Mirror of the Honesty of Life

is in a certain way like a final intention and the reward of all labors, which the retired soldier of Christ is accustomed to receive in this life, and he claims the primacy for himself.

Affection must be guarded with all diligence from all those things that could impede its freedom, and from every thing having the possibility of binding and holding that affection, to the point of clinging to it.

According to that Mosaic Law: "Let each one remain in his own place; let no one go out from the door of his house on the Sabbath, and the people shall rest" Exodus 16:29. For to be in oneself is to gather together the dispersions of one's heart and affections toward the one true and simplest of goods, and to have them collected. To rest, however, is for the heart to be absolute from the carnal affection infecting it and from the worldly cares distracting it, and to rest sweetly in the peace of one's heart as if in a port of silence, in the love and enjoyment of the Creator.

Above all other things, however, let your principal effort always be to have your mind always elevated upward in the contemplation of divine things, so that it may be carried unceasingly toward divine things and toward God. But whatever is different from these, although it may seem more...