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15. "What shall I render unto the Lord," x that whilst my
memory recalls these things my soul is not appalled at them? I will
love Thee, O Lord, and thank Thee, and confess unto Thy name,s
because Thou hast put away from me these so wicked and nefarious acts
of mine. To Thy grace I attribute it, and to Thy mercy, that
Thou hast melted away my sin as it were ice. To Thy grace also I
attribute whatsoever of evil I have hot committed; for what might I
not have committed, loving as I did the sin for the sin's sake?
Yea, all I confess to have been pardoned me, both those which I
committed by my own perverseness, and those which, by Thy guidance,
I committed not. Where is he who, reflecting upon his own
infirmity, dares to ascribe his chastity and innocency to his own
strength, so that he should love Thee the less, as if he had been in
less need of Thy mercy, whereby Thou dost forgive the transgressions
of those that turn to Thee? For whosoever, called by Thee, obeyed
Thy voice, and shunned those things which he reads me recalling and
confessing of myself, let him not despise me, who, being sick, was
healed by that same Physician' by whose aid it was that he was not
sick, or rather was less sick. And for this let him love Thee as
much, yea, all the more, since by whom he sees me to have been
restored from so great a feebleness of sin, by Him he sees himself
from a like feebleness to have been preserved.
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