Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/341

 efficacy also, from the infectiousness of our tempers and dispositions, and from the perpetual recurrency of the proper words, and of their secondary ideas; first in a faint state, afterwards in a stronger and stronger perpetually. The contemplation of the rest of the divine attributes, his omnipotence, omniscience, eternity, ubiquity, &c. have also a tendency to support and augment the love of God, when this is so far advanced, as to be superior to the fear; till that time these wonderful attributes enhance the fear so much, as to check the rise and growth of the love for a time. Even the fear itself contributes to the generation and augmentation of the love in an eminent degree, and in a manner greatly analogous to the production of other pleasures from pains. And indeed it seems, that, notwithstanding the variety of ways above-mentioned, in which the love of God is generated, and the consequent variety of the intellectual aggregates, and secondary ideas, there must be so great a resemblance amongst them, that they cannot but languish by frequent recurrency, till such time as ideas of an opposite nature, by intervening at certain seasons, give them new life.

The love of God is, according to this theory, evidently deduced in part from interested motives directly; viz. from the hopes of a future reward; and those motives to it, or sources of it, in which direct explicit self-interest does not appear, may yet be analysed up to it ultimately. However, after all the several sources of the love of God have coalesced together, this affection becomes as disinterested as any other; as the pleasure we take in any natural or artificial beauty, in the esteem of others, or even in sensual gratifications.

It appears also, that this pure disinterested love of God may, by the concurrence of a sufficient number of sufficiently strong associations, arise to such a height, as to prevail over any of the other desires interested or disinterested; for all, except the sensual ones, are of a factitious nature, as well as the love of God; and the sensual ones are, in our progress through life, overpowered by them all in their respective turns.

Enthusiasm may be defined a mistaken persuasion in any person, that he is a peculiar favourite with God; and that he receives supernatural marks thereof. The vividness of the ideas of this class easily generates this false persuasion in persons of strong fancies, little experience in divine things, and narrow understandings, (and especially where the moral sense, and the scrupulosity attending its growth and improvement, are but imperfectly formed,) by giving a reality and certainty to all the reveries of a man’s own mind, and cementing the associations in a preternatural manner. It may also be easily contracted by contagion, as daily experience shews; and indeed more easily than most other dispositions, from the glaring language used by enthusiasts, and from the great flattery and support, which enthusiasm affords to pride and self-conceit.