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"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God" (Apoc. i. 8). All creation proceeds from an infinite source and aspires to return thither. Development or progress begins in the lowest stages, and rises irresistibly higher and higher, till completeness is attained at the summit of being. Hence it is written, "The Lord hath made all things for Himself" (Prov. xvi. 4). Necessarily so:
1. Because God is the apex of all being to which all others must aspire.
2. Because it would be a false progress, a perversion of order, a degradation, for any action to terminate in an object lower than its own source, and for divine energy to find its end in a mere creature. God can operate only for the highest and noblest purpose, for the Infinite in Himself. God is especially the object of human energy, the goal of human development. The desires of human nature are insatiable, its aspirations unlimited; they will never stop short of that which is absolutely highest and best; they will never find their felicity except in the Infinite. It is a perversion of all right order and progress for man to look below himself, or to make any creature the object of his energies, or to expect full enjoyment in any thing finite. In the end he will find nothing but failure; he will have exhausted his energies on that which is utterly unprofitable, and will have lost the only thing that can make him happy in eternity. Here as well as hereafter you will find no satisfaction but in God.
