The Institution of Christian Religion

Then only therefore we rightly profit in the discipline of the cross when we learn that this life, when it is considered in it self, is unquiet, troublesome & innumerable ways miserable, & in no point fully blessed: & that all those that are reckoned the good things thereof are uncertain, fickle, vain, & corrupted with many evils mixed with them. And hereupon we do determine, that here is nothing to be sought or hoped for but strife: and that when we think of our crown, then we must lift up our eyes to heaven. For thus we must believe. That our mind is never truly raised to the desire and meditation of the life to come, unless it have first conceived ⟨p. 168⟩a contempt of this present life.

Then only therfore we rightly profit in the discipline of the crosse when we learne yt this life, when it is considered in it self, is vnquiet, troublesome & innumerable wayes miserable, & in no point fully blessed: & that all those yt are reckened the good thinges thereof are vncertaine, fickle, vaine, & corrupted with many euels mixed with them. And herupō we do determine, that here is nothing to be sought or hoped for but strife: and that whē we thinke of our crowne, then we muste lifte vp our eyes to heauen. For thus we muste beleue. That our minde is neuer truely raysed to the desire and meditation of the life to come, vnlesse it haue first conceyued ⟨p. 168⟩a contempt of this present life.

For between these two there is no mean, the earth must either become §2vile in our sight, or hold us bound with intemperate love of it. Therefore if we have any care of eternity, we must diligently endeavour to loose our selves from these fetters. Now because this present life hath many flattering pleasures wherewith to allure us, a great show of pleasantness, grace, & sweetness, wherewith to delight us: it is much behoveful for us to be now and then called away, that we be not bewitched with such allurements. For what, I pray you, would be done if we did here enjoy a continual concourse of good things & felicity, sith we can not with continual spurs of evils be sufficiently awaked to consider the misery thereof? Not only the learned do know, but also the common people have no Proverb more common than this, that mans life is like a smoke or shadow: and because they saw it to be a thing very profitable to be known, they have set it out with many notable sentences. But there is nothing that we do either more negligently consider, or less remember. For we go about all things, as though we would frame to our selves an immortality in earth. If there be a corps carried to burial, or if we walk among graves, then, because there is an image of death before our eyes, I grant we do marvellously well discourse like Philosophers upon the vanity of this life. Albeit we do not it continually, for many times all these things do nothing move us. But when it happeneth, our Philosophy lasteth but a while, which so soon as we turn our backs, wanisheth away, & leaveth no steppe at all of remembrance behind it: finally it passeth away as a clapping of hands upon a stage at any pleasant sight. And we forgetting not only death, but also that we be subject to death, as though we had never heard any report thereof, fall to a careless assuredness of earthly immortality. If any man in the mean time tell us of the Proverb, that man is a creature of a days continuance, we grant it in deed: but so heedlessly, that still the thought of everlasting continuance resteth in our mind. Who therefore can deny, that it is a great profit to us all, not only to be admonished in words, but by all the examples of experience that may be to be convinced of the miserable estate of earthly life: