Universal redemption of mankind, by the Lord Jesus Christ stated and cleared by the…

2. And because when we do see Events, yet we are so vastly distant from God, and exceeding strange to his unconceivable unexpressible Nature, that we know not what hath the place of an End and what of a means in the Divine Intention, farther than He hath told us: Nor know what Gods intention is, the term being properly appliable only to Creatures, and no term of Human Language in strict propriety appliable to the Nature of God.

But this much the Scripture Revealeth to us, 1. That in the sense as God may be said to have an end, Gods proper ultimate end is himself. He made all things for himself, and can have no lower end than himself. But how himself is his end is hard to open. If we say, his Being as such is his End, or that his Essential Glory is his End; we do but darken the matter and lose our selves. For neither Redemption nor any other work can either cause, conserve or add to that Being and Glory. If we say, His Glory in the Esteem of the Creature is his utmost End, we suppose him to have an End Infinitely below himself. If you say, that the Communication of himself to his Creature is his End, either you speak of the Acts of Communication as in God, and so it is himself; (as before expressed) Efficiently and not Finally Considered: Or else you speak of the form produced by it, or as received by the ⟨p. 9⟩Creature; and so it is quid Creatum & extra Naturam Divinam, and too low to be his End. I conclude therefore that man is uncapable of a clear and full conceiving of the Nature of Gods End or Intending. But the conception and expression which I judge to be most favoured by Scripture and Reason is, That Gods will is the Beginning and End of all things. Whatsoever pleased him, that did he, And when he hath done it the pleasing him is his End. And therefore he Rested after the work of Creation, and expresseth himself well pleased by and in his Son in the work of Redemption, as seeing his work in both to be very good: and therefore instituted a day of Rest in Commemoration of both. The term Rest expresseth the End; and his Well-pleasedness, Content, or Will, is his Rest, and so his End (And in this sense God himself is his own End,) and indeed this Pleasing him should be Mans End also.