Chapter 10.—The Reward Prepared
for the Saints After They Have Endured the Trial of This
Life.
But not even the saints and
faithful worshippers of the one true and most high God are safe
from the manifold temptations and deceits of the demons. For in
this abode of weakness, and in these wicked days, this state of
anxiety has also its use, stimulating us to seek with keener
longing for that security where peace is complete and
unassailable. There we shall enjoy the gifts of nature, that is
to say, all that God the Creator of all natures has bestowed upon
ours,—gifts not only good, but eternal,—not only of the spirit,
healed now by wisdom, but also of the body renewed by the
resurrection. There the virtues shall no longer be struggling
against any vice or evil, but shall enjoy the reward of victory,
the eternal peace which no adversary shall disturb. This is the
final blessedness, this the ultimate consummation, the unending
end. Here, indeed, we are said to be blessed when we have such
peace as can be enjoyed in a good life; but such blessedness is
mere misery compared to that final felicity. When we mortals
possess such peace as this mortal life can afford, virtue, if we
are living rightly, makes a right use of the advantages of this
peaceful condition; and when we have it not, virtue makes a good
use even of the evils a man suffers. But this is true
virtue,
when it refers all the advantages it makes a good use
of, and all that it does in making good use of good and evil
things, and itself also, to that end in which we shall enjoy the
best and greatest peace possible.