sources whence I have drawn the same, which are three. i. The first is the sacred Scripture, the principal fountain of this spiritual science, in which is contained life everlasting, [1] and the most excellent means of attaining a foretaste of it in this life, and full possession of it in the life to come. ii. The second fountain is, the holy Fathers, who were the masters of mystical divinity, amongst whom I shall make choice of the most ancient and most illuminated in it by Almighty God — such as were SS. Dionysius, Basil, Augustine, Chrysostom, Cassian, Gregory, Bernard, and such others; and with them I will likewise take for my guide our father and founder blessed Ignatius of glorious memory, following the order and form which he left us in his book which he made of Spiritual Exercises, the authority of which is very great, as well because we believe, (and not without great foundation,) that he wrote it by special revelation and inspiration of Almighty God, as the Holy Spirit interiorly dictated to him, and taught him these exercises; as also because it was approved by Pope Paul III. in a bull granted the year 1548, which is in the beginning of the said book, whose approbation experience has confirmed by the marvellous effects which our Lord God has wrought and daily works in those who exercise his meditations; as is largely prosecuted by Father Pedro de Ribadeneyra in the history [2] which he wrote of the life of this excellent man.
I will here add only concerning the said book, that the kingdom of heaven, which is comprehended in the doctrine it lays down, is (as is also the divine Scripture [3] whence he extracted it) like a grain of mustard-seed, which being the least of all seeds, grows up to such greatness that it becomes as it were a tree, upon whose branches the fowls of the air repose: for if we behold but the outside and appearance of this book, it is little, and brief, and written
