Centuries of Meditations

63

Whether Love principally intends its own glory or its objects, happiness is a great question, and of the more importance, because the right ordering of our own affections depends much upon the solution of it. For on the one side, to be self-ended is mercenary and base and slavish; and to do all things for one’s own glory is servile, and vainglory. On the other God doth all things for Himself, and seeketh His glory as His last end, and is Himself the end whom He seeks and attains in all His ways. How shall we reconcile this riddle? or untie this knot? For some men have taken occasion hereby seeing this in Love, to affirm that there is no true love in the world, but it is all self-love whatsoever a man doth. Implying also that it was self-love in our Saviour that made Him to undertake for us. Whereupon we might justly question, whether it were more for his own ends, or more for ours? As also whether it were for His own end that God created the world or more for ours? For extraordinary much of our duty and felicity hangeth upon this point: and whatsoever sword untieth this Gordian knot, will open a world of benefit and instruction to us.