1. 'Tis a usurping God's prerogative. 'Tis Gods prerogative to be his own end, and act for his own glory; because there is nothing Superior to him in Excellency and Goodness to act for: He had not his Being from any thing without himself, whereby he should be obliged to act for any thing but himself. To make our selves then our last End, is to corrival God in his being, the Supreme Good, and Blessedness to himself: As if we were our own Principle, the Author of our own Being, and were not obliged to a higher Power than our selves, for what we are and have. To direct the Lines of all our Motions to our selves, is to imply that they first issued only from our selves. When we are Rivals to God in his chief end, we own or desire to be Rivals to him in the principle of his being: This is to set our selves in the place of God. All things have something without them, and above them as their end: All inferior Creatures act for some Superior order in the rank of Creation; the lesser animals are designed for the greater, and all for man: Man therefore for something nobler than himself. To make our selves therefore our own end, is to deny any Superior, to whom we are to direct our actions. God alone being the Supreme being, can be his own ultimate end: For if there were any thing higher and better than God, the purity and righteousness of his own Nature would cause him to act for and toward that as his chiefest mark: This is the highest Sacrilege, to alienate the proper good and rights of God, and employ them for our own use; to steal from him his own honour, and put it into our own Cabinets; like those birds that ravished the Sacrifice from the Altar and carried it to their own nests*: When we love only our selves, and act for no other end but our selves, we invest our selves with the Dominion which is the right of God, and take the Crown from his head: For as the Crown belongs to the King; so to love his own Will, to Will by his own Will and for himself, is the property of God; because he hath no other Will, no other End above him to be the rule and scope of his actions.
1. 'Tis a usurping God's prerogative. 'Tis Gods prerogative to be his own end, and act for his own glory; because there is nothing Superior to him in Excellency and Goodness to act for: He had not his Being from any thing without himself, whereby he should be obliged to act for any thing but himself. To make our selves then our last End, is to corrival God in his being, the Supreme Good, and Blessedness to himself: As if we were our own Principle, the Author of our own Being, and were not obliged to a higher Power than our selves, for what we are and have. To direct the Lines of all our Motions to our selves, is to imply that they first issued only from our selves. When we are Rivals to God in his chief end, we own or desire to be Rivals to him in the principle of his being: This is to set our selves in the place of God. All things have something without them, and above them as their end: All inferior Creatures act for some Superior order in the rank of Creation; the lesser animals are design'd for the greater, and all for man: Man therefore for something nobler than himself. To make our selves therefore our own end, is to deny any Superior, to whom we are to direct our actions. God alone being the Supreme being, can be his own ultimate end: For if there were any thing higher and better than God, the purity and righteousness of his own Nature would cause him to act for and toward that as his chiefest mark: This is the highest Sacriledge, to alienate the proper good and rights of God, and employ them for our own use; to steal from him his own honour, and put it into our own Cabinets; like those birds that ravisht the Sacrifice from the Altar and carried it to their own nests*: When we love only our selves, and act for no other end but our selves, we invest our selves with the Dominion which is the right of God, and take the Crown from his head: For as the Crown belongs to the King; so to love his own Will, to Will by his own Will and for himself, is the property of God; because he hath no other Will, no other End above him to be the rule and scope of his actions.
- *Sabunde tit. 140.
