A discourse of tempting Christ by John Shower.

SECT. IV.

Of the Punishment by Fiery Ser∣pents. The Wisdom of Provi∣dence therein. Of the Serpent in Paradise. Upon what Ac∣counts Serpents have been rec∣kon'd Sacred and Venerable by the Heathens.

III. IT was for this Sin that they were punished with Fiery Serpents, which cost many of them their Lives. There were many such in that Wilderness, who were before restrained, but now let loose: Serpents, that by their Venom fired their Blood, and heat their Bodies, so as to torment them with Thirst, and that in a place where there was no Water. We read of the biting of some Serpents, that it

affects the Patient with Madness. By these Fiery Serpents they were stopt in the last Year of their Tra∣vel, before they got into the Land of Promise. And on this account they murmured at Salmonah. But the Sin that was thus punished, and that of their worshipping the Golden Calf, is concealed by Philo the Jew; and Josephus, out of more Love to his Country-men, than Fi∣delity to History, doth not take no∣tice of it.

'TIS the Conjecture of the Learned Bishop of Lincoln, that

the Seraphim and Ʋrim were Images, or Symbols of Mini∣string Angels in the form of Fi∣ery, Flying Serpents; as Cheru∣bim were such Images with the Faces of Oxen. So the word Saraph is used, Numb. 21.6, 8. Deut. 8.15. In Egypt, Arabia, and Lybia, and † other places,

there were flying fiery Serpents. Isaiah mentions such Creatures, Isa. 14.29. And Abarbanel saith of such flying Serpents, that they were Reddish, after the Colour of Brass: If that were their natural Colour, great Ad∣dition might be made to it by the swift Motion of their Wings, and the Vibration of their Tails in the bright Atmospheres of Ara∣bia and Egypt. And so were called fiery, not only because of the Heat of their Venom, causing extraordinary Inflammations and Thirsts in the Body bitten by them; but because they appear∣ed such, when they flew in the Air.

I shall not stay to shew what a vile, what a painful, what an un∣usual Plague, and (as to ordinary means) an incurable one, this of

the Fiery Serpents was; which gave occasion to the Erection of the Bra∣zen Serpent, as a Figure of the Messiah to be lifted up upon the Cross. But if we refuse to look to him and believe on him, if we do not receive healing Virtue and Influence from him; the more dread∣ful Punishment which we may ex∣pect, and the sorer Vengeance that we are to look for, is what this Plague of Fiery Serpents did but ty∣pify and represent. For the Pu∣nishment of these Jews, is but an Emblem of a more fearful and fiery Indignation, against those who will not take warning, but tempt Christ, as some of them also did, and were destroyed in the Wilderness.

IT seems an excellent Instance of the Wisdom of the Divine Provi∣dence, to order this Punishment of the Israelites by Serpents, and to make way thereby for a Cure by looking to the Brazen Serpent. This was proper to rivet the sense of the

first Evil done to Mankind by the Devil, when the Serpent beguiled our first Parents in Paradise; and to pre∣serve or recover the Memory of it; which we have no more reason to take to be all Allegory, than the fol∣lowing part of the Mosaick History, concerning the Israelites March in the Wilderness, and their Punish∣ment here by Fiery Serpents.

THE famous Origen, says St. Hie∣rom, turned Paradise so into an Al∣legory, that he took away the Truth of the Story; and not only turned Adam out of the Garden, but the Garden out of Paradise.

IT might withal be of use to rectify the Error of some of the Jews, derived from the Heathen Idolaters, of the Gods appearing in the form of Serpents: For we read of the Babylonians, that they wor∣shipped a great Dragon, a Creature

of a Serpentine Kind: and that in Egypt, and in Phoenicia, they sacri∣ficed unto Dragons, and called them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, their good Genius's. Esculapius, the God of the Physici∣ans, was worshipped under the same Form: A Dragon is usually annex'd to his Statue. The superstitious Romans placed the Head of a Dra∣gon at the Entrance into their Houses, imagining thereby to conci∣liate the Favour of the Gods. And Alexander the Great is represented as begotten by a Serpent with his Mother. The like is feigned of the Birth of other Great Men amongst the Gentiles.

IN the earliest Ages (saith Dr. Tennison) and inhabited Countries of the World, the Crea∣tures on Earth principally reve∣renced were Oxen and Serpents. Serpents were lately worshipped in America, as appears from Aco∣sta, and others. And of old they were sacred in Egypt. We see no

Table of Isis, or Osiris, or Bacchu•• without a Serpent. Among how many other Nations, it hath been accounted sacred, may there b•• read at large. The Reasons why Serpents were thus honoured might be, partly because they could twine themselves into all Fi∣gures; because of the mighty E∣nergy of their Venom, and because of their mighty Bulk, and because they live to a great Age, are of quick and piercing Sight, and re∣new their Youth by putting off their Skin: Lastly, by reason that the Heathen were over-powered by the Craft, Malice and Pride of the Devil, who deluded Man in that Shape, and would as it were redeem the Loss he sustain'd in the Curse of that Creature, by tur∣ning it into a venerable Idol.

If the Seraphim (or good An∣gels ministring in the World)

had not appeared in some such Form, it would be difficult to give an account of the Tempta∣tion of Adam and Eve, by a Dae∣mon in the shape of a Serpent. That Serpent is ridiculously pain∣ted in the form of a creeping one before the Fall: It is impossible to conceive our first Parents so stupid, as to have entred into a Dialogue with such a Creature, without any Astonishment. But being used to the Shecinah of the Logos, and to the Appearance of ministring Angels, shewing them∣selves in some such winged form, it is easy to conceive, upon that Supposition, how they might en∣tertain some familiar Discourse with a Creature assuming that Image in a very spendid and glorious manner. The Text as∣sures us the Form is now changed by God's Curse, most probably

from that of a splendid fiery Sa∣raph, to that of a mean creeping Serpent, not moving aloft in the Air, but licking the Dust. And a part of the Punishment of Adam and Eve may confirm this. For it is said, God guarded Paradise against them by a Cherub and a Flaming Sword, which was esteem'd by the Jews a second Angel; and may be aptly ima∣gin'd a Saraph, or flaming Angel, in the form of a fiery flying Ser∣pent, whose Body vibrated in the Air with Lustre, and may be fit∣ly described by the Image of such a Sword. Tertullian saith, that the Serpent from the beginning was one that sacrilegiously usurped the Divine Image. This soundeth as if the Devil in Serpentine-Form had represented part of the Shecinah of the Logos, and that Eve conceived him to have been an Angel appertaining to his glorious Presence, and a Minister

of his Pleasure; and was come forth from him.

NOW the Punishment of the Jews by these fiery flying Serpents, may be a means to revive the Me∣mory of the Paradisical Serpent, and to prevent or cure such Fancies a∣mongst them, of their Divinity, as the Heathens entertain'd.

Notes

• Dr. Tennison of Idolatry, c. 14. p. 352, &c.
• †

  Herodot. l. 2. Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. 1.
• Vid. G. Moebium de Aeneo Serpente, Exercit. 2. c. 2. §. 11.
• See more Bochurti Opera, vol. 1. de Serpente Tentatore, p. 842.
• Citing Pignorius de Mensâ Isiacâ, p. 23, 24.
• Dr. Tennison, Ib. p. 245.