aws. _Sola plebecula eam agnoscebat_ (saith Vaninus, _dial. 1. lib. 4. de
admirandis naturae arcanis_) speaking of religion, _que facile decipitur,
magnates vero et philosophi nequaquam_, your grandees and philosophers had
no such conceit, _sed ad imperii conformationem et amplificationem quam
sine praetextu religionis tueri non poterant_; and many thousands in all
ages have ever held as much, Philosophers especially, _animadvertebant hi
semper haec esse fabellas, attamen ob metum publicae potestatis silere
cogebantur_ they were still silent for fear of laws, &c. To this end that
Syrian Phyresides, Pythagoras his master, broached in the East amongst the
heathens, first the immortality of the soul, as Trismegistus did in Egypt,
with a many of feigned gods. Those French and Briton Druids in the West
first taught, saith [6397]Caesar, _non interire animas_ (that souls did not
die), "but after death to go from one to another, that so they might
encourage them to virtue." 'Twas for a politic end, and to this purpose the
old [6398]poets feigned those elysian fields, their Aeacus, Minos, and
Rhadamanthus, their infernal judges, and those Stygian lakes, fiery
Phlegethons, Pluto's kingdom, and variety of torments after death. Those
that had done well, went to the elysian fields, but evil doers to Cocytus,
and to that burning lake of [6399]hell with fire, and brimstone for ever to
be tormented. 'Tis this which [6400]Plato labours for in his Phaedon, _et
9. de rep._ The Turks in their Alcoran, when they set down rewards, and
several punishments for every particular virtue and vice, [6401]when they
persuade men, that they that die in battle shall go directly to heaven, but
wicked livers to eternal torment, and all of all sorts (much like our
papistical purgatory), for a set time shall be tortured in their graves, as
appears by that tract which John Baptista Alfaqui, that Mauritanian priest,
now turned Christian, hath written in his confutation of the Alcoran. After
a man's death two black angels, Nunquir and Nequir (so they call them) come
to him to his grave and punish him for his precedent sins; if he lived
well, they torture him the less; if ill, _per indesinentes cruciatus ad
diem fudicii_, they incessantly punish him to the day of judgment, _Nemo
viventium qui ad horum mentionem non totus horret et contremiscit_, the
thought of this crucifies them all their lives long, and makes them spend
their days in fasting and prayer, _ne mala