be, and what purpose all this will serve. In short, they will want to amuse
CHAPTER 4: The Pure in Heart Peacemakers and the PersecuteD
be, and what purpose all this will serve. In short, they will want to amuse themselves with such speculations which are of no benefit, and will want to explore every chamber of paradise, to find out what is happening there: and yet they take no care to approach it. Now we are on the way: let us walk, let us walk while we are in this world. And when we have arrived at our heritage, then we will know what it is. And in fact if a man wanted to buy some house, and it was ten leagues away, and then he sat down to say, I want to know what this house is built of, what convenience it has, where it is situated, and yet he would not go near it: what mockery would that be? So that we learn to profit more and more in the knowledge of God, in order to adore him purely, and put our trust in him, to invoke him in all our needs. And when we have taken advantage of all these instructions, we will see in the end that it is this happiness, and joy which is promised to us, and of which we will be capable, although now the way is completely unknown to us as it is said that our senses cannot understand what God has prepared for us.
However, it is enough for us that our Lord Jesus Christ clarifies here, that if we are his disciples, in the first place we must not be addicted to our schemes, to see more clearly than is lawful for us, and to disguise ourselves in order to deceive one and circumvent the other: and moreover, that if we do not make our profit in this world, as it will seem, because we will go in sincerity, and that we will leave escape many things, even and we will even lose in our knowledge if God is offended. When, therefore, having a peaceful mind, and not being too shrewd to fish in troubled waters, we will lose: let us know that if the world condemns us, we have our reward which must suffice and satisfy us, it is because we will praise God. Because this word of Seeing in Scripture is taken for enjoyment. You will not see death, you will not see the Kingdom of heaven: that is to say, you will not possess it. So it is as much as if our Lord Jesus Christ said that God will be our heritage, when we have not captured by wicked trafficking in goods in this world, and when we have not had our senses twisted into malice, when we have not also pursued ruinous causes, nor attracted to our advantage all that we will have little: and we must not regret it of this. And why?
For this is not a sufficient reward if God makes it clear that he gives himself to us, that he wants to be. our heritage, and that he also wants us to be to him? For where lies all our good and our blessed hearts quote, if not in this? Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ used this similarity of seeing, following the common way of Scripture, because he was here is a question of a pure and whole