Anf. If you read that parable without comment, you will fee that it is not defcriptive of the spiritual ftate of fouls, but of the political condition of the Jews during their captivity in Babylon. They were fcattered throughout Chaldea as dry bones in a valley; nor was there any human probability of their being collected to form again a political body. Therefore God to chear their defponding hearts, favoured Ezekiel with the vifion of the refurrection of the dry bones. (2.) This vifion proves just the reverse of what fome imagine. For the dry bones are thus defcribed by God himself. Thefe bones are the whole houfe of Ifrael. Behold, they fay, (this was the language of their defpairing minds) our bones are dried, our hope is loft, we are cut off for our parts. Here thefe Ifraelites compared to dry bones, even before Ezekiel prophefied, and the Spirit entered into them, knew their mifery, and complained of it faying, Our bones are dried up. How far then were they from being as infenfible as corpfes ? (3.) The prophecy to the dry bones did not confift in threatnings and exhortations; it was only of the declarative kind. Nor was the promise of their refurrection fulfilled in the Calvinian way, that is irrefifibly. For altho' God had faid, I will open your graves, that is, your prifons, and bring you out of them into your own land; we find that multitudes when their graves were opened, chofe to continue in them. For when Nehemiah and Ezra breathed, under God, courage into the dry bones, the Jewish captives difperfed throughout Chaldea, many preferred the land of their captivity to their own land, land refused to return: so that after all, their political refurrection turned upon their own choice.

5. Obj. We do not altogether go by the parable of the dry bones, when we affirm there is no abfurdity in preaching to fouls as dead as corpfes. We have the example of our Lord as well as that of Ezekiel. Did he not fav to Lazarus when he was dead and buryed, Come forth?

Anf.

Anf. If Chrift had called Lazarus out of the grave without giving him power to come forth, his friends would have had some reason to fufpect that he was befides himfelf. How much more, if they had heard him call a thousand corpfes out of their graves, denouncing to all, that if they did not rife they should be caft into a lake of fire, and eaten up by a worm that dieth not! It is matter of fact that Chrift never commanded but one dead man to come out of the grave; and the inftant he gave him the command, he gave him alfo power to obey it. Hence we conclude that as the Lord commands all men every where to repent, he' gives them all power fo to do. But fome Calvinist's" argue juft the reverfe. Chrift, fay they, called one corpfe without ufing any intreaty, threatning or promife, and he gave it power to obey; therefore when he calls an hundred dead fouls, and inforces his call with the greatest variety of expoftulations, threatnings and promifes, he gives power to obey only to two or three. What an inference is this! How worthy of the caufe which it supports!

In how contemptible a light does our Lord appear if he fays to fouls as dead as Lazarus in the grave, All the day long have I ftretched out my hands unto you. Turn ye: Why will ye die? Let the wicked forfake his way, and I will have mercy upon him: But if he will not turn, I will whet my fword, I have bent my bow and made it ready; I have alfo prepared for him the inftruments of death?

I once faw a paffionate man unmercifully beating and damning a blind horse, because he did not take to the way in which he would have him go; and I came up juft when the poor animal fell a lamed vic tim to its driver's madness. How did I upbraid him with his cruelty, and charge him with unparalleled extravagance! But I now afk if it is not more than paralleled by the conduct of the imaginary being, whom fome recommend to the world as a wife and merciful God. For the befotted driver for fome mi

nutes

nutes expoftulated in his way with a living thơ blind horfe; but the fuppofed Maker of the Calvinian decrees expoftulates all the day long with fouls not only as blind as beetles, but as dead as corpfes. Again, the former had fome hopes of prevailing with his living beaft to turn; but what hopes can the latter have to prevail with dead corpfes, or with fouls as dead as they? What man in his fenfes ever attempted to make a corpfe turn, by threatning it fword in hand, or by bending the bow and levelling an arrow at its cold and putrid heart?

But fuppofe the refurrection of Lazarus, and that of the dry bones, did not overthrow Calvinifm, would it be reafonable to lay fo much stress upon them? Is a dead foul in every refpect like a dead body; and is moral abfolutely like natural death? Can a parabolical vifion wrefted from its obvious meaning, fuperfede the plaineft declarations of Christ, who perfonally addreffes finners as free agents ? Should not metaphors, comparifons, and parables be fuffered to walk ere&t like reasonable man? Is it right to make them go upon all four like the ftupid ox? What loads of heterodoxy have degraded parables brought into the church! And how fuccessfully has error carryed on her trade, by dealing in figurative expreffions taken in a literal sense !

This is my body, fays Chrift. "Therefore bread is flesh, fays the Papift, and tranfubftantiation is true."-Thefe dry bones are the houfe of Ifrael, fays the Lord. "Therefore Calvinifm is true, fay my objector, and we can do no more towards

Our

converfion, s than dry bones towards their refur rection."-Loft finners are reprefented in the gofpel as a loft piece of filver: Therefore, fays the author of Pietas Oxonienfis, they can no more feck God, than the piece could feck the woman who had lost it. --Chrift is the Son of God, fays St. Peter: "Therefore, fays Arius, he is not coeternal with the Father, for I am not fo old as my parents."

D

And

And I, who have a right to be as wife as any of them, hearing our Lord fay that the feven churches are feven candlesticks, prove by it that the feven churches can no more repent than three pair and half of candlefticks, or if you pleafe, feven pair of fnuffers. And hall we pretend to overthrow the general tenor of the fcripture by fuch conclufions as these! Shall not rather unprejudiced perfons of every denomination, agree to turn fuch arguments out of the Chriftian church, with as much indignation as Chrift turned the oxen out of the Jewish temple!

Permit me honored Sir, to give you two or three inftances more, of an undue ftretching of fome particular words, for the fupport of fome Calvinian errors. According to the oriental ftile a follower of wisdom is called a fon of wifdom, and one that deviates from her paths as fon of folly. By the fame mode of fpeech, a wicked man, confidered as wicked, is called Satan, a fon of Belial, a child of the wicked one, and a child of the devil. On the other hand a man who, turns from the devil's works, and does the works of God by believing in him, is called a child, or a fan of God. Hence the paffing from the ways of Satan to the ways of God, was naturally called converfion and new birth, as implying a turning from fin, a paffing into the family of God, and being numbered among the godly.

Hence fome divines, who, like Nicodemus, car nalize the expreffions of new birth, child of God, and fon of God, affert that if men who once walked in God's ways, turn back even into adultery, murder and inceft, they are ftill God's dear people and pleafam children, in the gospel-fenfe of the words. They afk, "Can a man be a child of God to-day, and a child of the devil to-morrow ? Can he be born this week, and unborn the next?" And with thefe queftions they as much think they have overthrown the doctrine of holiness and one half of the ible, as honeft Nicodemus fuppofed he had demo

lifhed the doctrine of regeneration, and stopped our Lord's mouth, when he faid, Can a man enter a fecond time into his mother's womb and be born?

The questions of our brethren would be eafily anfwered, if fetting afide the oriental mode of fpecch, they fimply asked, "May one who has ceafed to do evil, and learned to do well to-day; ceafe to do well, and learn to do evil to-morrow ?" To this we could directly reply: If the dying thief, the Philippian jailor, and multitudes of Jews, in one day went over from the fons of folly to the fons of wifdom; where is the abfurdity of faying they could meafure the fame way back again in one day; and draw back into the horrid womb of fin as eafily as Satan drew back into rebellion, Adam into difobedience, David into adultery, Solomon into idolatry, Judas into treason, and Ananias and Sapphira into covetoufnefs? When Peter had fhewn himself a blaffed fon of heavenly wisdom, by confeffing Jefus Chrift; did he even tay till the next day to become a fon of folly by following the wifdom which is earthly, fenfual and devilifh? Was not our Lord directly obliged to rebuke him with the utmoft feverity, by faying, Get thee behind me, SATAN?

Multitudes, who live in open fin, build their hopes of heaven upon a fimilar miftake, I mean upon the unfcriptural idea which they fix to the fcriptural word fheep. "Once I heard the fhepherd's voice, fays one of thefe Laodicean fouls; I followed him, and therefore I was one of his sheep; and now, tho' I follow the voice of a franger who leads me into all manner of fins, into adultery and murder, I am undoubtedly a fheep ftill; for it was never heard that a fheep became a goat." Such perfons do not obferve, that our Lord calls fheep thofe who hear his voice, and goats thofe who follow that of the tempter. Nor do they confider that if Saul, a grievous wolf breathing flaughter againft Chrif's fheep, and making havock of his little flock, could in a fhort time be chang