ns to make progress in the acts
of the virtues and gifts, it is to be hoped that he will arrive at
perfection, both as a wayfarer, and as a citizen of the heavenly
kingdom.

Reply Obj. 1: Hope regards future happiness as the last end: yet it
may also regard the assistance of grace as that which leads to that
end, according to Ps. 27:7: "In Him hath my heart hoped, and I have
been helped."

Reply Obj. 2: Although sometimes the wicked do not undergo temporal
punishment in this life, yet they suffer spiritual punishment. Hence
Augustine says (Confess. i): "Thou hast decreed, and it is so,
Lord--that the disordered mind should be its own punishment." The
Philosopher, too, says of the wicked (Ethic. ix, 4) that "their soul
is divided against itself . . . one part pulls this way, another
that"; and afterwards he concludes, saying: "If wickedness makes a
man so miserable, he should strain every nerve to avoid vice." In
like manner, although, on the other hand, the good sometimes do not
receive material rewards in this life, yet they never lack spiritual
rewards, even in this life, according to Matt. 19:29, and Mk. 10:30:
"Ye shall receive a hundred times as much" even "in this time."

Reply Obj. 3: All these rewards will be fully consummated in the life
to come: but meanwhile they are, in a manner, begun, even in this
life. Because the "kingdom of heaven," as Augustine says (loc. cit.),
can denote the beginning of perfect wisdom, in so far as "the spirit"
begins to reign in men. The "possession" of the land denotes the
well-ordered affections of the soul that rests, by its desire, on the
solid foundation of the eternal inheritance, signified by "the land."
They are "comforted" in this life, by receiving the Holy Ghost, Who
is called the "Paraclete," i.e. the Comforter. They "have their
fill," even in this life, of that food of which Our Lord said (John
4:34): "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." Again, in
this life, men "obtain" God's "Mercy." Again, the eye being cleansed
by the gift of understanding, we can, so to speak, "see God."
Likewise, in this life, those who are the "peacemakers" of their own
movements, approach to likeness to God, and are called "the children
of God." Nevertheless these things will be more perfectly fulfilled
in heaven.
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THIRD ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 69, Art. 3]

Whether the Beatitudes Are Suitably Enumerated?

Objection 1: It would seem that the beatitudes are