What They Said

"First, The nature and being of God is the foundation of all true religion and holy religious worship in the world. The great end for which we were made, for which we were brought forth by the power of God into this world, is to worship him and to give glory unto him; for he " made all things for himself," or his own glory, Prov. xvi. 4, to be rendered unto him according to the abilities and capacities that he both furnished them withal, Rev. iv. 11.  And that which makes this worship indispensably necessary unto us, and from whence it is holy or religious, is the nature and being of God himself.  There are, indeed, many parts or acts of religious worship which immediately respect (as their reason and motive) what God is unto us, or what he hath done and doth for us;  but the principal and adequate reason of all divine worship, and that which makes it such, is what God is in himself."

John Owen