: According to Dr. Prideaux, the main arguments, which Mohammed used to delude men into a belief of this imposture, were promises and threats, which he knew would work most strongly on the affections of the vulgar. His promises were chiefly of Paradise, which with great art he framed agreeably to the taste of the Arabians for they, lying within the torrid zone, were, through the nature of their climate, as well as the corruption of their manners, exceedingly given to the love of women; and the scorching heat and dryness of the country, making rivers of water, cooling drinks, shaded gardens, and pleasant fruits, most refreshing and delightful to them, they were from hence apt to place their highest enjoyment in things of this nature. For this reason, he made the joys of his Paradise to consist totally in these particulars; which he promises them abundantly in many places of the Koran. On the contrary, he described the punishments of hell, which he threatened to all who would not believe in him, to consist of such torments as would appear to them the most afflicting and grievous to be borne; as, "that they should drink nothing but boiling and stinking water, nor breathe any thing but exceedingly hot winds, things most terrible in Arabia; that they should dwell for ever in continual fire, excessively burning, and be surrounded with a black hot salt smoke, as with a coverlid, &c.;" and, that he might omit nothing which could work on their fears, he terrified them with the threats of grievous punishments in this life. To which purpose he set forth, upon all occasions, what terrible calamities had fallen upon the heads of such as would not be instructed by the prophets who were sent before him; how the old world was destroyed by water, for not being reformed at the preaching of Noah; how Sodom was consumed by fire from heaven, for not hearkening to Lot when sent unto them; and how the Egyptians were plagued for despising Moses: for he allowed the divinity of both the Old and New Testaments, and that Moses and Jesus Christ were prophets sent from God; but alleged that the Jews and Christians had corrupted those sacre books, and that he was sent to purge them from those corruptions, and to restore the law of God to that origi nal purity in which it was first delivered. And this is the reason, that most of the passages which he takes out of the Old and New Testaments, appear different in the Koran from what we find them in those sacred books. Mohammed pretended to receive all his revelations from the angel Gabriel, who, he said, was sent from God, on purpose to deliver them unto him. He was subject, it is said, to the falling-sickness; so that whenever the fit was upon him, he pretended it to be a trance, and that then the angel Gabriel was come from God with some new revelations. His pretended revelations he put into several chapters; the collection of which makes up the Koran, which is the Bible of the Mohammedans. The original of this book was laid up, as he taught his followers, in the archives of heaven; and the angel Gabriel brought him the copy of it, chapter by chapter, as occasion required, that they should be published to the people: that is, as often as any new thing was to be set on foot, any objection against him or his religion to be answered, any difficulty to be solved, any discontent among his people to be quieted, any offence to be removed, or any thing else done for the furtherance of his grand scheme, his constant recourse was to the angel Gabriel for a new revelation; and then appeared some addition to the Koran, to serve his purpose. But what perplexed him most was, that his opposers demanded to see a miracle from him; "for," said they, "Moses, and Jesus, and the rest of the prophets, according to thy own doctrine, worked miracles to prove their mission from God; and therefore, if thou be a prophet, and greater than any that were sent before thee, as thou boastest thyself to be, do thou work the like miracles to manifest it unto us. This objection he endeavoured to evade by several answers; all of which amount only to this, "that God had sent Moses and Jesus with miracles, and yet men would not be obedient to their word; and therefore he had now sent him, in the last place, without miracles, to force them by the power of the sword to do his will." Hence it has become the universal doctrine of the Mohammedans, that their religion is to be propagated by the sword, and that ali true Mussulmen are bound to fight for it. It has eveu been suid to be s custom among |