The Practice of Perfection and Christian VirtuesPart One On the esteem, desire and affection we ought to have for what concerns our spiritual progress The Great Value We Ought to Set on Spiritual Things Of the Affection and Desire that We Should Have for Virtue and Perfection That an Excellent Means and a Very Great Preparation to Receive Favors from the Lord Is to Keep Up a Great Desire of Spiritual Improvement That the More a Man Gives Himself to Spiritual Things, the More Hunger and Desire He Has of Them That a Desire of Growing and Going Forward in Self- Improvement Is a Great Sign of One’s Being in the Grace of God Showing How Not to Advance Is to Go Back That It Is a Great Aid to the Attainment of Perfection to Forget Any Good Done in the Past, and Fix Our Eye on What Remains Still to be Done That lt Is a Great Aid to Perfection to Fix Our Eyes on Lofty and Exalted Things How Important It Is to Set Store by Little Things and Not Despise Them Another Weighty Reason for Setting Great Store by Little Things That the Business of Our Spiritual Advancement Is Not To Be Taken in General, but in Particular; and of How Great Importance It Is to Put Into Execution Those Good Purposes Wherewith God Inspires Us That It Will Be a Great Aid to the Attainment of Perfection Not to Commit Faults on Purpose, and Never Relax in Fervor Of Three Other Means That Will Enable Us to Advance in Virtue That It Will Help Us Much Always to Behave As We Did the First Day We Entered Religion That It Will Be a Great Help for Everyone to Ask Himself Frequently: “What Did You Enter Religion for?” Of Some Other Things That Will Help Us to Go On in Self- Improvement and Gain Perfection Of the Perseverance We Ought to Have in Virtue, and What Will Aid Us Thereto Of Another Means to Advance in Virtue; Namely, Spiritual Exhortations and Conferences, and How to Profit by Them
