N07809:216
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 2 › 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.
AND this is spoken of as a consequence of the works of creation, in like manner as God's glory. Psal. 8. 1. "O Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens". And then at the conclusion ⟨p. 79⟩of the observations on the works of creation, the psalm ends thus (ver. 9.) "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth". So Psal. 148. 13. after a particular mention of the various works of creation, "Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is excellent in all the earth, his glory is above the earth and the heaven".
So we find manifestation, or making known God's perfections, his greatness and excellency, is spoken of very much in the same manner as God's glory.
THERE are several scriptures which would lead us to suppose this to be the great thing that God sought of the moral world, and the end aimed at in the moral agents, which he had created, wherein they are to be active in answering their end. This seems implied in that argument God's people sometimes made use of, in deprecating a state of death and destruction: that in such a state, they can't know or make known the glorious excellency of God. Psal. 88. 18, 19. "Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness"? So Psal. 30. 9.