“The conditions, then, for a right use of this world are to pass through it as pilgrims should who have their minds fixed on another country to which they are traveling, to offer all that we possess and enjoy here in our open hands as a sacrifice to God to take from us whenever it pleases Him, to make such tokens of the divine love as we enjoy in the midst of this present creation whet our appetites for the fuller glory that is yet to be–in other words to use this world thankfully as a preparation for that which is to come. Under such circumstances it is right for us to indulge in a real and thankful love of this life. We thus have the paradoxical truth that we are able to love this life only when we have truly learned first to despise this life.”
Ronald Wallace in Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1959) 130.