If you want to understand the first 200 years of Anglican theology, you must understand how Anglicans are part of a larger canvas of reformed theological development in Europe. So to lay out a few aspects of the Anglican understanding of God’s glory in this key period, I have relied pretty much on the work of Richard Muller. Muller has probably done more than anyone to revive appreciation for this era (historians label the period “reformed orthodoxy”) across Europe in recent decades.
Let me introduce you to Anglican Edward Leigh (1602– 71), to whose work, A Treatise of Divinity, Muller frequently appeals. Leigh was an Oxford-trained theologian well versed in classical, patristic, and Reformation writings and the author of several influential works.
A first element of the Anglican conception is that God’s glory describes an aspect of his nature. Muller writes: “God’s glory is to be understood essentially, as one of the divine attributes but, moreover, as an attribute that eminently reflects and reveals the perfection of all the attributes” [Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3.547 (Hereafter PRRD)].
For example, Leigh begins his exposition of God’s glory with this point. God’s glory is “the infinite excellency of the Divine essence.” Sometimes, he says, the glory of God in Scripture signifies “the very essence and nature of God” and sometimes “some of God’s Attributes.” Leigh later explains that these describe the “internal” aspect of God’s glory. As internal, the glory of God “is the excellency of his Divine nature,” in that God “is infinitely worthy to be praised, admired and loved of all.” God is glorious internally according to his “own knowledge, love, and delight in himself” [Leigh, A Treatise of Divinity (London, 1662), 111-13].
But Leigh also claims that God’s glory is “external.” As Muller puts it, “The divine glory may be considered as external, expressed both in the creation and ‘in divine dispensations toward his church and his people.’ In particular, this external glory refers to ‘the manifestation of his perfections by their effects’” [Muller, PRRD 3.550].
What does this mean? Leigh notes that God possesses internal glory from all eternity and he can never have any more of it than he’s always had. But Scripture also speaks of God making “all things for himself or his glory.” This is the external glory of God, which is expressed, for one thing, in “the Heavens and Earth, all these glorious creatures here below, which are said to show forth his glory,” as declared in Psalm 19. These creatures are “the effects of his glorious wisdom and power.” “As the glory of men consists in outward ornaments,” Leigh explains, “so God’s glory consists in having such creatures, men and Angels to be his followers.” In addition, this external glory concerns “when men and Angels do know, love, and obey him, and praise him to all eternity” [Leigh, 113]
Thus, we can see that Leigh does not take long to speak about God’s creatures glorifying him in all they do, though he is careful to ground this in the internal glory of God and to portray our knowing, loving, obeying, and praising God as God’s own “ornament.” Later, he explains further how it is that we can glorify God: “not by putting any excellency into him, but by taking notice of his excellency, and esteeming him accordingly, and making manifest this our high esteem of him” [Ibid. 116]. Muller states, “This last category of the orthodox discussion of the divine glory yields a strong practical application . . . from this doctrine we ought to learn, above all, to seek after God’s glory, to ‘labor to partake of God’s image, that we might be partakers of his glory’” [Muller quoting Leigh, 117. PRRD 550]. Theology was hardly a cold, intellectual exercise for these Anglicans! They saw doctrine and life as interconnected, and the topic of God’s glory illustrates this well.
