A golden treatise of mental prayer/Of the time and fruit of these meditations
CHAPTER III.
OF THE TIME AND FRUIT OF THESE MEDITATIONS.
Behold, Christian reader, thou hast seven former meditations, accommodated to every day of the week; not so that it is an offence to meditate upon another matter; when, as we said before, whatsoever inflameth the heart to the love and fear of God, and to the keeping of his commandments, may profitably be assumed for matter of meditation. We, therefore, out of so great a number, have selected these, both for that they contain the chief mysteries of our faith, and that in them is force and efficacy, to rouse up our souls to the love and fear of God: as also to set before novices, which have need of a guide, prepared and, as it were, fore-chewed matter, lest they confusedly wander up and down in this spacious field, without any certainty, now meditating upon one thing, and presently on another.
Moreover, these meditations, as we have said elsewhere, suit best with those who do begin to turn from Almighty God from their wicked courses. For these had need to be helped by the consideration of these things, to the detestation and horror of sin, the fear of God, the contempt of the world, which are, as it were, the first steps to the amendment of our former perverse life; therefore, it is good, that they should sometimes insist in them, that they may have the better foundation for other ensuing virtues.