The Serpent that is always represented with Esculapius’s Image, and with Salus, the Goddess of Health, and often with the Egyptian Deities, is a Symbol of Health, or of Healing, very probably derives those Ensigns of Honour from the brazen Serpent of Moses.
SECT. V.
WHAT became of the brazen Serpent at last?
I answer, it was brought into the Land of Canaan as a sacred Relick, and religiously preserved among the Israelites down to the Time of Hezekiah the King, as a standing Memorial of divine Goodness to their Forefathers in the Wilderness; but being abused by them to Superstition and Idolatry, as appears by their burning Incense thereto, it was broke in pieces by the special Command of King Hezekiah, who, in Derision and Contempt, called it Mehushtan, a Piece of Brass, a Trifle, a Bauble, Shadow of a Snake. 2 Kings xviii. 4. May all the Ecclesiastical Nehushtans of Babylon, foisted into Divine Worship, from the Rising of the Sun, to the Going-down of the same, meet with the same honest and righteous Fate. In the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan, they pretend to keep a brazen Serpent, which they shew for that of Moses, tho’ there be no such thing now in being. In the Church of St. Ambrose there is a Dragon of Brass on a Column of Marble: Some think it to be that of Esculapius, others an Emblem of that in the Wilderness, upon which account many of the Pilgrims and common People worship it. The Inhabitants are very superstitious, and fond of holy Fragments, and pretend to have at the Church of St. Alexander, no less than 144,000 Martyrs from the Catacombs of St. Sebastian. The Cures effected by the artificial Serpent, derived that Efficacy from the divine Institution of that Medium: Had their Prescription been the meer Device of Rabbi Moses, that great and valuable End would not have been answered; therefore, since the Reason of that Institution ceased, ’twas highly criminal in them, to make any religious Use of it. It is the divine Impress upon Institutions that ushers in the Blessings intended by them; therefore to hope for Acceptance with God on account of meer human Ordinances, (as bowing to Images, to the Altar, to the East, and to make use of Crucifixes, Crosses, holy Water) is to hope for what God has never promised to give. No wonder to see the brazen Serpent ground to Powder, and the Dust scatter’d in the Air, that so no Fragments of it might remain, when Altars of divine Establishment, and sacred to Devotion, were intirely destroy’d, when they made Idols of them: And how a holy and jealous God may resent the Adoration of the Cross in the Popish Church, I pretend not to predict, much less to determine. This Destruction of the brazen Serpent, is reckon’d among the good Deeds of King Hezekiah, because it was made a Medium, and Part of Worship not prescrib’d by divine Authority.
CHAPTER IV.
This Chapter begins with the Original of Idolatry, as a Preliminary to the Adoration of Serpents, under three Sections.
SECT. I.
As introductory to the Divinity of Serpents, I shall make a brief Inquiry into the Original of sacred Images, and Idol-Worship; the first Period of which is hard to trace. Some make Cain the first Founder of it, because of his early Apostacy from the true Religion; which is not very improbable, since ’tis said, He went out from the Presence of the Lord.... He grew more wicked, and gave himself up to all sorts of Violence[[365]].
[365]. See Cluverius, and Dr. Cumberland.
That the old World was guilty of Idolatry, some gather from Gen. iv. 26. which they say will bear this Reading——Then Men prophaned, calling on the Name of the Lord, that is, by setting up Idols: Upon which some of the Rabbins paraphrase thus, viz. Then they began to call Idols by the Name of the Lord: With which agrees the Jerusalem Targum, that says, That was the Age, in the days of which they began to err, and made themselves Idols, and called their Idols by the Name of the Word of the Lord[[366]].