Speculum amatorum mundi

set before the servants of the devil, namely the lovers of the world, do not lead them to the conversion of their life and to doing penance? Nothing remains but that they attend to the immensity of heavenly joys, of which the Psalmist says in Psalm 83: "That better is one day there than a thousand in this life." And Psalm 89: "Because a thousand years before your eyes are as yesterday which has passed"—that is, led joyfully in this life. Gregory: "There is peace without discord, will without command, justice without injury; there will be youth without old age, beauty without deformity, life without death, joy without perturbation; songs do not cease, rewards do not fail. There, a friend is not lost, the kingdom is not forfeited; there, nothing will be lacking to God, because He does not desire anything that is not present." Augustine: "O beautiful and decorous city of the soul! Christ will be food so that it may not hunger, drink so that it may not thirst, life so that old age may not dissolve it; there will be no internal disease, no external fear; there will be supreme health in the flesh, total tranquility in the soul." Bernard: "All rejoice in God, because He is desirable in aspect, beautiful in face, sweet to enjoy; by Himself He pleases, by Himself He suffices for a reward; nothing is sought outside of Him. In Him is whatever one desires." Augustine: "He is the end of our desires, who will see without end, will love without loathing, will praise without fatigue." And so that I may conclude many things in few: hear also Bernard saying: "There is true joy, full knowledge; there is all fullness of knowledge, all beauty and beatitude; there is peace, piety, goodness, light, virtue, honesty, joy of gladness, sweetness, life, salvation, glory, rest, love, and whatever good and pleasant thing can be imagined, it is found there superabundantly." If, therefore, those lovers of the world desire to possess those heavenly and eternal joys and to escape eternal punishments, let them hear the Lord saying to them in Jeremiah 51: "Flee out of Babylon and save everyone his own soul." Babylon