17 Ways To Glorify God

Most good Presbyterians know the first question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "What is the Chief End of Man?" The answer, of course, is that man's chief end is to "glorify God and enjoy him forever." If you read John Piper you've already gone over this hundreds of times before.

Thomas Watson, in his book Body of Divinity, offers a commentary on this question and its answer. In doing so Watson offers 17 ways in which the Christian glorifies God. I will give the bullet-point list of ways that Watson lists along with one quote and one Scripture reference that he mentions in his larger discussion. I do so in the hopes that readers will be encouraged to glorify God in their own lives and also to read the whole of Watson's answer in the book for themselves.

Watson says that we glorify God...

1. By aiming purely at his glory. "It is one thing to advance God's glory, another thing to aim at it." (see John 8:50)

2. By an ingenuous (innocent - unsuspecting) confession of sin. "The prodigal charged himself with sin before his father charged him with it." (see Joshua 7:19)

3. By believing. "It is a great honor we do to a man when we trust him with all we have, when we put our lives and estates into his hand; it is a sign we have a good opinion of him. Faith knows there are no impossibilities with God, and will trust him where it cannot trace him." (see John 3:33)

4. By being tender to God's glory. "When we hear God reproached, it is as if we were reproached." (see Psalm 69:9)

5. By fruitfulness. "Though the lowest degree of grace may bring salvation to you, yet it will not bring much glory to God. It was not a spark of love Christ commended in Mary, but much love." (see John 15:8)

6. By being contented in that state in which Providence has placed us. "When grace is crowning, it is not so much to be content; but when grace is conflicting with inconveniences, then to be content is a glorious thing indeed." (see Phil. 4:13)

7. By working out our own salvation. "God has twisted together his glory and our good. We glorify him by promoting our own salvation." (see Phil. 2:12)

8. By living to God. "The Mammonist lives to his money, the Epicure lives to his belly; the design of a sinner's life is to gratify lust, but we glorify God when we live to God." (see 2 Cor. 5:15)

9. By walking cheerfully. "The people of God have ground for cheerfulness. They are justified and adopted, and this creates inward peace; it makes music within, whatever storms are without." (see 2 Cor. 1:4)

10. By standing up for his truths. "God has entrusted us with his truth, as a master entrusts his servant with his purse to keep." (see Jude 3)

11. By praising him. "Praise is the quit-rent we pay to God: while God renews our lease, we must renew our rent." (see Psalm 86:12)

12. By being zealous for his name. "Zeal is a mixed affection, a compound of love and anger; it carries forth our love to God, and our anger against sin in an intense degree." (see Rev. 2:2)

13. When we have an eye to God in our natural and in our civil actions. "We glorify God, when we have an eye to God in all our civil and natural actions, and do nothing that may reflect any blemish on religion." (see 1 Cor. 10:31)

14. By laboring to draw others to God. "We should be both diamonds and loadstones; diamonds for the lustre of grace, and loadstones for attractive virtue in drawing others to Christ." (see Gal. 4:19)

15. When we suffer for God and seal the gospel with our blood. "God's glory shines in the ashes of his martyrs." (see John 21:18-19)

16. When we give God the glory of all that we do. "As the silkworm, when she weaves her curious work, hides herself under the silk, and is not seen; so when we have done anything praiseworthy, we must hide ourselves under the veil of humility and transfer the glory of all we have done to God." (see 1 Cor. 15:10)

17. By a holy life. A bad life dishonors God. "Though the main work of religion lies in the heart, yet our light must so shine that others may behold it." (see Rom. 2:24)

Reading Richard Sibbes Aloud

For more than two years, Mark Dever has been quietly at work creating a collection of audio files.  These are recordings of himself reading the sermons of Richard Sibbes, as though he were preaching them.  If you have not been listening to these sermons, I highly recommend them.  He has around 40 files so far, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

Check out the growing archive here.

Free Puritan Kindle Books, Volume 6

The Letters of John Newton
Note: This is a HUGE file with more letters in it than you'll ever be able to read. It does not come from any one book, but rather, from numerous web pages from around the net, and I simply combined them into one file. The biggest downside is that there is no Table of Contents.

Thomas Goodwin - Commentary on Ephesians

Thomas Manton - A Treatise of Self-Denial

Thomas Watson - Body of Practical Divinity

William Ames - The Marrow of Sacred Divinity

Martin Luther - Commentary on Galatians
It's becoming customary for me to include non-Puritans in my lists of Puritan books, so here's another one to keep the tradition alive.

Free Puritan Kindle Books, Volume 2

More Puritan Reading for your pleasure. Actually, we got a little broader than just the Puritans here, but I'm sure you'll forgive. My apologies: although most of these books have working Tables of Contents, not all of them do, for example, Samuel Rutherford's Letters does not have a working Table of Contents. As always, these are Kindle ready, just put them in your Kindle's "Documents" folder.

Martin Luther - Bondage of the Will

John Owen - On the Glory of Christ

Richard Sibbes - The Bruised Reed

Charles Spurgeon - Matthew Commentary

Jerome Zanchi - Confession of the Christian Religion

Thomas Manton - Sermons

Henry Law - The Gospel in the Pentateuch

Walter Marshall - The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

Thomas Goodwin - Commentary on Ephesians

William Gurnall - The Christian's Complete Armor (3 Vols. Complete)

Samuel Rutherford - Lex Rex

Samuel Rutherford - The Letters of Samuel Rutherford

Feeling Duplicitous is Nothing New

Madam,-I would have written to your Ladyship ere now, but people's believing there is in me that which I know there is not, hath put me out of love with writing to any. For it is easy to put religion to a market and public fair; but, alas! it is not so soon made eye-sweet for Christ.

My Lord seeth me a tired man, far behind. I have gotten much love from Christ, but I give Him little or none again. My white side cometh out on paper to men; but at home and within I find much black work, and great cause of a low sail, and of little boasting...My peace is that Christ may find outing and sale of His wares, in the like of me; I mean for saving grace.

Samuel Rutherford
Letter to Lady Boyd, 1637

Jonathan Edwards' Ethic of Virtue and Love (Part 3)

Edwards Addresses Contemporary Ethicists

Edwards finds an inconsistency in some of the modern ethicists (of his own day), namely that “they do not wholly exclude a regard to the Deity out of their schemes of morality, but yet mention it so slightly, that they leave me room and reason to suspect they esteem it a less important and subordinate part of true morality; and insist on benevolence to the created system” (126). In other words, by his estimation, the philosophers of Edwards’ day paid mere lip-service to God and yet really made God no part of their ethical theory. He offers many criticisms, but for our purposes I will mention three of them:

1. Such a system of independence from general being sets one as an enemy against the public.
2. Such a system of independence from general being has a tendency to enmity against being in general.
3. Such a system would actually become an opposition to being in general, for to regard oneself as higher than (for example) one’s prince is to commit treason.

His conclusion of the criticisms he offers is that “no affection limited to any private system, not depending on nor subordinate to being in general, can be of the nature of true virtue.”

Implications for God

Edwards concludes that just as we, finite humans, must have a benevolent love for God, the greatest of all beings, so God must have himself as the supreme object of his affection. He states, “The virtue of the divine mind must consist primarily in love to himself, or in the mutual love and friendship which subsists eternally and necessarily between the several persons in the Godhead, or that infinitely strong propensity there is in these divine persons one to another” (127).

Now, here comes a statement that may shock some of us modern evangelicals who think that we are the center of God’s world: “It will also follow, from the foregoing things, that God’s goodness and love to created beings, is derived from and subordinate to his love to himself.” God naturally and properly must love himself and regard himself as more important than mortal men! So, we see, that not only do men have a virtue ethic, but that there is also a virtue ethic for God: love of self.

Next, Edwards states that God’s “supreme, governing, and ultimate end” is his own glory. This is the reason for which God created, and it is the goal in all events of history. Every event tends towards this goal. What does this “glory” consist of? His answer: “The expression of God’s perfections in their proper effects, - the manifestation of God’s glory to created understandings, - the communication of the infinite fullness of God to the creature, - the creature’s highest esteem of God, love to, and joy in him, - and in the proper exercise and expressions of these.”

Does this precedence of God’s glory have implications for us as humans? Does this mean that we are not important, that we are disposable, that we are only means to an end? Edwards does not think so. His answer is essentially that God, by seeking his own glory and his own love of Himself is actually seeking the good of us as his creatures, because to know and pursue God’s glory is the most pleasing and joyful thing that we can ever do. Thus, by Edwards’ estimate, God can seek his own glory as the end of creation and also give us our greatest and most fulfilling pleasures of having Him as well!

Conclusion

Edwards concludes chapter two of The Nature of True Virtue by commenting on the inadequacy of the modern secular ethic:

Those schemes of religion or moral philosophy, which have not a supreme regard to God, and love to him, laid as the foundation, are not true schemes of philosophy, but are fundamentally and essentially defective, and there is nothing of the nature of true virtue or religion in them. And it may be asserted in general, that nothing is of the nature of true virtue, in which God is not the first and the last; or which, with regard to their exercises in general, have not their first foundation and source in apprehensions of God’s supreme dignity and glory, and in answerable esteem and love of him, and have not respect to God as the supreme end.

For Jonathan Edwards, God is the most important person, the greatest person, the most beautiful person, and the most complete person. He is the only person who is worthy of our worship, and to do anything less (or to construct an ethic which does not hold a supreme regard to Him) is to act inconsistently with the nature of true virtue.

Jonathan Edwards' Ethic of Virtue and Love (Part 2)

Edwards gives us an immediate application of his teaching, which we explored in Part 1 of this series. This next conclusion he presents does not usurp or supersede the previously stated definition of true virtue as “benevolence toward being in general” but instead clarifies (or more properly, offers us an insight into the implications of the previously constructed argument).

“From what has been said, it is evident that the true virtue must chiefly consist in LOVE TO GOD; the Being of beings, infinitely the greatest and best” (125). As is Edwards’ style, he will now explain how he gets to this conclusion, followed by the implications of this implication.

First of all, we must remember that true virtue has two grounds: benevolence and being. First of all, God is maximally benevolent: “For God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent: and all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation, is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that Being who has an infinite fullness of brightness and glory.” Here we see that God is the most benevolent of all beings.

Second of all, God possesses the most being: “God has infinitely the greatest share of existence. So that all other being, even the whole universe, is as nothing in comparison to the Divine Being.” Edwards’ conclusion of this implication is that

he that has true virtue must necessarily have a supreme love to God, both of benevolence and complacence. And all true virtue must radically and essentially consist in this. Because God is not only infinitely greater and more excellent than all other being, but he is the head of the universal system of existence; the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty; from whom all is perfectly derived, and on whom all is most absolutely and perfectly dependent; of whom and through whom and to whom is all being and all perfection; and whose being and beauty are, as it were, the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence: much more than the sun is the fountain and summary comprehension of all the light and brightness of the day.

Edwards anticipates a possible objection: “We should love our fellow creatures and not God, because our goodness does not extend to God and we cannot be profitable to Him.” Edwards answers twofold: First, “If [God] be above any need of us…it will dispose us to rejoice in His prosperity.” This is a brilliant answer, as Edwards’ ethic as set forth thus far is really concerned with man and how he should act, not with how man may benefit God.

His second answer is that “Though we are not able to give anything to God, we may be the instruments of promoting his glory in which He takes true and proper delight.” Then, Edwards directs his readers to his writing titled The End for Which God Created the World, where he proves from both philosophy and then heavily from Scripture that God’s own glory is the reason why He created the world. Here he also answers this argument by saying that God’s creation for His own glory does not represent a deficiency, but that rather, creation overflows from God’s abundance, just like water overflows from a fountain, not out of a lack but out of an abundance.

Jonathan Edwards' Ethic of Virtue and Love (Part 1)

I had a tremendously fun time revisiting Jonathan Edwards in our last series, and so I thought it would be fun to explore the earlier chapters of one of Edwards' other major works - this one being his book The Nature of True Virtue, through a brief three-part series. Originally, True Virtue was intended to be published in tandem with his other dissertation, The End for Which God Created the World. When viewed as a pair, this establishes a solid context for interpreting the work that Edwards is doing in these writings. As the introduction to the Yale volume of his ethical writings says: "interpretations of True Virtue made without regard to its connection with End of Creation have fostered inadequate and even quite mistaken understandings of his ethical writings."

Of all of Edwards' works, it is fair to say that this book is probably the least Biblical (strictly speaking) and the most philosophical. One ought to keep in mind that the ethical and philosophical climate within which Edwards was writing was during the enlightenment - and so many philosophers in Europe had set forth their own ethical views - Edwards never shied away from being Biblical, but he intended his arguments in The Nature of True Virtue to be engaged with on the same level as the secular philosophers of his own day.

What True Virtue Consists Of

It would be fair to characterize the Edwardsian ethic as an “ethic of beauty.” This concept of beauty is not only present in his theology, but in his philosophy, and it is worthwhile to attempt to know what he means by beauty. He gives beauty a definition in two parts: particular beauty, and general beauty. Particular beauty is “that by which a thing appears beautiful when considered only with regard to its connexion with, and tendency to, some particular things within a limited, and as it were a private sphere.” General beauty is “that by which a thing appears beautiful when viewed most perfectly, comprehensively, and universally, with regard to all its tendencies, and its connexion with everything to which it stands related” (122).

He begins by immediately stating the doctrine he is about to prove: “True virtue essentially consists in benevolence to being in general” (122). Edwards always begins his writing by defining his terms. These terms are important because they are the foundation of Edwards’ ethic. In the definition, he defines the two parts of true virtue: benevolence and being in general. Benevolence is a disposition of love, and being in general is “the great system of universal existence.” In Edwards’ thinking, a love for particular beings does not necessarily mean that one has true virtue, but if one has true virtue, then they will necessarily have love for particular beings.

Edwards then sets forth two types of ways in which love may manifest itself: Love of benevolence is “that affection or propensity of the heart to any being, which causes it to incline to its well being, or disposes it to desire and take pleasure in its happiness.” This is a love which is motivated only by a desire to dispense happiness to the chosen object of affection. Love of complacencies is a “delight in a being for its beauty.” Though the love of benevolence is not motivated, necessarily, by anything beautiful in the object of affection, the love of complacence specifically delights in a thing for its beauty. I can never love my wife entirely from benevolence, for there are things about here which I love and delight in. They motivate me to give her happiness, and thus, I exercise a love of benevolence, but that benevolence is motivated by my love of complacence.

Edwards ends this section of definitions by stating that God’s love is one of benevolence, because his delight in us has love is its first motive. Furthermore, there is nothing lovely in us for God to take delight in which He has not first placed there, and that action itself is even motivated, not by our beauty, but by His benevolence. Thus, God is benevolently loving and non-complacent.

Virtue Cannot Consist of Gratitude

Why does virtue not consist in gratitude? Because gratitude, by its definition, “supposes a benevolence prior to gratitude, which is the cause of gratitude. The first benevolence cannot be gratitude.” Now that these definitions have been thus reached, Edwards pauses, looks back on what he has shown so far, and offers a modification of his definition of true virtue. He now says that

true virtue consists, not in love to any particular beings, because of their virtue or beauty, nor in gratitude, because they love us; but in a propensity and union of heart to being simply considered; exciting absolute benevolence to being in general.

For Edwards, true virtue has two aspects: being and benevolence. From this, Edwards makes a crucial statement:

When anyone under the influence of general benevolence, sees another being possessed of the like general benevolence, this attaches his heart to him, and draws forth greater love to him.

If I am possessed of true benevolence and meet another who is also possessed of true benevolence, I will unavoidably be drawn to that purely loving individual who is truly virtuous. “He that has a simple and pure will…must love that temper in others” (124). This means that where I find maximum benevolence, and maximum being, there I will find true virtue.

The opposite of this is also true. A being who is destitute of virtue will also love and long for that which is the opposite of virtuous and, by definition, evil. Why is this? “For a being, destitute of benevolence, should love benevolence to being in general, it would prize and seek that for which it had no value.” Edwards reminds us before proceeding that “it is impossible that anyone should truly relish this beauty…if he has not this temper himself.”

[In Part 2, we will see that because of the things Edwards has laid down here in Part 1, the only truly virtuous action is one which arises from love for God.]

Henry Law Shows True Delight in Christ

Henry Law puts your average career-minded pastor to shame with the following quote from the Preface to his book The Gospel in Genesis:

To see [Christ in scripture] is my prime delight. To testify it is my happiest duty. Devoted loyalty to Him who is the first and last, the sum and substance of all Scripture, impels me. Earnest zeal for the undying souls of men constrains me. I know, and am intensely persuaded, that all peace, all joy, all salvation, are in Jesus. My eyes are widely open to the fact that men are blessed, and are blessings, just in proportion as they live, ever gazing on Christ, ever listening to His voice.

Shame, then, and guilt and woe would be my portion, if I should leave any effort untried to unfold His glorious image. Let me rather use every power of life and pen to magnify and exalt Him—to beseech men to ponder Him—to search for Him—to receive Him—to love Him—to follow Him—to serve Him—to commend Him—to live in Him, and through Him, and for Him. I would thus strive, the Spirit helping, to assail and melt and conquer hearts, that Christ may there be enthroned, in all His rightful majesty, a beloved and adored Lord.

Who will deny that the happiest man on earth is he who is most enriched with enlightened views of Christ, and acts out most devotedly this faith? He lives at heaven's high gate.

Quite a convicting thing to read - either if you're burned out, or if you're like me and planning to enter the pastorate at some point. It is men like these whose shoulders we stand upon whenever we go to publicly proclaim the word of God to Christ's sheep.

Finding Josph Caryl Online

Green Baggins shared a wonderful post on the Westminster divine, Joseph Caryl's commentary on Job, particularly about how to preach about Job's friends. After all - is it all bad theology? If so, how do you preach through 20+ chapters of bad doctrine? I won't spoil Caryl's answer - you can look at Green Baggins to see what he has to say about it.

I was so impressed with Caryl's insights and Lane's glowing endorsement of Caryl's 12-volume set that I started to look online to see if I could find any versions of the book in electronic format, since $250+ dollars for this impressive set of commentaries is a bit out of my reach at the moment. The best I could find was two very rewarding eBooks, thanks to Google.

1. The first is Caryl's exposition of Job 18-21. It is an exact facsimile and pretty rough going, but if you really want to see what the man has to say, this is a good place to start.

2. The second is a set of selections from Caryl's work on Job titled A Directory for the Afflicted, which was printed in 1824 by John Berrie. This is a much more readable typeset than the one listed above, but obviously, it is a far from complete abridgement. As Berrie says in his introduction, he did this abridgement for those who lacked the time to read all twelve volumes of Caryl's work. I can certainly sympathize with Berrie's sentiments. I am one of those of whom he is referring, I think. I have loaded this into my Kindle, and was tremendously blessed by Caryl's thoughts on only the first two verses of chapter one, so far!

3. If you want an electronic, scanned, PDF copy of the entire original set of commentaries, you can get the whole thing for $6 from Puritan Books. That's a fine bargain for a set of books that would normally set you back $250. I just purchased this set from Puritan Books, as a matter of fact, and it is a fine, readable copy of all 12 volumes. However, as you might have guessed, the print is in ye olde English font, with 's's that look like 'f's.

One of my favorite insights which I already received from Caryl was a side-comment he made regarding the reference to Job as being a "perfect man."

Job was a perfect man, not absolutely, but in comparison of those that were all over spotted with filthiness, or only painted with godliness. A perfect man is one whom you may know by his tongue, and his actions are a transcript of his inner-man.

Watson's Six Ingredients of True Repentance

I recently found a used copy of Thomas Watson's book The Doctrine of Repentance. I have merely perused my copy so far, but I wanted to share Watson's summary of the six ingredients which he argues from Scripture, combine to produce true repentance. None of these six things are optional. "If any one ingredient is left out," Watson says, "it loses its virtue."

1. Sight of sin
2. Sorrow for sin
3. Confession of sin
4. Shame for sin
5. Hatred for sin
6. Turning from sin

Grace Gems has the book for free on their site.

The Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts

A friend pointed me to this incredible resource for guys like me who are looking for texts of old classic Protestant theological works (of course, with the end in mind of converting the files into Amazon Kindle format). It's The Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts. They sort the texts by theological schools, differentiating between Anglican, Puritan, Lutheran, Arminian, Unitarian, Quaker, and Reformed/Calvinist.

It appears that the texts are converted from nearly illegible PDFs and painstakingly converted into text format. As an example of the source materials which they create these wonderful text files from, simply look at this page from a William Perkins book which they converted into readable English text. The fact that these are originals also means that it's a wonderful site if you read Ecclesiastical Latin. The only books I've been able to read on the site were the works by the Puritans. They have many texts which I've never seen anywhere else in any readable format. For example:

• A Golden Chain, by William Perkins
• A Body of Divinity, by James Usher
• Cases of Conscience, by William Perkins
• The Covenant of Life Opened, by Samuel Rutherford
• A Letter to the Duke of Somerset, by Peter Martyr Vermigli (one of his few English writings)
• An exposition of the Apostles' Creed, by William Perkins

If you speak Latin, they also have Peter Martyr's masterpiece Loci Communes. I found the Perkins writings most delightful because it's so hard to find any websites where Perkins' writings are not being posted in text format, but for excerpts, such as you find at A Puritan's Mind.

Thomas Boston: Union With Christ and Communion

I came across an interesting argument for union with Christ in the writings of Thomas Boston. In the course of his two-volume work An Illustration of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion, Boston makes many compelling arguments against the Lutheran understanding of justification with respect to the discussion of the doctrine of union with Christ. One of the more novel and fascinating arguments that Boston makes has to do with the Calvinistic understanding of the Lord's Supper.

If this union be not a true and real one, but a mere relative one, the sacrament of the supper is but a bare sign, and not a seal, exhibiting and applying Christ to believers. For without this real union, the feeding on Christ's body and blood truly and really in the sacrament cannot be; which yet is the doctrine of the scriptures, and of our Larger Catechisms, proved from the words of institution, 'Take, eat, this is my body.' For if there be a true and real feeding, there must be a true and real union, as there is betwixt the food and our bodies into which it is incorporated.

The only way in which we truly take the Lord's body and blood is spiritually. As Boston points out, communion involves taking Jesus into us and being spiritually united to him. If we are not truly united to Christ by faith, then, Boston is arguing, we cannot be said to spiritually partake of Jesus in communion, either, in any true sense.

Thomas Watson Rejects Clean-Nosed Living

In his book The Saints Spiritual Delight, Thomas Watson starts out by making an important argument. He looks at Psalm 1 and notes that in the first verse we are told, in essence, blessed is the man who neither walks, nor stands, nor sits in the way of sinners. Watson points out that the easiest thing for a religious person to do is to convince oneself that living a life of "sin avoidance" is sufficient. To put it another way, Watson is cautioning against the ethic of "clean nosed living."

If you are only negatively good, God makes no reckoning of you; you are as so many ciphers in God's arithmetic, and he writes down no ciphers in the book of life. Take a piece of brass, though it be not such bad metal as lead or iron, yet not being so good as silver, there is little reckoning made of it, it will not pass for current coin ; though thou art not profane, yet not being of the right metal, wanting the stamp of holiness upon thee, thou wilt never pass current, God slights thee, thou art but a brass christian.

We are missing something, he says. Watson is careful to explain that verse two of Psalm 1 holds the true key to making sense of the Christian life. After seeing the list of "negative behaviors" or things that the Christian is not to do, in verse one, verse two brings us further into the light: "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night." As Watson explains, it is a life of delight in God which brings wholeness to our Christian experience.

I think of how easy it is for us - even those of us who know better - to slip into a pattern of sin avoidance and clean nosed living. As Luther once told his people, "I keep preaching the Gospel for you, because you keep on forgetting it!" We often begin to believe that such a way of living is sufficient. But if we are not driven by a delight in God and His law, then we are walking in hypocrisy and we are as unpleasing in our sacrifices as Cain, who offered his sacrifice out of duty and not out of delight.

But it is not thus with a hypocrite; he may be forced to do that which is good, but not to will that which is good ; he doth not serve God with delight.