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.