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I. Let us consider WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY THE GLORY OF GOD. The glory of any moral agent is that intrinsic moral excellence which renders him worthy of approbation and esteem. This is never seated in the understanding, but in the heart. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he; and as God thinketh in His heart, so is He. God is love. And in this consists His real, intrinsic, supreme, moral excellence and glory.

II. To consider WHAT IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD BY GOD'S DISPLAYING ALL HIS GOODNESS. His promise to Moses is very singular and very significant. "I will make all My goodness pass before thee." That God may display all His goodness, He must do two things.

1. He must display His goodness to as high a degree as possible.

2. God's displaying all His goodness farther implies His displaying it in all its branches, and agreeably to the various natures and characters of His dependent creatures. In particular —

(1) It implies displaying His benevolence towards all sensitive natures.

(2) In order to display all His goodness, God must display His complacency towards all holy beings. The goodness of the Deity naturally and necessarily inclines Him to love goodness, wherever He sees it.

(3) Another branch of Divine goodness is grace towards the guilty and ill-deserving. Such a display of Divine grace is absolutely necessary, in order to give a full display of Divine goodness. It must be observed —

(4) That another branch of God's goodness is distributive justice, or a disposition to punish impenitent sinners according to their deeds.

III. THAT GOD, BY THUS DISPLAYING ALL HIS GOODNESS, NECESSARILY DISPLAYS ALL HIS GLORY. But the truth of this will more fully appear if we consider —

1. That when God displays all His goodness, He displays all His moral character. The Supreme Being has no moral excellence but what is included in His goodness. God is love; all His goodness consists in love; all His love lies in His heart; and His heart is the seat of all His moral excellence.

2. When God displays all His goodness, He necessarily displays all His natural as well as moral excellence. But all these natural attributes derive their real glory from His goodness, without which they would be a blemish rather than a beauty in His character.Inferences:

1. If God be a being who possesses and displays perfect goodness, then the religion which He has required of mankind is a reasonable service.

2. If God must display His goodness in order to display His glory, then by seeking His own glory He must necessarily seek the good of His creatures.

3. If God cannot display all His glory without displaying all His goodness, then the glory of God required the existence of natural and moral evil. All the goodness of God in all its branches could not have been displayed if natural and moral evil had not existed.

4. If the supreme glory of God consists in His goodness, then those who love any part of His character must necessarily love the whole.

5. If the supreme glory of God consists in His goodness, then those who dislike any part of the Divine character must necessarily dislike the whole.

6. If the goodness of God forms His whole moral character, then those who do not love Him supremely must necessarily hate Him supremely.

7. Does the glory of God consist in His goodness, or in His feeling properly towards all His creatures of every character?

8. If the glory of God consists in His goodness, then a clear view of His goodness would destroy all the false hopes of sinners respecting their good estate.

9. If the glory of God consists in His goodness, then we learn why sinners are represented as blind to His glory. They must feel as He does, in order to have a moral view of His moral excellence.

10. If God's glory essentially consists in His goodness, then those who have seen His real glory in the least degree will desire to see more and more of it. This appears from the nature of spiritual discoveries, which afford peculiar satisfaction to those to whom they are made.

(N. Emmons, D. D.)

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KJV: And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

WEB: He said, "Please show me your glory."