HIstory the only Office of Intelligence, where­at we inform our selves of the Transacti­ons of former Ages, amongst other things that it hands down to posterity, relates, that before that Alexander the Great left the world (his Conquest) some Astrono­mers of that Age observed a new Congeries of Stars so placed in the Heavens, that they made exactly these words, [...], To day dies A­lexander. Whether we keep good correspondence with Antiquity or no; or whether this may not be a lye dres­sed up in the specious term of authentick History, I shall not dispute, though I cannot but give some credit to it. For since that Providence made Bonefires at his Birth, lighting the vast Temple of Ephesus as a Flambeau to light Alexan­der into the World, and so made use of an earthly Comet as a Phosphorus to usher the Rising-Sun into our lower Hemi­sphere: [Page 4] what wonder that the Heavens should publish his death, seeing his victorious life had made him so great, that no Action of his could be sufficiently solemnized by any Prodigy of his Vassal the Earth. But whether Alexander's Fate was thus written in the Heavens, or no, 'tis certain that there are many sick-brain'd and Fop-Astrologers that are continually poring in the Skies, as if the Destiny of all Mortals were written there. They hunt among the Stars for Prophecies, and News for future Ages, as if the Firma­ment were but a great Volume, or vast Sheet of Paper, and the Stars an Alphabet, in such manner disposed, as if God Allmighty had written therein the Destiny of Kings and Kingdoms for these silly men to read through a Jacob's-Staff. 'Tis strange how presumptuously these men will pretend to be able to read God Allmighty's hardest Hand, and under­stand his Secrets written in his abstrusest Characters, by finding strange Hierogliphick Sence in the Planets; where­as in reality their Intellect is so dazled by much contempla­ting those bright Orbs, that at last they understand just no­thing, like those that look so long at the Sun, that they look themselves blind; or rather, it fares with them as it did with the ancient Astronomers, who by continually gazing at the Heavens, at last gazed themselves into a belief that they saw strange Forms, as Centaurs, Bears and Scorpions, whereas to every sound eye there appears no more than an azure ground studded with a few Celestial Gems. These Night-Philosophers that have an Intellect as dark as the time they study in, and a Brain as cloudy as the foggy Re­gion they look through, are still looking through Tubes and Opticks, as if those silly Instruments could assist mortal sight to see into future Ages, and discern things as far di­stant as the end of time; they are continually peeping in the Moon and Stars, as if they were so many Looking-Glasses [Page 5] that did represent every action, motion and gesture of men below; and those not only present and past, but future too. And indeed they are so desirous of seeing some­thing, that oftentimes they fancy that they see strange things in earnest, as the Downfal of Kingdoms, Subversion of Em­pires, Civil Wars, raging Plagues, and a thousand such aery Fantoms; like Children, who by long looking on the Clouds, frame to themselves Men on Horseback, Chariots drawn by Lions, Armies in Battel-Array, and the like, which, those that stand by and hear them tell their Vision, know to be no more than the delusions of a weak sight, and a weaker Brain. But yet the curiosity of man (who sel­dom expects with patience the natural Birth of things, but is still best pleased when nature by some extraordinary means miscarries, and is brought to Bed of an abortive Is­sue, before she is half out of her Reckoning) receives al­most every Dream for a Prophecy, although the Astrologer can foretel no more of the thing he prophesies about, than only that it either will be, or will not. As I detest the pra­ctices of these [...]mpostors, so I shall impose no such lies upon the world: for my Predictions shall appear as infallible as theirs uncertain, and as impossible to be false, as 'tis that the Sun should run counter, Rivers slide back into their Springs, and the Moon lose her way, and instead of travel­ling from East to West, wander in the unknown paths of the North. For I do not draw my Consequences (as others do) from between the Horns of the Moon, nor pretend to have seen what I foretel, written in the Forehead of Mercu­ry, or Venus; nor do I deduce any thing from the dark sen­tences of our English Sibyl, Mother Shipton, or from the e­quivocal Writings of our modern Gypsie-Prophets, but from the unvariable tenour of Providence, immutable na­ture of things, and convincing Axioms of Ethick Philoso­phy.

First therefore from these infallible Rules I draw that this following year 1679 will be infected with an universal Plague, a Disease which the Latins stile morbus animi, and the English generally call Vice. This malignant Pest first began in the first year of the Creation of the Universe, and was brought into the world by the man that first received life, the protoplast Adam; and he got it from a surfeit. By eating too much of the fruit of Paradise he fell desperately sick of this Disease, and so infected his whole progeny; for the Fountain being once poysoned, the streams that run from it must needs be tainted: and this year this old Disease will be as rife as ever. No Country, Town, or Family will be free from its infection. You may go round London, as Diogenes went about Athens with a Lanthorn and Candle at Mid-night, or Mid-day to seek for a sane man, and you find all either dangerously sick, or far gone of this Disease: nay, should one of the quick sighted Spirits of Heaven take the Moon in his hand for a Torch by night, and the Sun for a Light by day, and search the world in every corner, he would not find one single person free from all the symptoms of this Plague; the Species of which are infinite, and the effects various. For some it sieses with a desperate Melancholy, some with a cholerick Frenzy, and some it turns all into proud flesh, and proud humours. Others it takes with a kind of a Dropsie, which the Moral Physician Seneca calls Avarice. This thirsty Disease and ravenous Distemper makes the greedy Patient still gape after precious Liquor; but the more he drinks the dryer he grows, and is never sa­tisfied till he is choked, like Midas with liquid Gold. But with most this Epidemical Plague will turn to a malignant Fever, known to the Latine Doctors by the name of Lues Ve­n [...]rea. This lecherous Disease burns man quite up with the flames of Lust, and destroys the whole Fabrick by firing it [Page 7] within, and rotting it without. Some of these are ashamed of their misfortune, and like the Egyptian Bird that buries her Excrement because she knows it noxious to other Beasts, conceal their Malady from the publick eye, because they will not poyson the whole Flock; but others glory in their condition, and publish their Distemper to the world, car­rying their Leprosie with Ozias, in their very Fore-heads; and to shew that they have the malicious nature of those that are sick of the Plague, they endeavour to infect all they meet, esteeming themselves never worse than when they see others well, and so bear a malice equal to that of the Devil whose greatest Hell it is to see others in Heaven. I have said so much of this dreadful Pestilence, that I come later than I intended, to speak of the universal Slaughter that shall be committed upon all Sexes, and all Ages by that pale Monster which the Evangelist saw in the Apocalypse, arm'd with a sharp Sythe, and mounted on a rawbon'd Horse, that went more swift than March Winds, or Summer Lightning. This merciless Tyrant, which the Greek Text calls Thanatos, and the English, Death, has been on Horse­back some thousands of years, riding down through all A­ges towards the end of time, and is now come within some few days of 79, and when he reaches it, he'll begin his Massacre from the very first moment of the year, and con­tinue it to the last, upon men of all Degrees and Ages: he'll bear no respect to Nobility, no pity towards Youth or Beauty; the Rich shall find no Treasures to bribe him, the Stout no courage to resist him, the Eloquent no Rhetorick to move him, nor the Dextrous any Sleight to avoid his Stroke; for where he aims he hits, and where he hits he kills: no crowd of Clients shall defend the potent, no corner conceal the timerous, since the Mothers Womb shall not be able to hide her Infant from his Weapon. All [Page 8] this is nothing, compared to the Outrages and Villanies that shall be committed the same year. Young Virgins shall be deflowred almost in the very sight of their Parents, the Husbands sacred Bed-right shall be invaded, the Rich shall be design'd upon by the needy, the abject trampled on by the proud, the poor shall starve at the prodigal's door, while the prodigals Dog eats from off the same Trencher, the lame and blind shall lie in the Streets as hoarse with beg­ging, as if they had been bawling to the Clouds or Stars for an Alms, and yet shall have their Purses as empty, as if they had been begging from Marble Statues, and holding out their hands to Monuments of Brass.

This, and much more shall happen, and if it fails, let the World cast the lye in my teeth in as opprobrious terms as it can, and let every understanding man tell me I prophe­sie no truer than a Poet, but let me tell you, if what I have foretold, happens not, you may expect that the next year the Heavens turn backwards, the Sun be blown out, the Rivers forget their way into the Sea, and run over the tops of Mountains, and all things put off their old nature, as Serpents do their cast-off Skins, and no longer remain the things they were.