therefore, _natural_, though not _moral_, power to obey. But stop, friend, right here. When you say that I might obey, if I chose, I would ask, if choosing, as in the command, "choose life," is not the very thing required of me? When, therefore, you affirm that I might obey, if I chose, does it not mean, in reality, that I might choose, if I should choose? Is not your Natural Ability this, that I might obey if I did obey?[2] I cannot deny, the Necessitarian replies, that you have correctly stated this doctrine. Permit me to proceed in argument, however. In the next place, all that you need in order to be holy as required, is a change, not of your _powers_, but of the _influences_ which control the _action_ of those powers. With no change in your constitution or powers, you need only to be placed in Boston instead of New York, and there you cannot but be holy. Is it not as clear as light, therefore, that you have now all the powers of moral agency, all the ability requisite to the highest conceivable obligation to be holy instead of sinful? I fully understand you, the sinner replies. But remember, that it is not in Boston, where, as you acknowledge, I cannot be, that I am required not to sin; but here, in New York, where I cannot but be, and cannot possibly but sin. It is here, and not somewhere else, that I am required not to sin. How can the fact, that if I were in Boston, where I could not but be holy, I might not sin, prove, that here, in New York, I have any ability, either natural or moral--am under any obligation whatever--not to sin? These are the difficulties which press upon me. How do you remove them according to your theory? I can give no other answer, the Necessitarian replies, than that already given. If that does not silence for ever every excuse for sin in your mind, it is wholly owing to the perverseness of your heart, to its bitter hostility to the truth. I may safely appeal to the Necessitarian himself, whether I have not here given an uncaricatured expose of his theory. SINFUL INCLINATIONS.