3. This dogma is opposed to the express and positive teachings of Inspiration. The Scriptures expressly affirm, Rom. xiii. 8, that every one that exercises love, "hath fulfilled the law," hath done all that the law requires of him. This would not be true, did the law require a degree of love not now practicable to the creature. Again, in Deut. x. 12, it is positively affirmed, that God requires nothing of his creatures but to "love him with all the heart and with all the soul," that is, with all the powers they actually possess. This could not be true, if the dogma under consideration is true. 4. If we conceive an individual to yield a voluntary conformity to moral obligations of every kind, to the full extent of his present capacities, it is impossible for us to conceive that he is not now doing all that he really ought to do. No person would ever think of exhorting him to do more, nor of charging him with guilt for not doing it. We may properly blame him for the past, but as far as the present is concerned, he stands guiltless in the eye of reason and revelation both. 5. Let us suppose that an individual continues for fifty years in sin. He is then truly converted, and immediately after dies. All admit that he enters heaven in a state of perfect holiness. Yet no one supposes that he now exercises, or has the capacity to exercise, as high a degree of holiness, as he would, had he spent those fifty years in obedience, instead of disobedience to God. This shows that even those who theoretically hold the dogma under consideration do not practically believe it themselves. The conclusion to which our inquiries lead us is this: Holiness is a voluntary conformity to all perceivable obligation. Sin is a similar violation of such obligation. Nothing else is or can be holiness. Nothing else is or can be sin. CHAPTER IX. THE STANDARD BY WHICH THE MORAL CHARACTER OF VOLUNTARY STATES OF MIND, OR ACTS OF WILL, SHOULD BE DETERMINED. IN the remarks which I have to make in elucidation of this subject, I shall, on the authority of evidence already presented, take two positions for granted: 1. Moral obligation and moral desert are predicable only of acts of Will. 2. It is only of those acts of Will denominated _Intentions_, and of course ultimate intentions, that obligation, merit and demerit, are predicable.