Source, in full
Reported as Newton's response, whenever Edmond Halley would say anything disrespectful of religion, by Sir David Brewster in The Life of Sir Isaac Newton (1831). This has often been quoted in recent years as having been a statement specifically defending Astrology. Newton wrote extensively on the importance of Prophecy, and studied Alchemy, but there is little evidence that he took favourable notice of astrology. In a footnote, Brewster attributes the anecdote to the astronomer Nevil Maskelyne who is said to have passed it on to Oxford professor Stephen Peter Rigaud