1. For the meriting of this happiness he sighs, who by the contemplation of things to come renounces all present things, and who, carried up from domestic occupations—which sometimes hinder the progress of those who desire to live perfectly—into that loftiness of divine contemplation, overcomes even the very affections of his own flesh; and despising beneath himself all those things which for the most part cast down into earthly matters even souls secure in the holiness of their past life, draws near even to heavenly things themselves, made the more near to divine things the more he ascends by the zeal of perfection above all things human, certain that if here he prefers the contemplative life with full will to uncertain honors, anxious riches, and fleeting delights;
he will find true honors, secure riches, and eternal delights, when he attains to the perfection of contemplative virtue in that blessed life where it is to be, God rewarding him. And in truth, what will be more honored than he whom the divine mercy will have blessed with equality of angelic dignity? What richer than he whom the ineffably overflowing blessedness of the heavenly kingdom will have enriched?
Or what even here is more delightful than divine contemplation, which pours into the one truly panting for it the incorruptible sweetness of the future reward? Since indeed the contemplative life here also delights its lovers with the consideration of future goods, and illumines with the gift of spiritual wisdom those who give themselves wholly with intent purpose to its merits, as much as can be done in this life; and inflames them with a certain incitement of attaining that very perfection toward that fullness of the divine vision, the hope of which they bear intent upon heavenly pursuits; so that what now they discern in an enigma and do not perfectly distinguish, they may then behold in that revelation.