N07809:122
Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The…
Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The nature of true virtue. / by the late Reverend, learned and pious Jonathan Edwards, A.M. president of the College in New-Jersey.
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland, 1765
Concerning the END for which GOD created the WORLD. › Chapter 1 › Sect 4
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
THE matter may be also cleared, by considering what it would become us to approve of and value with respect to any public society we belong to, e. g. our nation or country. ⟨p. 42⟩It becomes us to love our country; and therefore it becomes us to value the just honour of our country. But the same that it becomes us to value and desire for a friend, and the same that it becomes us to desire and seek for the community, the same does it become God to value and seek for himself; that is on supposition it becomes God to love himself as well as it does men to love a friend or the public; which I think has been before proved.—
THE matter may be also cleared, by considering what it would become us to approve of and value with respect to any public society we belong to, e. g. our nation or country. ⟨p. 42⟩It becomes us to love our country; and therefore it becomes us to value the just honor of our country. But the same that it becomes us to value and desire for a friend, and the same that it becomes us to desire and seek for the community, the same does it become God to value and seek for himself; that is on supposition it becomes God to love himself as well as it does men to love a friend or the public; which I think has been before proved.—
Here are two things that ought particularly to be adverted to—1. That in God the love of himself, and the love of the public are not to be distinguished, as in man. Because God's Being as it were comprehends all. His existence, being infinite, must be equivalent to universal existence. And for the same reason that public affection in the creature is fit and beautiful, God's regard to himself must be •o likewise.—2. In God, the love of what is fit and decent, or the love of virtue, can't be a distinct thing from the love of himself. Because the love of God is that wherein all virtue and holiness does primarily and chiefly consist, and God's own holiness must primarily consist in the love of himself; as was before observed. And if God's holiness consists in love to himself, then it will imply an approbation of and pleasedness with the esteem and loveliness of him in others. For a Being that loves himself, necessarily loves Love to himself. If holiness in God consist chiefly in love to himself, holiness in the creature must chiefly consist in love to him. And if God loves holiness in himself, he must love it in the creature.