ther with the radical distinction between moral good and
evil, but teaches that men are so far under necessity as to be incapable
of moral and responsible action, and unfit subjects of praise or blame,
of reward or punishment: this he describes as "Divine Fate moral and
natural." These _three_ are all justly held to be erroneous or defective
views of the Divine government, and, as such, they are strenuously and
successfully opposed.[220]

But there is room for a _fourth_ doctrine, which may be designated as
the Christian doctrine of Providence, and which combines in itself all
the great fundamental truths for which Dr. Cudworth contends, while it
leaves open, or, at least, does not necessarily determine, some of the
collateral questions on which he might have differed from many of its
defenders. 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 c