readily the will of God declared in His holy law, in the Evangelical counsels, and in the rules and orders of my state and office; — to procure also the augmentation or increase of virtues, imitating those of Christ Jesus our Lord, especially His charity and humility, His obedience and patience in afflictions, His love of the cross and of contempt, and of chastising the flesh. And particularly every one is to seek that virtue that he has most need of according to the quality of his state, whether it be modesty, or chastity, or fortitude, or any other of the theologial or moral virtues, with a most effectual resolution and purpose, as shall be explained in the twenty-ninth meditation of the first part. And when I shall make an examination of prayer I must make good trial whether I have drawn out any of these fruits in the manner aforesaid.
Chap. IX. On the several forms op praying on different matters, accommodated to different persons and times.
The taste of man is so easily disgusted in spiritual exercises, that it soon begets tediousness and loathing, if his food be given him dressed always after one fashion, though it be never so precious; as the Israelites were cloyed with manna [1] though it was exceeding sweet, because it was always the same. For this cause the saints and spiritual masters have invented different forms of prayer, accommodating it in different manners, with this variety, to take away the weariness we might have in the exercise of it, when the Spirit of God goes not always renewing the delight of it, making us (as David says) always to " sing" " to the Lord a new canticle." [2]
In this the seraphical doctor St Bonaventure was very excellent, in his many and large treatises that he made of
