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both ancient Hushangis and modern Sujis; who seem to have 

 borrowed it from the Indian philosophers of the Vedanta school; 

 and their doctrines are also believed to be the source of that sub- 

 lime, but poetical theology, which glows and sparkles in the Avrit- 

 ings of the old academicks. It is a singular species of poetry, 

 which consists almost wholly of a mystical religious allegory, 

 though it seems, on a transient view, to contain only the sentiments 

 of a wild and voluptuous libertinism. Now, admitting the danger of 

 a poetical style, in which the limits between vice and enthusiasm 

 are so minute as to be hardly distinguishable, we must beware of 

 censuring it severely, and must allow it to be natural, though a 

 warm imagination may carry it to a culpable excess; for an ar- 

 dently grateful piety is congenial to the undepraved nature of 

 man; whose mind sinking under the magnitude of the subject, 

 and struggling to express its emotions, has recourse to metaphors 

 and allegories, which it sometimes extends beyond the bounds of 

 cool reason, and often to the brink of absurdity." 



Situated as I was among the brahmins I had ample opportunity 

 of witnessing the truth of those passages which the illustrious pre- 

 sident thought necessary to lay before the Asiatic Society. I ad- 

 mit the truth and influence of the sublime communion to which 

 he alludes, on some of the brahminical priesthood; yet, as I have 

 had occasion to ask in another place, what is the religion of the mil- 

 lions of Hindoos, who are not initiated into their mystical reveries? 

 Sir William Jones allows that his quotation from Barrow borders 

 upon quietism, and enthusiastic devotion; and perhaps among 

 Christians there may be only a few, who, like Fenelon and others 

 of that description, attain to that holy approximation, that ineffable 



