The Institution of Christian Religion

But with what so ever kind of trouble we be distressed, §1we must alway look to this end, to use our selves to the contempt of this present life, & thereby be stirred to the meditation of the life to come. For, because God knoweth well how much we be by nature inclined to the beastly love of this world, he useth a most fit mean to draw us back, and to shake of our sluggishness, that we should not stick to fast in that love. There is none of us that desireth not to seem to aspire & endeavour all their life long to heavenly immortality. For we are ashamed to excel brute beasts in nothing: whose state should be nothing inferior to ours, unless there remain to us a hope of eternity after death. But if you examine the devises, studies & doings of every man, you shall find nothing therein but earth. Hereupon groweth that senselessness, that our mind being dazzled with vain glistering of richesse, power & honours, is so dulled that it can not see far. Our heart also being possessed with covetousness, ambition & lust, is so weighed down, that it can not rise up higher. Finally all our soul entangled with enticements of the flesh, seeketh her felicity in earth. The Lord, to remedy this evil, doth with continual examples of miseries teach this of the vanity of this present life. Therefore that they should not promise themselves in this life a sound & quiet peace, he suffereth them to be many times disquieted & troubled either with wars, or uproars, or robberies, or other injuries. That they should not with to much greediness, gape for frail & transitory richesse, or rest in the richesse that they already possess, sometime with banishment, sometime with barrenness of the earth, sometime with fire, sometime by other means he bringeth them to poverty, or at least holdeth them in measure. That they should not with to much ease take pleasure in the benefits of marriage, he either maketh them to be vexed with the frowardness of their wives, or plucketh them down with ill children, or punisheth them with want of issue. But if in all these things he tenderly beareth with them, yet least they should either swell with foolish glory, or immeasurably rejoice with vain confidence, he doth by diseases & dangers set before their eyes, how unstable & vanishing be all the goods that are subject to mortality.