4 He removed the high places, and brake the images [smashed the matzevot], and cut down the groves [Asherah], and brake in pieces the brasen serpent [nachash nechoshet] that Moses [Moshe] had made: for unto those days the children of Israel [yamim the Bnei Yisroel] did burn incense [ketoret] to it: and he called it [Nechushtan].

Consider that the cross, as a structure of wood, was in Roman times on a par with the modern gallows, and could only be used figuratively of the doctrine involved in the death of Christ. It occurs in Paul's letters, not as a literal expression—though having its origin in a literal occurrence.

It cannot be that the cross itself, the actual framework upon which Christ was cruelly impaled by the Jews and Romans, had any vitality or place in the preaching of the apostles. Otherwise, the Roman Catholics are right in their superstitious deference to the structural form, and in their devout appreciation of "the wood of the true cross," which has been distributed in ship loads among the million worshippers of the beast.

Unless we put the cross in its proper place, as the symbolical expression of the great doctrine of Christ's sacrifice, in its absolute truth, it becomes an idol, whether clasped in material form with the devotions of the benighted Catholic, or cherished as a spiritual ideal with the undiscerning enthusiasm of "evangelical religion."

The brazen serpent, elevated in the wilderness for the cure of believing, serpent-bitten Israelites, was a legitimate object of regard, when accepted as a divine appointment for good; but when, afterwards, the children of Israel degenerated to the idolatrous worship of it, Hezekiah, with divine approbation, "brake it in pieces," calling it contemptuously "a piece of brass" (2 Kings 18:4).

So weeping, as the expression of an intelligently broken and contrite heart, is an acceptable sacrifice to God; but when put in the place of truth and righteousness, it became a cause of offence in Israel, as we read:

"And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with goodwill at your hands" (Malachi 2:13).

The religious outcry about "the cross" of the present day, is in the same category of perverted truth, and is doubtless as displeasing to the Almighty, as the excessive and irrational zeal of the Jews for the sacrifices and feasts of the law, while neglecting the "weightier matters" with which they were associated.

The Christadelphian, March 1898

"Their King from Jerusalem I brought out, and on a throne of royalty over them I seated. Tribute payable to my majesty I fixed upon him. And Hezekiah, King of Judah, who had not bowed down at my feet; forty-six of his strong cities, his castles, and the smaller towns in their neighbourhood, beyond number, with warlike engines . . . I attacked and captured.

200,150 people, small and great, male and female, horses, mares, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep without number, from the midst of them, I carried off and distributed them as a spoil. He himself, like a bird in a cage, inside Jerusalem, his royal city I shut; siege-towers against him I constructed.

The exit of the great gate of his city, to divide it he had given command. His cities which I plundered I cut off, and to Mitinti, King of Ashdod; Padiah, King of Ekron; and Izmi-Bel, King of Gaza, I gave them. I diminished his kingdom. Beyond the former scale of their yearly gifts, their tribute and gifts to my majesty I augmented and imposed upon them.

He himself, Hezekiah, the fearful splendour of my majesty had overwhelmed him. The workmen, soldiers, and builders, whom for the fortification of Jerusalem, his royal city, he had collected within it, now carried tribute, and with thirty talents of gold, 800 talents of silver; woven cloth, scarlet, embroidered; precious stones of large size, couches of ivory, movable thrones of ivory, skins of buffaloes, teeth of buffaloes, dan wood, ku wood, a great measure of every kind, and his daughters, and the male and female inmates of his palace, male slaves and female slaves, unto Nineveh, my royal city, after me he sent; and to pay tribute and do homage he sent his envoy."

—Sennacherib.

The Christadelphian, Dec 1888

36 But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not.

Hezekiah commanded silence on the part of all his people in the presence of these blasphemous words. But he was greatly perturbed. He knew the overpowering strength of the Assyrian host, to which Sennacherib's ambassadors appealed; and he knew that what they said about Hezekiah's in ability to muster even two decent cavalry regiments, was true. But he dared not to surrender.

Visible Hand of God Ch 30