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 haec contingant, &c.  A Tartar prince, saith Marcus Polus, lib. 1. cap. 23. called Senex de Montibus, the better to establish his government amongst his subjects, and to keep them in awe, found a convenient place in a pleasant valley, environed with hills, in [6402]"which he made a delicious park full of odoriferous flowers and fruits, and a palace of all worldly contents,” that could possibly be devised, music, pictures, variety of meats, &c., and chose out a certain young man, whom with a [6403]soporiferous potion he so benumbed, that he perceived nothing:  “and so fast asleep as he was, caused him to be conveyed into this fair garden:”  where after he had lived awhile in all such pleasures a sensual man could desire, [6404]"He cast him into a sleep again, and brought him forth, that when he awaked he might tell others he had been in Paradise.”  The like he did for hell, and by this means brought his people to subjection.  Because heaven and hell are mentioned in the scriptures, and to be believed necessary by Christians:  so cunningly can the devil and his ministers, in imitation of true religion, counterfeit and forge the like, to circumvent and delude his superstitious followers.  Many such tricks and impostures are acted by politicians, in China especially, but with what effect I will discourse in the symptoms.