1. Now indeed, what shall I say of the quality of that future life itself, which ought rather to be believed than spoken? Yet I ought not on that account to be silent about what I am able, because I am not able to say as much as I wish. For neither, because we believe God to be ineffable, ought we not to speak of him what we can. So indeed, that more may be believed of that life than is written; because neither can so much be uttered of it in speech as can be embraced in mind; and the human mind's profoundest embrace, however deep, conceives less than the magnitude of the thing itself contains. Therefore the future life is believed to be blessedly everlasting and everlastingly blessed, where there is sure security, secure tranquillity, tranquil delight, happy eternity, eternal happiness;
where there is perfect love, no fear, an eternal day, a brisk motion, and one spirit of all from the contemplation of their God, and secure of their own abiding with him; where that very city, which is the blessed congregation of holy angels and of men, gleams with shining merits, and eternal salvation abounds, truth reigns; where no one deceives, nor is deceived; from which no blessed one is cast out, and into which no wretched one is admitted.