THE END FOR WHICH GOD CREATED THE WORLD
Edwards set out the issues and differences between subordinate ends, ultimate ends, and a chief end in order to show the chief end for which God created the world. While it is not the goal of Edwards to show how these distinctions help human beings search their own hearts and to help understand people, his work does help with these things. A person can desire something that is good and have knowledge that they should desire that and so they desire it for some reason, but their greatest and real desire is not for the highest goal and end. If human beings are to be like Christ which is to say to be conformed to Christ and His desire for all things, they must have the same desires as He did and the same goals and ends as He did. While this is not in the power of a human being to obtain these, it does instruct us of our need to seek grace that we may grow in these things.
One may have an ultimate end (a thing valued in itself and for itself) that is not necessarily subordinate to other ends, and yet that ultimate end may not be a chief end. For example, Edwards uses the example of a man that travels many miles to a city in order to be married. There may be something that a man wants to do while on the trip that is not the reason for the trip. He may want to visit certain landmarks or see certain people on the way which has nothing to do with his chief end of getting married, so he sees the landmark for no subordinate reason at all and as such it is an ultimate end. Yet his chief end for the trip remains unchanged and that is to get married.
It is important to keep in mind that a subordinate end is never valued and sought for its own sake, but that it is only sought and valued as a way of obtaining a further end. A person may have a plurality of ultimate ends, but the one most valued will be the chief end. A subordinate end will never be more valued than the end to which it is subordinated to. “The subordinate effects or events brought to pass, as a means of this end, all uniting to contribute their share towards obtaining the last end, are very various; and therefore, by what has been now observed, the ultimate end of all must be valued more than any one of the particular means. This seems to b the case with the works of God.” As these words of Edwards are meditated on, a few things should become clear. One, the God of all glory created all things with a chief end in mind and that was His primary purpose in creating. That purpose that He had in creating is still the same purpose He has for human beings now. The purpose that God has should show human beings what their purpose is now. This also shows us how human hearts function and how people deceive themselves on a regular basis by looking at a subordinate end and counting it as their chief end.
Before God created the world He must have had an end in mind. He did not create the world just because He wanted to create, but He had a chief end in mind when He created. This grand purpose of God was planned from all eternity and was seen by Him as His reason to create and so all the other reasons that are subordinate to that and those reasons that seem to come up after things were created and the earth was populated will not necessarily (logically) change His grand purpose for creating. In fact, all that happens now actually fit into His grand and eternal purpose and does not change it a bit.
The original purpose that moved an all-knowing and all-powerful Being (God) to create is what would move Him to create but also include all ends (consequential ends) that came as a result of that creation. In the highest sense of an ultimate end we should think of God as having an ultimate end in all He has done and is doing and in all that He does now or will ever do. It is that thread that moves from eternity past to eternity future and ties it all together. The use that God has of His creatures will always have regard to His highest purpose for which He made them, though at times He may have ultimate ends in what He wills which may not in and of themselves be His last or chief end in creating.
God has a highest and chief end which moved Him to create all things and all other reasons or ends are subordinate to that. So human beings have many reasons that they do things and yet all that they do in one way or another is subordinate to other reasons or a reason. The unregenerate person will always have the love of self as the chief end of what drives him to do what he does, yet God commands the unregenerate person to love Him in all that he does. All human beings are commanded to love God and do all that they do for His glory. If God can only command people to do what is in accordance with His chief end in creation, then we can see His chief end in creation. God can command people to things that are subordinate to His glory, but His chief end is always His chief end.
God Loves... Himself 
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