Such are the dreadful and mysterious doctrines upon which Christians in general are agreed. There are many others which are peculiar to different sects. Thus, a numerous sect of Christians admit an intermediate state between heaven and hell, where souls, too sinful for the former and too innocent for the latter, are subjected for a time, in order to expiate by their sufferings the sin they commit in this life; after undergoing this punishment, they are received into the abodes of eternal felicity. This doctrine, which was evidently drawn from the reveries of Plato, has, in the hands of the Roman priests, been converted into an inexhaustible source of riches. They have arrogated to themselves the power of opening the gates of purgatory, and pretend that, by their prayers, they can mitigate the rigour of the divine decrees, and abridge the torments of the souls, condemned to this place by a just God.1 1 It is evident that the Roman Catholics are indebted to Plato for their purgatory. That great philosopher divided souls into three classes: the pure, the curable, and the incurable. The first returned, by refusion, to the universal soul of the world, or the divinity, from which they had emanated; the second went to hell, where they passed in review every year before the judges of that dark empire, who suffered them to return to light when they had sufficiently expiated their faults; the incurables remained in Tartarus, where they were to suffer eternal torment. Plato, as well as, Christian casuists, described the crimes, faults, &c. which merit those different degrees of punishment. Protestant divines, jealous probably of the riches of the Catholic clergy, have imprudently rejected the doctrine of a purgatory, whereby they have much diminished their own credit. It would, perhaps, have been wiser to have rejected the doctrine of an hell, whence souls can never be released, than that of purgatory, which is more reasonable, and from which the clergy can deliver souls by means of that all-powerful agent, money. The preceding remarks shew, that the Christian religion has been often inculcated and spread by dint of terror. By striking mankind with horror they render them submissive, and remove all his dependence on his reason.1 1 Mahomet perceived, as well as Christian divines, the necessity of frightening mankind, in order to govern them. "Those," says the Koran, "who do not believe, shall be clothed in a garment of fire; boiling water shall be poured on their heads; their skins and their entrails shall be smitten with rods of iron. Whenever they shall strive to escape from hell, and avoid its torments, they shall be thrust again into it; and the devils say unto them, 'taste the pain of burning'." See Alcoran, ch. viii. CHAP. IX.--OF THE RITES AND MYSTERIOUS CEREMONIES OR THEURGY OF THE CHRISTIANS.