the Persians and Hindus. 171 



out beginning to eternity without end, the fupreme benevolence is occupied 

 in bellowing happinefs or the means of attaining it; that men can only 

 attain it by performing their part of the primal covenant between 

 them and the Creator j that nothing has a pure abfolute exigence but 

 mind or fpirit; that material fubjiances, as the ignorant call them, 

 are no more than gay figures prefented continually to our minds 

 by the fempiternal artifl -> that we mull: beware of attachment to 

 fuch phantoms, and attach ourfelves exclusively to God, who truly 

 exifts in us, as we exift folely in him ; that we retain even in this for- 

 lorn State of feparation from our beloved, the idea of heavenly beauty, and 

 the remembrance of our primeval vows \ that fweet mufick, gentle breezes, 

 fragrant flowers, perpetually renew the primary idea, refrefh our fading 

 memory, and melt us with tender affections; that we mud; cherifh thofe 

 affections, and by abstracting our fouls from vanity, that is, from all but 

 God, approximate to his effence, in our final union with which will 

 confiitour fupreme beatitude. From thefe principles flow a thoufand 

 metaphors and other poetical figures, which abound in the lacred poems 

 of the PerJians-zxA Hindus, who feemto mean the fame thing in fubfhnce, 

 and differ only in expreffion, as their languages differ in idiom ! The mo- 

 dern Su'Vis, who profefs a belief in the Koran, fuppofe with great Sub- 

 limity both of thought and of diction, an exprefs .contrail, on the day of 

 eternity without beginning, between the affemblage of created fpirits and 

 the fupreme foul, from which they were detached, when a cele.St.ial voice 

 pronounced thefe words, addreffed to each fpirit feparately, " Art thou 

 " not with thy Lord?'* that is, art thou not bound by a folemn contract 

 with him ? and all the fpirits anfwered with one voice, " Yes:" hence it. 

 is, that ahfl, or art thou not, and irli, or yes, inccflantly occur in the myf- 

 tical verfcs of the Pcrfians, and of the Turkijh poets, who imitate them, as 



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