In all such cases the person has been the creature of passion, wrought upon by excitement, and left in ignorance of duty in disobedience to the gospel of Christ. A good rule by which to determine when such is the case, and it is the Master's rule, is the unwillingness of the person to do the commandments of God, and to receive for instruction upon the subject of duty, his word, an unteachable disposition, which not only refuses to obey when the commandments are presented, but absolutely persists in opposing them. A man in this condition is worse than ignorant, his heart is irreconciled to the government of God, and he may turn around and around and die in sin and transgression. Do you object that God controls in conversion, and, therefore, the man is illuminated in a mysterious manner, and necessitated aright--that he is a necessitated moral agent? Necessitated moral agency and free slavery are identical. There is no such thing as necessitated moral agency. What I am compelled to do is not mine, but his who compelled me. All that we call moral or immoral, virtuous or vicious, praiseworthy or blameworthy, in our conduct, depends wholly upon the will. It begins in us and is done by us. It is ours and we will answer for it. No man is to be blamed or praised for that which he neither had power to do or avoid. This, in harmony with the words _agent_ and _action_, is saying no more than that a man is to be praised or blamed for actions done by himself and not by another. It is the gospel rule, "that every man shall receive according to that which he bath done; that every man shall give account of _himself_ to God." If the sinner is to blame for remaining in an unconverted state, then of necessity conversion is his own voluntary act; a duty imperatively enjoined upon him, in the performance of which he needs to be guided by the knowledge of the right and the wrong, as much as in any other duty. On the other hand, if it is a work wrought upon the man by a special effort of the Holy Spirit, then the man is free from all responsibility in the premises, for he will answer only for his _own work_. "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." Prov. iv, 23. "He taught me also, and said unto me: Let thine heart retain my words; keep my commandments and live." Prov. iv, 4. "Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way." Prov. xxiii, 19. "Man, with naught in charge, could betray no trust, And if he fell, would fall because he must. If love reward him, or vengeance strike, His recompense in both would be unjust _alike_."