Another like case is that in 1 _Samuel_ v. the ark of God was taken captive by the _Philistines_, and they dar’d to look into the venerable secrecy thereof. The nation was smote in the hinder-parts, the organs of generation, which the scripture modestly calls _emerods_, _hæmorrhoidals_. Moreover a terrible pestilence killed many, and a plague of mice at harvest-time came upon them, and devoured all the fruit of their ground. In order to make an atonement, they sent away the ark again, with golden figures of the emerods and mice, a present accompanying of costly jewels, as a consecrated λουτρον, or satisfaction to the God of the _Jews_. Here, by the way, we should be blind if we did not see the origin of the _phallus_ among the heathen. Therefore to apply this. In regard to the seeming difficulty we at first took notice of, paying such a regard to an animal which the ancestors of mankind had so much reason to detest. Did the devil injure us under the form of a serpent? The like figure is the properest of any to symbolize the remedy, the antidote against the poison whereby the devil wrought man’s fall. Therefore, naturally, the same is to symbolize the Messiah then promised, who is to work man’s redemption. And St. _Athanasius_, Tom. II. _quæst._ 20. scruples not to make a comparison between the union of the serpent and the devil, in the fatal temptation; to the union of the divine and human nature in our blessed Saviour. The venomous serpent is his human nature, sinful, infected by the devil’s treachery; _he was made sin for us_, tho’ not contaminated himself. Tho’ not venomous, he cures the venom of our nature. I observe that the _rabbies_, tho’ they saw sufficiently, how necessarily the _Mosaic_ serpent was applicable to the Messiah, yet they were somewhat fearful therein, and of speaking their mind upon it, for fear of doing ill, in comparing him to an accursed animal. But our Saviour himself was not fearful in comparing himself to it, and the rather on that account, took it for a very express type of his crucifixion, and of his being accursed for our sakes, _Deut._ xxi. 25. _John_ iii. 14. _Galat._ iii. 13, _i. e._ devoted as a sacrifice, an expiation, that we being freed from the curse of sin, might obtain the blessing of God. So our Christian writers explain the type between our Saviour and the brazen serpent in the wilderness. _Bede_ in particular, on _John_ iii. And here we see the nature of types, where a man that undergoes the curse and punishment of the law, becomes in reality a type of the Messiah. A serpent which pictures out the evil principle, the like, 2 _Cor._ v. 21. Assuredly _Moses_, by the holy Spirit, meant it to regard Christ’s crucifixion. A fit emblem of his divinity, thro’ that remarkable quality of their throwing off old age with their skin, and returning to youth again. For so the ancients thought: _Anguibus exuitur tenui cum pelle vetustas._ Tibullus.