the general

Number of posts : 4 Join date : 06.05.11

the general

And, from the general history of the Israelitish nation, it is manifest that their understandings were not generally capable of receiving the discoveries of divine truth, without the intervention of metaphors and outward representations address ed to the perception of their outward sensesas in the days of the blessed Messiah the multitude to whom he spake, were incapable of receiving and comprehending his divine instructions, without the use of similes and parables. For it is said on a certain occasion, u without a parable he spake not unto them."From whatever cause it originated, the serpent appears to have been considered amongst the Egyptians as a figure, representing a selfsufficient principle, real or imaginary, without regard to its disposition. Thus the Almighty, to encourage Moses, and inspire him with confidence in the sufficiency of that divine power which was promised him to accomplish the object of his mission, turned his rod into a serpentthe wellknown symbol of a principle having power in itself. This he was commanded to exhibit before the people, in order to remove their doublings ; and also to repeat the same before Pharaoh, to impress him, by a lively presentation whieh he would understand, with MBT a conviction of the sufficiency of that power in whose name he addressed him.The same figure is applied to express the imaginary selfsufficiency assumed by the magicians in opposition to the divine commands.Again, when the children of Israel were MBT Trainers punishedfor their transgressions in the wilderness, in order tocall their attention to the divine power, against which they had offended, and which tfas sufficient also to save and deliver them, Moses was commanded to make a serpent, and set it up for them to look upon and be healed.It appears then that Moses, when MBT Shoes Sale writing the Book of Genesis, could not have made use of a more forcihle metaphor, or any other that would have been as well understood by the people to express the circumstance of our first parents omitting to wait for renewed manifestations of the divine will, from k selfsufficient apprehension, that from the knowledge they had already obtained, through former immediate communications, and the experience they had acquired, their judgment was MBT Shoes now sufficiently matured to enable them by their own powers to discriminate between good and evil, and to discover and perform their duty.