If it be affirmed, in reply to this, that the presentation of truth forms the occasion or condition on which the divine influence is exerted for the regeneration of the heart, then I ask, why do you urge the man to repent, and believe, and love God, and discharge religious duty generally, and rebuke him for sin, when you know that he is utterly unable to move, in the slightest degree, towards any of these affections and actions, and utterly unable to leave off sinning, until the divine influence be exerted, which brings his heart into correlation with religion, and makes it possible for him to put forth the volitions of piety and duty? It can be regarded in no other light than playing a solemn farce, thus to rebuke and urge and persuade, as if the man ought to make some exertion when you feel convinced that exertion is impossible. It certainly can form no occasion for divine interposition, unless it be in pity of human folly. If you say that such a course does succeed in the conversion of men, then we are constrained to believe that your philosophy is wrong, and that your practice succeeds, because inconsistent with it, and really belonging to some other system which you know not, or understand not and deny. A total inability to do good makes man the passive subject of influences to be employed for his regeneration, and he can no more be considered active in effecting it than he is in the process of digesting food, or in the curative action of medicines upon any diseased part of his system. If you urge him to exert himself for his regeneration, you urge him to put forth volitions which, according to this philosophy, are in no sense possible until the regeneration has been effected, or at least commenced.