Moses had speciall commaundment to erect this Serpent, and yet God did not dispense with the 2nd Commaundment, for this Serpent was not made to be worshipped, but to be looked upon.
God cannot dispense with anie commandment of the first table but he should cease to be God, as the first, Thou shalt have none other[62] Gods but me; admit a pluralitie, and himselfe should be none, &c. but with the 2nd table he often dispenseth, for those concerne man immediately.
The text is hystoricall, Numb. xxi. 9, and typicall. Christ resembled by the brasen Serpent, Syn by the stinging.
18b.
Moses while he was in the Wildernes had onely the place of a mediator not a iudge, and therefore we read that whensoeuer the people murmured, God punished them. But when Moses left his station, and would at any tyme become a iudge ouer them, God neuer punished the people that murmured, but Moses that forgot his place. Christ, vntill the latter day, hath the place of an aduocate, but then he shalbe a iudge of the quicke and dead.
Wee reade of three exaltacions of our Saviour, one upon the crosse to purchase our pardon; 2, from the graue for the publication thereof; 3, to heauen for the application of his resurrection; and all these were necessarilie to be performed by him, for the consummation of our salvation.
The Serpent was not lifted up in the Wildernes before the people were stung by the serpents, and Christ is not to be propounded on the Crosse as a comfort untill the sting of Synn be felt throughly.
The Scripture telleth us that of all beasts the Serpent is the most subtill, and his subtilty is obserued in three points: first, when those nations in Syria and other hott countries found themselues often endangered by the stinging of venomous beasts, amongst other remedies they invented charming, which the serpent perceuinge, to auoyd their cunning and effect his malice, he would stop both his eares, the one by laying it close to the earth, the other by stopping it with his tayle. Soe fareth the synner; lett the preacher speake never soe heauenly, yet will he close one eare with worldly thoughts, and the other with fleshly imaginacions. May 9, 1602.
fo. 19.The second property of his subtilty is in defending his heade, where his lyfe lyes, it will soe winde it selfe about that part, that [it] is a matter of greate difficulty to cutt of a serpentes heade. In every man there is some radicall and capitall synn, which is predominant, and this the devil endeavours by all slightes to preserve. The third point of the serpents subtilty is accounted the attractiue power which remayneth in the heade deuided from the body, for it is proved by experience that, yf a serpent be cutt in many peeces, yf his heade remaine aliue, yet that part will gather the rest togither againe; soe leave the head synn alive, and it will gather a whole body againe.