly, that in the case of intelligent and moral agents, ample room is left for responsible action, and for the consequent sentence of praise or blame, reward or punishment, notwithstanding the eternal decree of God, and the constant control which He exercises over all His creatures and all their actions.

These four positions may be all harmoniously combined in one self-consistent and comprehensive statement; and, in point of fact, they are all included in the Christian doctrine of Providence, as that has been usually explained and defended by the various sections of the Catholic Church.

Not one of them is omitted or denied.[221] They seem fairly to meet, or rather fully to exhaust, the demands of Dr.Cudworth himself, when he says: "These three things are, as we conceive, the fundamentals or essentials of true religion, first, that all things in the world do not float without a head or governor, but that there is a God, an omnipotent understanding Being, presiding over all; secondly, that this God being essentially good and just, there is something in its own nature immutably and eternally just and unjust, and not by arbitrary will, law, and command 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.