Q-I: What Is the Chief End of Man?
A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
Here are two ends of life specified. 1: The glorifying of God. 2: The enjoying of God.
I. The glorifying of God, I Pet 4:1: ‘That God in all things may be glorified.’ The glory of God is a silver thread which must run through all our actions. I Cor 10:31. ‘Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.’ Everything works to some end in things natural and artificial; now, man being a rational creature, must propose some end to himself, and that should be, that he may lift up God in the world. He had better lose his life than the end of his living. The great truth is asserted, that the end of every man’s living should be to glorify God. Glorifying God has respect to all the persons in the Trinity; it respects God the Father who gave us life; God the Son, who lost his life for us; and God the Holy Ghost, who produces a new life in us; we must bring glory to the whole Trinity.
When we speak of God’s glory, the question will be moved, What are we to understand by God’s glory?
There is a twofold glory: [1] The glory that God has in himself, his intrinsic glory. Glory is essential to the Godhead, as light is to the sun: he is called the ‘God of Glory.’ Acts 7:7. Glory is the sparkling of the Deity; it is so co-natural to the Godhead, that God cannot be God without it. The creature’s honour is not essential to his being. A king is a man without his regal ornaments, when his crown and royal robes are taken away; but God’s glory is such an essential part of his being, that he cannot be God without it. God’s very life lies in his glory. This glory can receive no addition, because it is infinite; it is that which God is most tender of, and which he will not part with. Isa 48:8: ‘My glory I will not give to another.’ God will give temporal blessings to his children, such as wisdom, riches, honour; he will give them spiritual blessings, he will give them grace, he will give them his love, he will give them heaven; but his essential glory he will not give to another. King Pharaoh parted with a ring off his finger to Joseph, and a gold chain, but he would not part with his throne. Gen 41:10. ‘Only in the throne will I be greater than thou.’ So God will do much for his people; he will give them the inheritance; he will put some of Christ’s glory, as mediator, upon them; but his essential glory he will not part with; ‘in the throne he will be greater.’ [2] The glory which is ascribed to God, or which his creatures labour to bring to him. I Chron 16:69. ‘Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.’ And, I Cor 6:60. ‘Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit.’ The glory we give God is nothing else but our lifting up his name in the world, and magnifying him in the eyes of others. Phil 1:10. ‘Christ shall be magnified in my body.’
What is it to glorify God?
Glorifying God consists in four things: 1: Appreciation, 2. Adoration, 3. Affection, 4. Subjection. This is the yearly rent we pay to the crown of heaven.
[1] Appreciation. To glorify God is to set God highest in our thoughts, and to have a venerable esteem of him. Psa 92:2. ‘Thou, Lord, art most high for evermore.’ Psa 97:7. ‘Thou art exalted far above all gods.’ There is in God all that may draw forth both wonder and delight; there is a constellation of all beauties; he is prima causa, the original and springhead of being, who sheds a glory upon the creature. We glorify God, when we are God-admirers; admire his attributes, which are the glistering beams by which the divine nature shines forth; his promises which are the charter of free grace, and the spiritual cabinet where the pearl of price is hid; the noble effects of his power and wisdom in making the world, which is called ‘the work of his fingers.’ Psa 8:8. To glorify God is to have God-admiring thoughts; to esteem him most excellent, and search for diamonds in this rock only.
[2] Glorifying God consists in adoration, or worship. Psa 29:9. ‘Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.’ There is a twofold worship: (1.) A civil reverence which we give to persons of honour. Gen 23:3. ‘Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the children of Heth.’ Piety is no enemy to courtesy. (2.) A divine worship which we give to God as his royal prerogative. Neh 8:8. ‘They bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord with their faces towards the ground.’ This divine worship God is very jealous of; it is the apple of his eye, the pearl of his crown; which he guards, as he did the tree of life, with cherubims and a flaming sword, that no man may come near it to violate it. Divine worship must be such as God himself has appointed, else it is offering strange fire. Lev 10:0: The Lord would have Moses make the tabernacle, ‘according to the pattern in the mount.’ Exod 25:50. He must not leave out anything in the pattern, nor add to it. If God was so exact and curious about the place of worship, how exact will he be about the matter of his worship! Surely here everything must be according to the pattern prescribed in his word.