The divine life in three treatises

Answ. And what of that? Must it needs therefore follow that he made not all things for himself, but for the creature finally? He is perfectly happy in himself, and his will is himself: This will was fulfilled when the world was not made, (for it was his will that it should not be made till it was made) and it is fulfilled when it is made, and fulfilled by all that comes to pass: And as the absolute simple Goodness and Perfection of Gods essence is the Greatest Good, the eternal immutable Good; so the fulfilling of his will is the ultimate end of all obedience: He hath expressed himself to take pleasure in his works, and in the holiness, obedience and happiness of his chosen: And though Pleasure be not the same thing in God as it is in man (no more then will or understanding is) yet it is not nothing which God expresseth by such terms, but something which we have no fitter expression for: This Pleasing of the will of God being the end of all, even of our felicity, is better then our felicity it self.

They that will maintain that God, who is naturally and necessarily Good, hath no other Goodness but his Benignity or aptness to do good to his creatures, must needs also maintain that (God being for the Creature, and not the Creature for God) the Creature is better then God, as being the ultimate end of God himself, and the highest use of all his Goodness being but for the felicity of the Creature: As also that God doth do all the Good that he is able: (For natural necessary agents work ⟨p. 208⟩ad ultimum posse.) And that all men shall be saved, and all Devils, and every worm and toad be equal to the highest Angel, or else that God is not able to do it. And that he did thus make happy all his Creatures from eternity (for natural necessary agents work always if they be not forcibly hindered;) and that there never was such a thing as pain or misery, in man or brute, or else that God was not able to prevent it. But abundance of such odious consequences must needs follow from the denying of the Highest Good, which is God himself, and confessing none but his efficient Goodness. But some will be offended with me for being so serious in confuting such an irrational Atheistical conceit, who know not how far it prevaileth with an Atheistical generation.