The holy Scriptures, when speaking of the venom of asps, mean to convey by figure the awful nature of sin, which, like that deadly poison, hath infused itself into our whole nature. Hence Moses describes it, (Deuteronomy 32:33) and Job, (Job 20:14) and Paul. (Romans 3:13) But how sweetly doth the prophet Isaiah describe, under the same figure, the application of Christ as a balsam, to cure the envenomed poison, and to render the serpent's bite as harmless. "The sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den, They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain." (Isaiah 11:8)