w years!

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;