V. God's End in Creation.Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God's work, or of God's character as revealed therein.It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”In determining this end, we turn first to:1. The testimony of Scripture.This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.[pg 398]Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.2. The testimony of reason.That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
V. God's End in Creation.Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God's work, or of God's character as revealed therein.It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”In determining this end, we turn first to:1. The testimony of Scripture.This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.[pg 398]Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.2. The testimony of reason.That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
V. God's End in Creation.Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God's work, or of God's character as revealed therein.It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”In determining this end, we turn first to:1. The testimony of Scripture.This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.[pg 398]Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.2. The testimony of reason.That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
V. God's End in Creation.Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God's work, or of God's character as revealed therein.It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”In determining this end, we turn first to:1. The testimony of Scripture.This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.[pg 398]Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.2. The testimony of reason.That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
V. God's End in Creation.Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God's work, or of God's character as revealed therein.It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”In determining this end, we turn first to:1. The testimony of Scripture.This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.[pg 398]Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.2. The testimony of reason.That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
V. God's End in Creation.Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God's work, or of God's character as revealed therein.It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”In determining this end, we turn first to:1. The testimony of Scripture.This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.[pg 398]Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.2. The testimony of reason.That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
Infinite wisdom must, in creating, propose to itself the most comprehensive and the most valuable of ends,—the end most worthy of God, and the end most fruitful in good. Only in the light of the end proposed can we properly judge of God's work, or of God's character as revealed therein.
It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”
It would seem that Scripture should give us an answer to the question: Why did God create? The great Architect can best tell his own design. Ambrose:“To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?”George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 15—“God is necessarily a being of ends. Teleology is the warp and woof of humanity; it must be in the warp and woof of Deity. Evolutionary science has but strengthened this view. Natural science is but a mean disguise for ignorance if it does not imply cosmical purpose. The movement of life from lower to higher is a movement upon ends. Will is the last account of the universe, and will is the faculty for ends. The moment one concludes that God is, it appears certain that he is a being of ends. The universe is alive with desire and movement. Fundamentally it is throughout an expression of will. And it follows, that the ultimate end of God in human history must be worthy of himself.”
In determining this end, we turn first to:
1. The testimony of Scripture.This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.[pg 398]Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.
This may be summed up in four statements. God finds his end (a) in himself; (b) in his own will and pleasure; (c) in his own glory; (d) in the making known of his power, his wisdom, his holy name. All these statements may be combined in the following, namely, that God's supreme end in creation is nothing outside of himself, but is his own glory—in the revelation, in and through creatures, of the infinite perfection of his own being.
(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.
(a)Rom. 11:36—“unto him are all things”;Col. 1:16—“all things have been created ... unto him”(Christ); compareIs. 48:11—“for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it ... and my glory will I not give to another”; and1 Cor. 15:28—“subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.”Proverbs 16:4—not“The Lord hath made all things for himself”(A. V.) but“Jehovah hath made everything for its own end”(Rev. Vers.).
(b)Eph. 1:5, 6, 9—“having foreordained us ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace ... mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him”;Rev. 4:11—“thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.”
(c)Is. 43:7—“whom I have created for my glory”;60:21and61:3—the righteousness and blessedness of the redeemed are secured, that“he may be glorified”;Luke 2:14—the angels' song at the birth of Christ expressed the design of the work of salvation:“Glory to God in the highest,”and only through, and for its sake,“on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”
(d)Ps. 143:11—“In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble”;Ez. 36:21, 22—“I do not this for your sake ... but for mine holy name”;39:7—“my holy name will I make known”;Rom. 9:17—to Pharaoh:“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth”;22, 23—“riches of his glory”made known in vessels of wrath, and in vessels of mercy;Eph. 3:9, 10—“created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”See Godet, on Ultimate Design of Man;“God in man and man in God,”in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:436, 535, 565, 568.Per contra, see Miller, Fetich in Theology, 19, 39-45, 88-98, 143-146.
Since holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, to make himself, his own pleasure, his own glory, his own manifestation, to be his end in creation, is to find his chief end in his own holiness, its maintenance, expression, and communication. To make this his chief end, however, is not to exclude certain subordinate ends, such as the revelation of his wisdom, power, and love, and the consequent happiness of innumerable creatures to whom this revelation is made.
God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.
God's glory is that which makes him glorious. It is not something without, like the praise and esteem of men, but something within, like the dignity and value of his own attributes. To a noble man, praise is very distasteful unless he is conscious of something in himself that justifies it. We must be like God to be self-respecting. Pythagoras said well:“Man's end is to be like God.”And so God must look within, and find his honor and his end in himself. Robert Browning, Hohenstiel-Schwangau:“This is the glory, that in all conceived Or felt or known, I recognize a Mind, Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy Making all things for me, and me for Him.”Schurman, Belief in God, 214-216—“God glorifies himself in communicating himself.”The object of his love is the exercise of his holiness. Self-affirmation conditions self-communication.
E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 94, 196—“Law and gospel are only two sides of the one object, the highest glory of God in the highest good of man.... Nor is it unworthy of God to make himself his own end: (a) It is both unworthy and criminal for a finite being to make himself his own end, because it is an end that can be reached only by degrading self and wronging others; but (b) For an infinite Creator not to make himself his own end would be to dishonor himself and wrong his creatures; since, thereby, (c) he must either act without an end, which is irrational, or from an end which is impossible without wronging his creatures; because (d) the highest welfare of his creatures, and consequently their happiness, is impossible except through the subordination and conformity of their wills to that of their infinitely perfect Ruler; and (e) without this highest welfare and happiness of his creatures God's own end itself becomes impossible, for he is glorified only as his character is reflected in, and recognized by, his intelligent creatures.”Creation can add nothing to the essential wealth or worthiness of God. If the end were outside himself, it would make him dependent and a servant. The old theologians therefore spoke of God's“declarative glory,”rather than God's“essential glory,”as resulting from man's obedience and salvation.
2. The testimony of reason.That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
That his own glory, in the sense just mentioned, is God's supreme end in creation, is evident from the following considerations:
(a) God's own glory is the only end actually and perfectly attained in the universe. Wisdom and omnipotence cannot choose an end which is destined to be forever unattained; for“what his soul desireth, even that he doeth”(Job 23:13). God's supreme end cannot be the happiness of creatures, since many are miserable here and will be miserable forever. God's supreme end cannot be the holiness of creatures, for many are unholy here and will be unholy forever. But while neither the holiness nor the happiness of creatures is actually and perfectly attained, God's glory is made known and will be made known in both the saved and the lost. This then must be God's supreme end in creation.
This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.
This doctrine teaches us that none can frustrate God's plan. God will get glory out of every human life. Man may glorify God voluntarily by love and obedience, but if he will not do this he will be compelled to glorify God by his rejection and punishment. Better be the molten iron that runs freely into the mold prepared by the great Designer, than be the hard and cold iron that must be hammered into shape. Cleanthes, quoted by Seneca:“Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.”W. C. Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 271—“But some are tools, and others ministers, Of God, who works his holy will with all.”Christ baptizes“in the Holy Spirit and in fire”(Mat. 3:11). Alexander[pg 399]McLaren:“There are two fires, to one or other of which we must be delivered. Either we shall gladly accept the purifying fire of the Spirit which burns sin out of us, or we shall have to meet the punitive fire which burns up us and our sins together. To be cleansed by the one or to be consumed by the other is the choice before each one of us.”Hare, Mission of the Comforter, onJohn 16:8, shows that the Holy Spirit eitherconvincesthose who yield to his influence, orconvictsthose who resist—the word ἐλέγχω having this double significance.
(b) God's glory is the end intrinsically most valuable. The good of creatures is of insignificant importance compared with this. Wisdom dictates that the greater interest should have precedence of the less. Because God can choose no greater end, he must choose for his end himself. But this is to choose his holiness, and his glory in the manifestation of that holiness.
Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.
Is. 40:15, 16—“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”—like the drop that falls unobserved from the bucket, like the fine dust of the scales which the tradesman takes no notice of in weighing, so are all the combined millions of earth and heaven before God. He created, and he can in an instant destroy. The universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of his garment. It is more important that God should be glorified than that the universe should be happy. As we read inHeb. 6:13—“since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself”—so here we may say: Because he could choose no greater end in creating, he chose himself. But to swear by himself is to swear by his holiness (Ps. 89:35). We infer that to find his end in himself is to find that end in his holiness. See Martineau on Malebranche, in Types, 177.
The stick or the stone does not exist for itself, but for some consciousness. The soul of man exists in part for itself. But it is conscious that in a more important sense it exists for God.“Modern thought,”it is said,“worships and serves the creature more than the Creator; indeed, the chief end of the Creator seems to be to glorify man and to enjoy him forever.”So the small boy said his Catechism:“Man's chief end is to glorify God and to annoy him forever.”Prof. Clifford:“The kingdom of God is obsolete; the kingdom of man has now come.”All this is the insanity of sin.Per contra, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 329, 330—“Two things are plain in Edwards's doctrine: first, that God cannot love anything other than himself: he is so great, so preponderating an amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth considering; secondly, so far as God has any love for the creature, it is because he is himself diffused therein: the fulness of his own essence has overflowed into an outer world, and that which he loves in created beings is his essence imparted to them.”But we would add that Edwards does not say they are themselves of the essence of God; see his Works, 2:210, 211.
(c) His own glory is the only end which consists with God's independence and sovereignty. Every being is dependent upon whomsoever or whatsoever he makes his ultimate end. If anything in the creature is the last end of God, God is dependent upon the creature. But since God is dependent only on himself, he must find in himself his end.
To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”
To create is not to increase his blessedness, but only to reveal it. There is no need or deficiency which creation supplies. The creatures who derive all from him can add nothing to him. All our worship is only the rendering back to him of that which is his own. He notices us only for his own sake and not because our little rivulets of praise add anything to the ocean-like fulness of his joy. For his own sake, and not because of our misery or our prayers, he redeems and exalts us. To make our pleasure and welfare his ultimate end would be to abdicate his throne. He creates, therefore, only for his own sake and for the sake of his glory. To this reasoning the London Spectator replies:“The glory of God is the splendor of a manifestation, not the intrinsic splendor manifested. The splendor of a manifestation, however, consists in the effect of the manifestation on those to whom it is given. Precisely because the manifestation of God's goodness can be useful to us and cannot be useful to him, must its manifestation be intended for our sake and not for his sake. We gain everything by it—he nothing, except so far as it is his own will that we should gain what he desires to bestow upon[pg 400]us.”In this last clause we find the acknowledgment of weakness in the theory that God's supreme end is the good of his creatures. God does gain the fulfilment of his plan, the doing of his will, the manifestation of himself. The great painter loves his picture less than he loves his ideal. He paints in order to express himself. God loves each soul which he creates, but he loves yet more the expression of his own perfections in it. And this self-expression is his end. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 54—“God is the perfect Poet, Who in creation acts his own conceptions.”Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:357, 358; Shairp, Province of Poetry, 11, 12.
God's love makes him a self-expressing being. Self-expression is an inborn impulse in his creatures. All genius partakes of this characteristic of God. Sin substitutes concealment for outflow, and stops this self-communication which would make the good of each the good of all. Yet even sin cannot completely prevent it. The wicked man is impelled to confess. By natural law the secrets of all hearts will be made manifest at the judgment. Regeneration restores the freedom and joy of self-manifestation. Christianity and confession of Christ are inseparable. The preacher is simply a Christian further advanced in this divine privilege. We need utterance. Prayer is the most complete self-expression, and God's presence is the only land of perfectly free speech.
The great poet comes nearest, in the realm of secular things, to realizing this privilege of the Christian. No great poet ever wrote his best work for money, or for fame, or even for the sake of doing good. Hawthorne was half-humorous and only partially sincere, when he said he would never have written a page except for pay. The hope of pay may have set his pen a-going, but only love for his work could have made that work what it is. Motley more truly declared that it was all up with a writer when he began to consider the money he was to receive. But Hawthorne needed the money to live on, while Motley had a rich father and uncle to back him. The great writer certainly absorbs himself in his work. With him necessity and freedom combine. He sings as the bird sings, without dogmatic intent. Yet he is great in proportion as he is moral and religious at heart.“Arma virumque cano”is the only first person singular in the Æneid in which the author himself speaks, yet the whole Æneid is a revelation of Virgil. So we know little of Shakespeare's life, but much of Shakespeare's genius.
Nothing is added to the tree when it blossoms and bears fruit; it only reveals its own inner nature. But we must distinguish in man his true nature from his false nature. Not his private peculiarities, but that in him which is permanent and universal, is the real treasure upon which the great poet draws. Longfellow:“He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows nature. Never man, as artist or as artizan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs.”Tennyson, after observing the subaqueous life of a brook, exclaimed:“What an imagination God has!”Caird, Philos. Religion, 245—“The world of finite intelligences, though distinct from God, is still in its ideal nature one with him. That which God creates, and by which he reveals the hidden treasures of his wisdom and love, is still not foreign to his own infinite life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know him, in the self-surrender of the hearts that love him, it is no paradox to affirm that he knows and loves himself.”
(d) His own glory is an end which comprehends and secures, as a subordinate end, every interest of the universe. The interests of the universe are bound up in the interests of God. There is no holiness or happiness for creatures except as God is absolute sovereign, and is recognized as such. It is therefore not selfishness, but benevolence, for God to make his own glory the supreme object of creation. Glory is not vain-glory, and in expressing his ideal, that is, in expressing himself, in his creation, he communicates to his creatures the utmost possible good.
This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”
This self-expression is not selfishness but benevolence. As the true poet forgets himself in his work, so God does not manifest himself for the sake of what he can make by it. Self-manifestation is an end in itself. But God's self-manifestation comprises all good to his creatures. We are bound to love ourselves and our own interests just in proportion to the value of those interests. The monarch of a realm or the general of an army must be careful of his life, because the sacrifice of it may involve the loss of thousands of lives of soldiers or subjects. So God is the heart of the great system. Only by being tributary to the heart can the members be supplied with streams of[pg 401]holiness and happiness. And so for only one Being in the universe is it safe to live for himself. Man should not live for himself, because there is a higher end. But there is no higher end for God.“Only one being in the universe is excepted from the duty of subordination. Man must be subject to the‘higher powers’(Rom. 13:1). But there are no higher powers to God.”See Park, Discourses, 181-209.
Bismarck's motto:“Ohne Kaiser, kein Reich”—“Without an emperor, there can be no empire”—applies to God, as Von Moltke's motto:“Erst wägen, dann wagen”—“First weigh, then dare”—applies to man. Edwards, Works, 2:215—“Selfishness is no otherwise vicious or unbecoming than as one is less than a multitude. The public weal is of greater value than his particular interest. It is fit and suitable that God should value himself infinitely more than his creatures.”Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:3—“The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armor of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel Fixed on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoined; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone did the king sigh, But with a general groan.”
(e) God's glory is the end which in a right moral system is proposed to creatures. This must therefore be the end which he in whose image they are made proposes to himself. He who constitutes the centre and end of all his creatures must find his centre and end in himself. This principle of moral philosophy, and the conclusion drawn from it, are both explicitly and implicitly taught in Scripture.
The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.[pg 402]George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.
The beginning of all religion is the choosing of God's end as our end—the giving up of our preference of happiness, and the entrance upon a life devoted to God. That happiness is not the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that there is no happiness in seeking happiness. That the holiness of God is the ground of moral obligation, is plain from the fact that the search after holiness is not only successful in itself, but brings happiness also in its train. Archbishop Leighton, Works, 695—“It is a wonderful instance of wisdom and goodness that God has so connected his own glory with our happiness, that we cannot properly intend the one, but that the other must follow as a matter of course, and our own felicity is at last resolved into his eternal glory.”That God will certainly secure the end for which he created, his own glory, and that his end is our end, is the true source of comfort in affliction, of strength in labor, of encouragement in prayer. SeePsalm 25:11—“For thy name's sake.... Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great”;115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory”;Mat. 6:33—“Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”;1 Cor. 10:31—“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”;1 Pet. 2:9—“ye are an elect race ... that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”;4:11—speaking, ministering,“that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”On the whole subject, see Edwards, Works, 2:193-257; Janet, Final Causes, 443-455; Princeton Theol. Essays, 2:15-32; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 358-362.
It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God's sake.Jer. 45:5—“seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!”But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to“desire earnestly the greater gifts”(1 Cor. 12:31). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant:“Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.”But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God's glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ's hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123.
George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards's great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.”Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.”See statement and criticism of Edwards's view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238.