Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/345

 thine iniquity. Take with you words, and return to the Lord, and say to him, Take away all iniquity, and receive the good; and we will render the calves of our lips that is, instead of the victims which of old they offered Thee in sacrifice,  we offer unto Thee now the victims of words; confessing our sins that Thou may est remit them, and confessing Thy mercies when Thou hast remitted them. This " sacrifice of praise," as David says, shall glorify God; " and there is the way by which I will show him," says the Lord, " the salvation of God," which is confirmed thereby to the grateful. To this end it will help to consider how much our Lord Jesus Christ was pleased with the leprous Samaritan, who going to present himself to the priest, was cured as he went of his leprosy, and forthwith returned back to give thanks for the health that was given him; and contrariwise, how much he was displeased with his other nine companions, who having received the like benefit, returned not to acknowledge it and to give to God the glory which they owed him, as we shall further consider in the meditation of this miracle.

2. Therefore, having ended my confession, I will re-collect myself in the church before the blessed sacrament, or in some other convenient place, where being set in the presence of the ever-living God, I will revive the faith of the favour He has done me, in which with my bodily ears I have heard that favourable sentence and most sweet word, " I absolve thee," a word powerful to do what it signifies, to give joy to my ears and " gladness " to my "humbled bones;" and so, trusting in the goodness and mercy of Almighty God, that He has made good and ratified this sentence, I will endeavour to exercise three acts of thanksgiving; which are,