And I am afraid, too, he had a kind of a hint of this, from another who had formerly found out that a man’s

    Soul was like an Oyster.  For, says he in his prayer, “Our souls
    are constantly gaping after thee, O LORD! yea, verily, our souls
    do gape, even as an oyster gapeth!”

It seems pretty hard, at first sight, to bring into a sermon all the Circles of the Globe and all the frightful terms of Astronomy; but I will assure you, Sir, it is to be done! because it has been.  But not by every bungler and ordinary text-divider; but by a man of great cunning and experience.

There is a place in the prophet Malachi, where it will do very nicely, and that is chapter iv. ver. 2, “But unto you, that fear my Name, shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”  From which words, in the first place, it plainly appears that our Saviour passed through all the twelve signs of the Zodiac; and more than that too, all proved by very apt and familiar places of Scripture.

First, then, our Saviour was in Aries.  Or else, what means that of the Psalmist, “The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs!”?  And again, that in Second of the Kings, chap. iii. ver. 4, “And MESHA, King of Moab, was a sheep master, and rendered unto the King of Israel an hundred thousand lambs,” and what follows, “and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool!” Mind it! it was the King of Israel!

In like manner, was he in Taurus.  Psalm xxii. 12.  “Many bulls have compassed me!  Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round!” They were not ordinary bulls.  They were compassing bulls! they were besetting bulls! they were strong Bashan bulls!

    What need I speak of Gemini?  Surely you cannot but remember
    ESAU and JACOB! Genesis xxv. 24.  “And when her days to be
    delivered were fulfilled, behold there were Twins in her womb!”

    Or of Cancer? when, as the Psalmist says so plainly, “What
    ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan! that
    thou wast driven back?” Nothing more plain!

    It were as easy to shew the like in all the rest of the Signs.

But instead of that, I shall rather choose to make this one practical Observation.  That the mercy of GOD to mankind in sending His Son into the world, was a very signal mercy.  It was a zodiacal mercy!  I say it was truly zodiacal; for CHRIST keeps within the Tropics!  He goes not out of the Pale of the Church; but yet he is not always at the same distance from a believer.  Sometimes he withdraws himself into the apogaeum of doubt, sorrow, and despair; but then he comes again into the perigaeum of joy, content, and assurance; but as for heathens and unbelievers, they are all arctic and antarctic reprobates!

Now when such stuff as this, as sometimes it is, is vented in a poor parish, where people can scarce tell, what day of the month it is by the Almanack? how seasonable and savoury it is likely to be!