The young man's guide through the wilderness of this world to the heavenly Canaan…

3. Let the glorifying and enjoying of God be the end of thy life, and of all the duties and actions of it. Let this be the scope of thy life, the mark at which thou aimest, that thou mayst honour God, and be happy in him. And that thou mayst eye and pursue both these in one, let this be the aim and intent of thine heart in thy whole course, To work out thine own Salvation, Phil. 2. 12. In this one work is included all that thou hast to do or mind. In this thou wilt best glorify God, and secure his everlasting love to thine own Soul.

3. Let the glorifying and enjoying of God be the end of thy life, and of all the duties and actions of it. Let this be the scope of thy life, the mark at which thou aimest, that thou mayst honour God, and be happy in him. And that thou mayst eye and pursue both these in one, let this be the aim and intent of thine heart in thy whole course, To work out thine own Salvation, Phil. 2. 12. In this one work is included all that thou hast to do or mind. In this thou wilt best glorifie God, and secure his everlasting love to thine own Soul.

Therefore upon this set thine eye, and thine heart in all thy ways: So that if the question be put, wherefore livest thou? wherefore livest thou thus? thus holily, thus humbly, thus watchfully, thus self-denyingly? that thou mayst be able to answer, Why, I live thus, that herein I may work out my Salvation. Resolve to set thy self about nothing, nor to allow thy self in any thing concerning which thou art not able to say, I am herein working out my Salvation, I am herein serving the Lord, and endeavouring the saving mine own Soul.

Young Man, dost thou live to this end? what goest thou so often to the Alehouse, or the Tavern for? Is that to serve God, and save thy Soul? what is the intent of thy greediness upon the world, of thy sensual, licentious life, of thy scoffing at the strictness of Religion, dost thou all this also for the pleasing of God, and working out thine own Salvation? Canst thou say when thou art Drinking and Revelling, when thou art swearing and Lying, or when thou art loitering and playing away thy time, canst thou then say, Now I am serving of God, herein I am working out my Salvation? Or when thou art playing the Hypocrite, and Formalist, professing, and praying, and hearing, and talking of God, and the matters of Religion deceitfully, out of pride, or for ostentation, or so coldly and negligently as thou ordinarily dost, canst thou then say, I am now praying for my life, bearing for my life? Will thy pride and thy hypocrisy bring thee to Heaven? Are these false Duties, that have nothing but a Lye at the bottom, that are the Covert of a rotten heart, are these they on which thou meanest to adventure thy Salvation?