But spiritual books only for the soul's profit. Not to stop in obscure places. Not to practise directions, but such as are suitable to the spirit. Extraordinary practices of saints in mortifications not to be imitated without great caution. Why mystic authors seem to write diversely.
Some Authors indiscreetly require perfection at first.
Reading must give way to prayer. How mortification is to be practised in reading. A soul following God may without books or instructors be led to perfect contemplation. And this exercise I esteem, for worth and spiritual profit, to be next unto prayer. And this permission now is the more reasonable, since that in religious communities of men bodily labour is almost out of date, and in place thereof reading and study hath succeeded, as now the principal daily employment of religious persons, who, living much less abstracted from the world, are almost forced to comply with the customs of the present times, in which learning is so valued and so abounding.