ii4 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 



would be glad to be assured, what he wrote with his 

 finger on the ground : but especially to have a particular 

 of that instructing narration or discourse which he made 

 unto the disciples after his resurrection, where 'tis said : 

 " And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he 

 expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things 

 concerning himself." 



But, to omit theological obscurities, you must needs 

 observe that most sciences do seem to have something 

 more nearly to consider in the expressions of the 

 Scripture. 



Astronomers find herein the names but of few stars, 

 scarce so many as in Achilles's buckler in Homer, and 

 almost the very same. But in some passages of the 

 Old Testament they think they discover the zodiacal 

 course of the sun ; and they, also, conceive an astro- 

 nomical sense in that elegant expression of St. James 

 " concerning the father of lights, with whom there is 

 no variableness, neither shadow of turning : " and 

 therein an allowable allusion unto the tropical con- 

 version of the sun, whereby ensueth a variation of heat, 

 light, and also of shadows from it. But whether the 

 stella erratica or wandering stars, in St. Jude, may be 

 referred to the celestial planets or some meteorological 

 wandering stars, ignes fatui, stella cadentes et erratic*, or 



