This treatise is a detailed interpretation and a mystic application of
the text adapted from Wisdom x. 10: _Justum deduxit Dominus per vias
rectus et ostendit illi regnum Dei_ in the Breviary Office of a
Confessor. Upon these words Ruysbroeck bases a division of his work into
five books. The first book treats of God, _Dominus_, His power and
sovereignty. In the second Blessed John explains how Christ conducted,
_deduxit_, man into the liberty of the children of God, chiefly by
redemption and by the institution of the seven Sacraments. In the third
he treats of the just man, _justum_, and works out eight items which
render a man just, both in the active and in the contemplative life. The
fourth book expounds the right ways, _vias rectas_, which lead to the
Kingdom of God: _the exterior way_, namely, the material universe of
three heavens and four elements, the contemplation of which should excite
man to the praise of the Creator; _the way of natural light_, the
acquisition of the seven virtues; finally, _the supernatural and divine
way_, the infusion of the supernatural virtues and the gifts of the Holy
Ghost. In the last book we have a disquisition on the kingdom of God,
_ostendit illi regnum Dei_, of which we are told there are five aspects
or divisions: the sensible kingdom, exterior to God, in which the author
finds scope for a description of the last judgment and the qualities of
risen bodies, the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of the Scriptures, the
kingdom of grace and of glory, and finally the Divine Kingdom itself,
which is God. This treatise is full of reflections and considerations of
the most elevated order, and there is much therein that is by no means
easy to grasp or understand.