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 creature, 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]