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The first point shall be briefly to call to memory the benefits I have received of our Lord, as well general as special, and particularly those that He has done me this very day, giving Him very hearty thanks for them all, acknowledging how great they are, as well for the greatness of Him that bestows them with so great love, as for the baseness of him that receives them without meriting them. And reckoning them one by one, I may say, "I give Thee thanks, O my God, that Thou createdst me of nothing, and hast to this day preserved my life! I thank Thee that Thou redeemedst me with Thy precious blood, and madest me a Christian and a member of Thy Church! Blessed be Thou, that Thou hast this present day fed me and clothed me, and delivered me from great perils of body and soul, and given me many good inspirations, aiding me to fulfil some works of obligation, &amp;c. All the good that is in me is Thine, and to Thee belongs the glory of it; and for it all the thanks that I can I render to Thee with the whole affection of my heart. And I beseech the choirs of angels, and all the blessed spirits, to praise Thee for me, and to give Thee thanks for the favours Thou hast done me!

(Of this point we shall speak largely in the sixth part.)

The second point shall be to ask of our Lord, with great earnestness, light to know my sins, and grace to be contrite for them; alleging to Him three pleas of my great necessity and misery in this behalf, i. The first is, the great forgetfulness of my memory, ii. The second, the great blindness of my understanding, iii. The third, the great coldness of my mill. Whence it proceeds that the devil holds me strongly tied with a threefold cord of my sins,