Page:History of Mahomet, the great imposter.pdf/17

 adorned with gold and precious stones, under the shadow of the trees of Paradise, which shall continually yield them all manner of delicious fruits; and that there they shall enjoy most beautiful women, pure and clean, having black eyes, and countenances always fresh and white as polished pearls, who shall not cast an eye on any other but themselves, with whom they shall enjoy the continual pleasures of love, and solace themselves in their company with amorous delights to all eternity, drinking with them most delicious liquors, and most savoury and pleasant wines, without being ever intoxicated or overcharged by them, which shall be administered to them by beautiful boys, who shall be continually running round their beds to serve them up unto them in cups of gold, and glasses fixed on diamonds.

And as thus he framed his promises of reward in the life hereafter, as might best suit with the sensual appetites and desires of those to whom he proposed them; so, on the contrary, he described the punishment of hell, which he threatened all that would not believe in him, to consist of such torments as would appear to them thothe [sic] most afflicting and grievous to nature: As that they should drink nothing but boiling and stinking water; nor breathe any thing else but exceeding 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, and salt smoke, as with a coverlid; that they should eat nothing but briers and thorns, and the fruit of the tree zacon, which should be in their bellies like burning pitch.

In the proposing of these promises and threats to the people, he was very frequent and sedulous,