Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The…

THIS propensity in God to diffuse himself, may be considered as a propensity to himself diffused; or to his own glory existing in its emanation. A respect to himself, or an infinite propensity to, and delight in his own glory, is that which causes him to incline to its being abundantly diffused, and to delight in the emanation of it. Thus that nature in a tree, by which it puts forth buds, shoots out branches, and brings forth leaves and fruit, is a disposition that terminates in its own complete self. And so the disposition in the sun to shine, or abundantly to diffuse its fullness, warmth and brightness, is only a tendency to its own most glorious and complete state. So God looks on the communication of himself, and the emanation of the infinite glory and good that are in himself to belong to the fullness and completeness of himself; as tho' he were not in his most complete and glorious state without it. Thus the church of Christ (toward whom, and in whom are the emanations of his glory and communications of his fullness) is called the fullness of Christ: As tho' he were not in his complete state ⟨p. 28⟩without her; as Adam was in a defective state without Eve. And the church is called the glory of Christ, as the woman is the glory of the man, I Cor. xi. 7.—Isai. xlvi. 13. I will place salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory. ^*—Indeed after the creatures are intended to be created, God may be conceived of as being moved by benevolence to these creatures, in the strictest sense, in his dealings with, and works about them. His exercising his goodness, and gratifying his benevolence to them in particular, may be the spring of all God's proceedings through' the universe; as being now the determined way of gratifying his general inclination to diffuse himself. Here God's acting for himself, or making himself his last end, and his acting for their sake, are not to be set in opposition; or to be considered as the opposite parts of a disjunction: They are rather to be considered as coinciding one with the other, and implied one in the other. But yet God is to be considered as first and original in his regard; and the creature is the object of God's regard consequentially and by implication as being as it were comprehended in God; as shall be more particularly observed presently.