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    " The notion , " says Mr . Conybeare , " that the Israelites saw nothing spiritual in the words and works of the law , that they understood in the lowest and most barely literal sense , all that was written for their instruction and prescribed for their observance , must subject those who would maintain it to a yet further charge of paradox and inconsistency . —The Mosaic law

    confessedly forbids ( and that under the severest penalties ) every species of idolatrous worship ; but we find the very Lawgiver expressly commanding his followers to look , for the removal of the fiery Venom which infected their host , to an image , which , if they did not see and acknowledge in it the type of some higher and more spiritual deliverer , must have been % p them an idol not less absurd than those of their Egyptian task-masters , if , indeed , it were not the very semblance of one of the many creatures worshiped by that

    extraordinary people ; an idol which in aftertimes became , we are told , of a truth , a snare and cause of offence , and was in consequence destroyed by the faithful Hezekiah , 2 Kings xviii . 4 . "~ Bampton Lectures , p . 16 . If the reader will turn to the twenty-first chapter of the book of Numbers he will find , that the children of Israel having murmured against God , fiery serpents were sent among them , and many died by their bite ; but that the people having repented , Moses was directed to make a serpent of brass and

    put it on a pole , and that every one who had been bitten recovered when he looked upon it . And now , what is there in this simple narrative that affords even the slightest ground for Mr . Conybeare's inferences ? Had Moses told the people to bow down and worship the brazen serpent , it might reasonably have been said that he was leading them into idolatry , unless he taught them to regard it as the symbol of something hi g her than the animal whose form it imitated ; but there is not a word of such a direction on his part , nor an indication of such a thought on theirs . It was the appointed means of their deliverance , but there is no reason to suppose that they would on that

    account worship it , any more than they would worship the wand of Moses , because it had smitten the rock , and the gushing of the water had followed the stroke . In later times , when the original use of the brazen serpent had been forgotten , and the people had become idolatrous from imitation of their neighbours , it is not wonderful that they should have burnt incense to it ; and Hezekiah , instead of reminding them that it was to be regarded " as a type of some hi g her and more spiritual deliverer , " very prudently broke it to pieces . And this naturally suggests the question , " Whence did the Israelites in the desert learn that the serpent was such a type ? " Did Moses , when he commanded them to look to it for the cure of their wounds ,

    tell them also of its spiritual significance ? We may be allowed to wonder that all mention of by far the most important part , in the whole transaction , should be passed in profound silence , and that future readers of the law should have been deprived of that knowledge , which could alone keep them from the guilt of idolatry . Or did the Israelites themselves , dull of apprehension as they were , discover this secondary meaning by their own

    sagacity ; or must we revive the fable of the Jewish doctors , and suppose a Mischna of spiritual interpretation , handed down from age to age since the giving of the law , but deemed of too high an import to be committed to writing ? Mr . Conybeare proceeds :

    " Nor is more direct authority wanting to this purpose : the rite , by which the Hebrew was initiated into the privileges ana blessings of the covenant , was expressly declared by him through whom it was enjoined , to have a spiritual meaning ( Deut . x . 16 , xxx . 6 ); the golden frontlet worn by the high priest , and the bells and pomegranates which formed a conspicuous part

    Untitled Article

    38 Revieiv . — The Bamptvn and HuUean Lectures .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1828, page 38, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2556/page/38/