study,) or whether I had good affections and purposes; whether I begged of God, and spake to Him in my colloquies with reverence and confidence, or without it. And if I find that it has gone well with me in all, I will give thanks to God for it, attributing this good success not to my diligence, but to His grace and mercy: but if I find that it has gone ill with me, I will examine the cause, whether it were any fault of mine, or any passion or disordered affection, or any negligence or remissness: and, being sorry for my fault, I will purpose to amend it, with determination to mortify myself, and to remove the cause of this defect.
3. Thirdly, I must examine the motions, and inspirations, or illuminations, and spiritual taste that I have felt; marking well what effects they have wrought in me, to know whether they spring from a good spirit or not, and to gain experience that may help me to know the variety of spirits. To which end it will help much to know the rules that are prescribed for this, of which we shall give many in the discourse of these meditations.
4. Fourthly, I must examine the resolutions that I made in prayer, to see when and how I am to put them in execution; and generally I must examine what fruit I draw from prayer and conversation with God: for if my prayer be a tree without fruit, it will be cursed like the fig-tree, and presently wither; [1] but if it bear fruit, it shall be blessed and grow up like a tree planted nigh to the streams of waters. [2] The fruits of prayer are these: — To reform manners, to withdraw us from sins, be they never so light, to avoid the occasions of them, and of all imperfection; — to subdue passions, to curb the senses, to mortify sinister inclinations, to vanquish the repugnances and difficulties that I find in virtues; — to fight valiantly against temptations, to animate myself to suffer much affliction with alacrity; — to encourage myself to fulfil
