1. To make his pleasure our ultimate end of life; that is, to make his pleasure an end, and not a means of promoting our own. It is possible to aim at pleasing God simply as a means of securing our own salvation. But this is not really aiming to please God as our end, but is aiming to please ourselves as an end, and pleasing God only as a means.

To make his pleasure our ultimate end, is to aim at pleasing him for his own sake, and not from some good to ourselves that may result from pleasing him.

His pleasure is an infinite good in itself; that is, it is an infinite good to him. To make his pleasure therefore our end, is to do that which is becoming in us.

But 2. To make his pleasure our supreme end, that is, to care more to please him than to please ourselves, or more to please him than to please any and all other beings--to walk so as to please him, you must lay supreme stress upon his pleasure. To so live and walk as to please God is in all things to aim at meeting his approbation, meeting his wishes, fulfilling all his pleasure; to intend this, to have this in view, and make this the great motive of all our acting.

II. Why we should so live and walk as to please God.

1. God created us for this end, and hence has given us a conscience that universally demands that we should live to please God. He has made this our unalterable law and rule of action. We never fulfil the demands of conscience except as we live to please God.

2. His pleasure is always wise and good. He says, "I will do all my pleasure." It would not be right in any other being to say that; but in God it is right, for what else could he do? Nothing pleases him that is not wise and good. He never desires or wishes anything that is not wise and good.

3. To thus live to please God is true benevolence to him; it is to will his good, his highest happiness and well-being. This is the real idea of love to God. It is devotion to his good; or in other words, it is devotion to his gratification or pleasure; it is good-willing to God, willing his infinite happiness and satisfaction. It is aiming to satisfy all his wishes in regard to us; to meet and fulfill all his desires respecting us.

To please him is to gratify his fatherly heart. To please him we must meet his views respecting our obligation; we must meet his wishes, we must obey his will, must adjust ourselves to all that he wishes us to be and do.

He is then pleased with us; he is not grieved but gratified. Now to live with this continual aim to be all that God, under the circumstances wants us to be, is to live and walk so as to please God.

4. To please him is to gain his approbation; and this is not only a good to him, but it is a good to us. The love of approbation is natural to us, and especially the approbation of the good. And to have the approbation of God is of supreme importance to us.

It is a comfort to him to be able to approve the life that we live, as it is a comfort to parents to be able to approve the lives of their children. And it is a comfort to us to secure his approbation, as it is a comfort to children to secure the approbation of their parents. Nay, the comfort of receiving the approbation of God is infinitely more sweet, consoling, and joyous, than the approbation of all other beings together.

5. It follows, that to gain his approbation is to secure our own happiness. Hence to live to please him is the only sure way of pleasing ourselves. We cannot be satisfied with ourselves unless we are conscious of aiming to satisfy God. While we are conscious of not aiming to meet his approbation, we cannot secure our own approbation. To aim at pleasing him, then, in all we do, is a condition of securing our own happiness; and more than this, this aim will be sure to secure our own highest satisfaction.

6. It is right to aim in all things at pleasing God, because his pleasure is the most worthy end for which we can live. It is not living for an abstraction. Some people have thought that the end proposed was rather an abstraction than a reality.

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