Preface

admonished by the example of Saint Bonaventura, who in a like time of leisure wrote a book entitled The Pilgrimage of the Mind to God, have essayed from the contemplation of creatures to make a ladder, by which we may in some sort ascend to God. And I have divided it into fifteen steps after the pattern of the fifteen steps of ascent unto the temple of Solomon, and of the fifteen psalms which are called Gradual, or Songs of Degrees.