“The prime motive of existence” by John Calvin

“It is not very sound theology to confine a man’s thoughts so much to himself, and not to set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God.

For we are born first of all for God, and not for ourselves. As all things flowed from him, and subsist in him, so, says Paul, (Rom. 11:36) they ought to be referred to Him.

I acknowledge, indeed, that the Lord, the better to recommend the glory of His name to men, has tempered zeal for the promotion and extension of it, by uniting it indissolubly with our salvation.

But since He has taught that this zeal ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage, and since natural equity also teaches that God does not receive what is His own, unless He is preferred to all things, it certainly is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the salvation of his own soul.

I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with true piety, who will not consider as insipid that long and laboured exhortation to zeal for heavenly life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God.

But I readily agree with you that, after this sanctification, we ought not to propose to ourselves any other object in life than to hasten towards that high calling; for God has set it before us as the constant aim of all our thoughts, and words, and actions.

And, indeed, there is nothing in which man excels the lower animals, unless it be his spiritual communion with God in the hope of a blessed eternity. And, generally, all we aim at in our discourses is to arouse men to meditate upon it, and aspire to it.”

–John Calvin, A Reformation Debate: John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, Ed. John C. Olin (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1539/1966), 59.