ing them with the steel of any single consideration, cast out sparkles of love, which if the soul, like tincfer, be well disposed to receive, they presently raise up flames of great feeling and affection. To do this with more facility, it will help much to have first read some one of the meditations which ensue, labouring always to re-collect in the memory some of the most notable truths of our faith, which may be as it were the repast of these feelings, saying with the Bride, " A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved to me, He shall abide between my breasts;" [1] giving us to understand that she Had recollected many truths of those mysteries which belong to her Beloved, which she set before her, regarding them simply with the eyes of the Spirit, and embracing them with the enkindled affections of the heart, and applying them to herself with effectual purposes of imitation.
6. Of these we are to take sometimes one and sometimes another for the foundation of mental prayer, as did our Saviour Christ, re-collecting Himself to pray in the garden of Gethsemane, who took three times for the theme and foundation of His prayer these brief words: " My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou." [2] And in the weight and sense of these words He spent a long time, as in its place we shall see hereafter.
Chap. XI. On the extraordinary forms op mental prayer, and the divers manners god communicates Himself in it.
1. By those things that have been said concerning prayer, it manifestly appears, as St. Augustine says, that it is the gift of the Holy Spirit, promised by God our Lord to His Church,[3] when He said, " I will pour down upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem," "spiritum
