---
title: 'Benjamin M. Palmer on How Man is Created to Glorify God'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2023-05-25
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2023-benjamin-m-palmer-on-how-man-is-created-to-glorify-god
---

# Benjamin M. Palmer on How Man is Created to Glorify God

“Man’s true nature is to be sought in that image of God in which he was first created. In his earthly part he is akin to the beasts that perish; but he is distinguished from these in that God ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.’ Solomon draws the line between the two when he speaks of ‘the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth.’

Upon this soul is stamped the seal of the divine attributes. In his intelligence man dimly reflects the divine wisdom; in his affections, the divine benevolence; in his conscience, the divine rectitude; in his will, the divine power. Such a being can find his true sphere only in God. All these endowments point to that august source from which they are derived, as the only goal to which they can aspire; and the comprehensive act in which they all embark is the homage of an intelligent and eternal worship.

To this end was man invested with ‘dominion over the works of God’s hands,’ that, as the priest of nature, he might walk through the aisles of her vast cathedral, and lead the whole choir of earth in chants of thanksgiving and joy. It is his office to gather the inarticulate praises of this dumb world into his censer, investing them with his own intelligence and thought, and lighting them at the fire of his own devotion; and then, as the voice of nature, to pour the flood of praise forever upon him who has created all for his own glory.” - [**Benjamin M. Palmer**](/authors/benjamin-morgan-palmer), *Theology of Prayer as Viewed in the Religion of Nature and in the System of Grace* (1894), p. 17