The one includes all the misery, the other all the happiness of man.
It is on these that the whole frame of Christianity is built, forbidding only such things as fasten us to the disorders of sin, and commanding only those duties which lead us into the liberty of the Sons of God.
So that if we think and act as Christians, we act suitably to these terms of our condition, fearing and avoiding all the motions of our corrupted nature, cherishing the secret inspirations of the Holy Spirit, opening our minds for the reception of the divine light, and pressing after all the perfections of our new birth.
All Christians are continually to behave themselves conformable to this double capacity. We are to fear and watch and pray, like men that are always on the brink of eternal death; and to believe and hope, labour and aspire, like Christians that are called to fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life.
VII. This knowledge of ourselves makes human life a state of infinite importance, placed upon so dreadful a point betwixt two such eternities.
Well might our Saviour say to one that begged first to go and bury his father, Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.
For what is all the bustle and hurry of the world but dead shew, and its greatest actors but dead men, when compared with that real life to which the followers of Christ are redeemed?
Had we been made only for this world, worldly wisdom had been our highest wisdom; but seeing we are redeemed to an intirely contrary state, worldly wisdom is now our greatest foolishness.
It is now our only wisdom, to understand our new state, and conduct ourselves by the principles of our redemption.
VIII. The nature of our Christian calling is of that concern, as to deserve all our thoughts, and is indeed only to be perceived by great seriousness and attention of mind.