trust.

what could be learned from them but despair? but they come from a Father's hand, from a forgiving love; and the knowledge of that changes their character, and not only gives support under them, but makes them medicinal to the soul,-a wholesome training in thy fear and trust, for trust is often the meaning of fear, when it is spoken of as a right thing, as is evident from Psalm xxxi. 19; xxxiii. 18; xl. 3; cxlv. 19, in all of which instances fear is put as the parallel to See a remarkable instance of this meaning of fear in Isaiah lx. 5. We have reason to believe that the 90th Psalm was written by Moses, in the midst of these wilderness afflictions-and it breathes precisely the spirit or life which I have been describing. Especially it seems to me, that the 11th verse can only be rightly interpreted, by comparing it with the 3d and 4th of the 130th Psalm. "Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath." That is," Who understandeth thine anger? He only who has thy fear, he only understandeth the nature or purpose of thine anger." Now who is it that has the fear of God? He only who sees the forgiving love of God." There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." The purpose of affliction is only understood by him who sees God's forgiving love in it. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." He who sees love in the affliction, learns wisdom from it; whilst to him who sees nothing but displeasure in it, it is the sorrow of the world, working death. view of the passage agrees with the principle of the brazen serpent, and with the title of the psalm, “A prayer of Moses, the man of God." The 3d chapter of the Lamentations is full of this same spirit; the ex

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pression in the 42d verse, "Thou hast not pardoned," means just-Thou hast not removed the affliction, or the fiery serpents are allowed to remain; but the brazen serpent, the symbol of healing through suffering, is lifted up, and he who caused it to be lifted, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His way in this dispensation is still to make perfect through suffering. And so when we read in his word of his wrath and his anger, let us remember that there is a forgiving love in them all, which makes them "according to this fear,"-that is, which makes them healing or medicinal. The Psalmist says, "O Lord God of my salvation. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. Thy terrors have cut me off."-Psalm lxxxviii. 1, 7, 16 verses. This fierce wrath is the wrath of God his salvation. Can that be a wrath of hatred? Impossible. Hatred can never heal. Nothing but forgiving love can heal-a love which has forgiven, and afflicts not willingly but to sanctify.

Now, my dear reader, mark how admirably the principle of a love, manifesting itself in punishment, is brought out in the serpent lifted up, as the ordinance of healing. Had the appointed object been Moses' rod, no one would have wondered; for the people had been accustomed to see great things done with it. But this would not have explained the manner of God's love, his forgiving love to sinners. For the things done with that rod had been all evidently for the deliverance of Israel-it had been stretched over the Red Sea, and a way was opened through the waters; it was again stretched out, and Pharaoh and his host were overwhelmed by the sea returning to his strength. The rod had been always employed evidently in their favour. So if a loaf of manna had been appointed as

the object to be looked at, it would have been an acknowledged friend, employed in a friendly office. But the serpent was their enemy; he had bit the people, and much people of Israel had died. And therefore he was chosen as the ordinance of healing, that God might thereby shadow forth his manner of love which he bears and exercises to sinful men. It is not a love which supports under affliction, but a love which uses affliction, yea penal affliction, to accomplish its purposes of blessing. It is not a love to which we may look away from the infliction of our Father, as if love were his right hand, and justice were his left, but a love which we can discover in the infliction which tells us of the evil of sin, and of the necessity of its eradication. Till this love is known, men hide their sin from themselves, and almost succeed in their endeavours to think that they are more sinned against than sinning.

But let us now consider wherein lies the difference of principle between these two healings-the healing of the body and the healing of the soul. Both were produced by the serpent lifted up, but in very different ways; so different that they might even be separated from each other, so that a man's soul might be healed when his body died; or the body might be healed when the soul remained unhealed or dead.

Now mark, the body of the man was healed by looking at the serpent, in consequence of a sovereign appointment of God, which had connected the healing with the looking, in a way perfectly unintelligible to us. There was no necessity for his believing any thing about the serpent, or having a single thought about it, or even having heard of it. If any of his friends, without saying a single word to him on the subject, had placed him so as to see the serpent, he would have been heal

ed. This is clear from the record-" And it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived."-Numbers xxi. 9. So that it is misapprehending the matter altogether, to say that it was not enough to know that there was a brazen serpent, which had the power of healing, or to believe it, but that it was farther necessary to look at it for this last alone was necessary.

Then the soul of the man was healed of his distrustful murmurings by the serpent lifted up, when he understood by it that there was a forgiving love in God, which was quite consistent with heavy displeasure against sin, and with the infliction of much sorrow and suffering on account of it, and which made use of that sorrow and suffering, to fulfil its own gracious purposes of putting away sin, and making man partaker of God's holiness. The man might understand all this, without ever looking at the serpent; he might be so situated that he could not be carried to see it, or he might be blind, and thus he might die of the bites, but his soul was healed. His body died, but his soul lived. His soul was healed by perceiving God's true character. The disease of his soul consisted in believa false suggestion concerning God's character, namely, that he had not brought the people out of Egypt in love, otherwise he would not have allowed them to suffer from the want of water, nor would he have confined them to that light bread; and his healing, or the life of his soul, consisted in knowing the true character of God's love towards man, which seeks to make man a partaker of its own holiness and its own blessedness, and trains him to this in a way of trial which may humble self, and show the vanity of the creature.

This is the life, and it is oneness with the mind of God.

Now, these two healings are not to be confounded and mixed up together. We are not to have both the knowing and the looking, for in truth they are but one thing, the looking being the type of the knowing. In the bodily healing, we have a material type of the salvation of the gospel, and so a material looking is required for the cure; whereas in the soul-healing, we have no type but the very salvation of the gospel, only shadowy and dim, and knowledge of God's character manifested in the appointment of the serpent, is all that is required for the cure; and it is required, because the truth could not otherwise enter the mind.

In these two healings, there is, however, a perfect harmony, according to the different natures of the subject to be cured, viz. the body and the soul. For as soon as the bodily eye of the Israelite came in contact with the actually existing circumstances of the camp; that is to say, as soon as it rested on that brazen serpent, which was there, whether it was looked at or not, the bodily life was healed. In the same way, as soon as the mental eye, which is faith or understanding, came in contact with the meaning of the serpent, or the character of God revealed in it, the life of the soul was healed.

The thing sovereignly appointed as an ordinance of healing to the body, was an object addressed simply to the bodily senses, through which alone the body acts or perceives. The thing given for the healing of the soul and fitted for it, not by any sovereign appointment, but by the eternal constitution of things, was a manifestation of the true character of God, a

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