No Cross, No Crown

The great business of man's life, is to answer the end for which he lives; and that is to glorify God and save his own soul: this is the decree of Heaven, as old as the world. But so it is, that man mindeth nothing less than what he should most mind; and despiseth to inquire into his own being, its original duty and end; choosing rather to dedicate his days (the steps he should make to blessedness) to gratify the pride, avarice, and luxury of his heart: as if he had been born for himself, or rather given himself being, and so not subject to the reckoning and judgment of a superior power. To this wild and lamentable pass hath poor man brought himself by his disobedience to the law of God in his heart, by doing that which he knows he should not do, and leaving undone what he knows he should do. And as long as this disease continueth upon man he will make his God his enemy, and himself incapable of the love and salvation that He hath manifested, by his Son Jesus Christ, to the world.