Book was sold for
thirty
Pound. As it was written by one
Jordanus Brunus
, a professed Atheist, with a design to depreciate Religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant Price it bore, that there must be something in it very formidable.
I must confess that happening to get a sight of one of them my self, I could not forbear perusing it with this Apprehension; but found there was so very little Danger in it, that I shall venture to give my Readers a fair Account of the whole Plan upon which this wonderful Treatise is built.
The Author pretends that
Jupiter
once upon a Time resolved on a Reformation of the Constellations: for which purpose having summoned the Stars together, he complains to them of the great Decay of the Worship of the Gods, which he thought so much the harder, having called several of those Celestial Bodies by the Names of the Heathen Deities, and by that means made the Heavens as it were a Book of the Pagan Theology.