“_Courteous Reader_,—Astrology is one of the most ancient sciences, held in high esteem of old by the wise and great. Formerly no prince would make war or peace, nor any general fight a battle; in short, no important affair was undertaken without first consulting an Astrologer, who examined the aspects and configurations of the heavenly bodies, and marked the lucky hour. Now the noble art (more shame to the age we live in) is dwindled into contempt; the great neglect us; empires make leagues and parliament laws without advising with us; and scarce any other use is made of our learned labors, than to find out the best time of cutting corns and gelding pigs. This mischief we owe in a great measure to ourselves; the ignorant herd of mankind, had they not been encouraged to it by some of us, would never have dared to depreciate our sacred dictates; but Urania has been betrayed by her own sons; those whom she had favored with the greatest skill in her divine art, the most eminent Astronomers among the moderns, the _Newtons_, _Halleys_ and _Whistons_, have wantonly contemned and abused her contrary to the light of their own consciences. Of these, only the last named, _Whiston_, has lived to repent and speak his mind honestly. In his former works he had treated _judicial astrology_ as a chimera, and asserted that not only the fixed stars, but the planets (sun and moon excepted) were at so immense a distance as to be incapable of any influence on this earth, and consequently nothing could be foretold from their positions; but now, in the memoirs of his life, published 1749, in the eighty-second of his age, he foretells, page 607, the sudden destruction of the Turkish Empire and of the House of Austria, German Emperors, &c. and Popes of Rome; the Restoration of the Jews and commencement of the Millenium, all by the year 1766, and this not only from Scriptural prophecies, but (take his own words) ‘from the remarkable _Astronomical_ signals that are to alarm mankind of what is coming, viz. the Northern Lights since 1715, the six comets at the Protestant Reformation in four years, 1530, 1531, 1533, 1534, compared with the seven comets already seen in these last eleven years, 1737, 1739, 1742, 1744, 1746, and 1748—from the great annular eclipse of the sun July 14, 1748, whose centre passed through all the four monarchies from Scotland to the East Indies—from the occultation of the Pleiades by the moon each periodical month after the eclipse last July, for above three years visible to the whole Roman Empire—from the comet of A.D. 1456, 1531, 1607 and 1682, which will appear again about 1757 ending, or 1758 beginning, and will also be visible through that Empire—from the Transit of Venus over the Sun May 26, 1761, which will be visible over the same Empire: and lastly, from the annular eclipse of the sun March 11, 1764, which will be visible over the same