699. END OF THE CREATION. GLORY OF GOD.

God don’t seek his own glory for any happiness he receives by it, as men are gratified in having their excellencies gazed at, admired and extolled by others. But God seeks the display of his own glory as a thing in itself excellent. The display of the divine glory is that which is most excellent. ‘Tis good that glory should be displayed. The excellency of God’s nature appears in that, that he loves and seeks whatever is in itself excellent. One way that the excellency of God’s nature appears is in loving himself, or loving his own excellency and infinite perfection; and as he loves his own perfection, so he loves the effulgence or shining forth of that perfection, or loves his own excellency in the expression and fruit of it. ‘Tis an excellent thing that that which is excellent should be expressed in proper act and fruit. Thus, ’tis an excellent thing that infinite justice should shine forth, and be expressed in infinitely just and righteous acts, and that infinite goodness should be expressed in infinitely good and gracious deeds.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 18, The “Miscellanies:” 501-832, ed. Ava Chamberlain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 283.

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