Therefore let the follower of the contemplative life approach his Creator to be enlightened in heart, let him watchfully serve him by contemplating and untiringly enjoying him, let him continually desire him, let him for love of him flee all things by which he can be turned away from it, let him suspend all his thoughts and all his hope upon delight [or love] of him, let him give himself to the sacred meditations of the divine letters, let him take pleasure in them being divinely enlightened, let him there consider himself wholly as in some shining mirror: let him correct what he has detected in himself to be perverse, let him hold fast what is right, let him set in order what is misshapen, let him cultivate what is beautiful, let him preserve what is sound, let him strengthen by constant reading what is weak;
let him untiringly read the precepts of his Lord, insatiably love them, effectually fulfill them, and from them, being sufficiently instructed, let him recognize what he must beware of and what he must pursue; let him persist in searching out the mysteries of those same divine Scriptures, let him read Christ promised there (John 1:45),
let him see him represented, let him understand the prophesied destruction of the stubborn people, let him mourn that it was fulfilled, let him rejoice at the salvation of the nations, let him from things past which were foretold and fulfilled hold fast, let him believe future promises; far removed from the din of secular affairs, let him fervently meditate on those things by which he may inflame his soul into the desire of the future reward; let him keep watch over spiritual pursuits, by which he may become daily better and better; let him love holy leisure, in which he may exercise the business of his soul; let him reckon the world dead to himself, and let him show himself crucified to the allurements of the flattering world;
let him incomparably set the sight of his Creator before the delight of present spectacles; let him ever lift himself up, with progress advancing, to the summit of divine contemplation; never, not even for a moment, turned away from the consideration of future promises, let him look back to earthly things; let him unceasingly direct the keen edge of his mind toward that which he desires to attain; let him set before the eyes of his soul and love the blessedness of the future life; let him neither fear anything temporal, nor desire it; lest either the fear of losing a temporal thing, or the desire of acquiring one, soften the intention of his mind; let not pleasant things corrupt him, nor adverse things shake him;
let not favorable opinion puff him up, nor unfavorable cast him down, nor let false blame or praise increase or diminish his joys; let him not rejoice at all in temporal things, nor mourn over them. Amid prosperity and adversity unconquered, let him keep one countenance of a steadfast mind, nor let whatever the world promises or threatens shake the stable firmness in his breast; but persevering ever the same and like himself, let him not feel the losses and at the same time the gains of this world. And when, moved by desire of the contemplative life, he has fulfilled these and things like these, let him believe unshakeably that he is not here already perfect in every part, but to be perfected in that blessed life which is to come; and let him stretch himself out toward it, where he may see the substance of God with unveiled face.