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with all their variety of powers-their capabilitiestheir immortality-are the "offspring" of the Great Parent; if we are dependent on God every moment for our continuance in existence; if "in him we live and move and have our being; "if we are indebted to him for health, vigour, activity, and comfort of body; if to him we look for the soundness, balance, action, and enjoyment of mind; if we are dependent on him, not for being only, but the excellence of being, not for life simply, but "the grace of life" -not for powers only, but their peace, use, bliss and improvement; then our way is easy and short to a just, intelligible, and indisputable conclusion. Can it be a question whether the will of the Creator or of the created is to be supreme? Can we hesitate between excellence original and eternal, and the small streams of derived and dependent good? Shall the approbation of Infinite Wisdom be less to us than the changeful smile of mortals, or the deceitful commendation of ourselves? Shall we leave the altar of the Giver of all, and offer incense to our own indigence? Shall we "lean to our own understanding," rest upon an arm of flesh, and thrust from us the “ everlasting arms?" Shall we repose on the surface of fickle and treacherous earthly good, and shrink from the bosom of eternal affection and fidelity? Shall we prefer our own little narrow interests to the vast and benevolent designs of God? Shall our views, affections, motives, and purposes, gather and sullenly settle and sink into our little selves, and not rather break away as if from unnatural confinement and restraint, and soar towards the ever-blessed God, as their proper and everlasting centre?

For creatures, dependent and indebted, as creatures must ever be, to regard themselves as the ultimate end of being and action, is arrogance, rebellion and idolatry. And if we had but eyes to see, and fairness and impartiality to judge, we should want no further proof of the fallen character of man, than the fact that he refuses to recognise as the end of his life and actions, the Great Creator, Sustainer, and Comforter of his being the God of boundless wisdom, goodness, and loveliness. "Be astonished O heavyens, and wonder, O earth; I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." Is it not a heavy charge-an allegation of deep depravation, that "the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy. ways, hast thou not GLORIFIED?"+ "And do I then think it fit that the heavens should roll for me? or all the mighty wheels of providence move only with regard to my convenience? If a worm in your garden were capable of thought, and because it is permitted to crawl there, should think, this garden was made for me, and every thing in it ought to be ordered for my accommodation and pleasure, would you not wonder that such insolence, and a disposition to think so extravagantly, should be in conjunction with the thinking power, or an ability to think at all? If we allow ourselves in that far greater (infinitely more unseeming and disproportionable) petulancy, do we think when the roller comes it will scruple to crush

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us, or have regard to our immodest, pretenceless claim? Let us consider what little minute things, how next to nothing we are, even compared to all the rest of the world: what are we then compared with the Maker and Lord of it, in comparison of whom, the whole, is but as the drop of a bucket, or the small dust of the balance, lighter than nothing and vanity! We should more contemplate ourselves in such a comparison; many comparing themselves with themselves are not wise. While we confine and limit our eye only to ourselves, we seem great things, fancy ourselves very considerable. But what am I? What is my single personality, ipseity, self-hood, (call it what you will) to him who is the all in all; whose being (actually or radically) comprehends all being, all that I can conceive, and the infinitely greater all, that I cannot?"*

II. God seeks his own glory in all he does it must therefore be an exaited and worthy object for a creature to seek.†

Reason has nothing to object to the divine glory as the chief end regarded in the works and ways of God. All our ideas of fitness separated from partial and self-favouring notions, concur in the admission that God's glory is the proper end of all things. Shall not he who is greatest and wisest and best of all have the homage of all? Shall not the author of all have the credit of all? Shall not the Proprietor Shall not the

of all have the use and service of all?

• Howe.

+ The materiel of this section is drawn from Edwards's "God's Chief End in Creation."

All-Perfect please himself in his doings?

Can

it be otherwise with propriety and justice? In creation God must of necessity have regarded that as his end, which was most worthy to be regarded. Must he not then mainly have regarded Himself? Could Infinite Wisdom and Rectitude have overlooked that as the end, which of all ends was most considerable and most lovely? Could the Eternal Mind repose in anything as an end with such satisfaction and complacency as its own excellencies? And if these are infinitely worthy of divine regard in themselves, they are so in their exercises. If they are estimable in God's own view for their adaptation and sufficiency for certain actings and exercises, these actings and exercises are themselves estimable. The movements and operations therefore of the divine perfections constitute an end worthy of God. Creation was to furnish the occasion and field for the exertion of divine power, the contrivances of wisdom, the doings of righteousness, and especially for the boundless actings of goodness. And that these excellencies might be known was also a becoming end. It was an object worthy of engaging the purposes of the Divine Being, that an order of intelligences should exist, to know and contemplate that eternal excellence which forms the object of his own boundless complacency and delight. Equally fit and desirable is it that this glory of the divine character should be ESTEEMED, loved, and delighted in. If God has infinite satisfaction and joy in his own excellence, it must appear to him an end worthy of his attention and arrangement, that others should admire and love it.-Moreover, as

there is in God an infinite fulness of excellence and blessedness, the emanation and diffusion of this goodness and bliss formed an end worthy of God. It became the infinite fountain to send forth endless streams of his own loveliness and happiness-to multiply itself, so to speak, into new and endless forms of beauty and enjoyment. It was proper that this sun should send forth his beams. There is in the divinity a disposition to diffuse itself to spread the knowledge, holiness and happiness, originally all its own ;-and it was to gratify this disposition that God created the universe, and that he now preserves and governs it. This propensity to send forth of his everlasting fulness belongs to the deity-is a property and characteristic of the Godhead. The boundless and eternal gratification of this disposition is the end pursued by God in his creative and providential operations and proceedings. God's motive, therefore, for creating intelligent beings, was that he might diffuse himself. It was to himself-to himself as known, esteemed, enjoyed, adored, diffused and imparted, manifested and reflected—he looked, in all his works as Maker, and in all his measures as Governor of the universe. He imparts his knowledge : but it is the knowledge of himself. He communicates his holiness; but it is the image of himself. He sheds abroad his love; but it is pre-eminently love to himself. He imparts his blessedness; but it is joy in himself. Thus God is both the source and

the end of all excellence.

knowledge, purity and bliss;

It flows out from God in and it flows back to him

in every form of admiration, love and praise. When God thus imparts himself, a tendency towards him

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