Lord, and thank Thee, and confess unto Thy name; because Thou hast
forgiven me these so great and heinous deeds of mine. To Thy grace I
ascribe it, and to Thy mercy, that Thou hast melted away my sins as it
were ice. To Thy grace I ascribe also whatsoever I have not done of
evil; for what might I not have done, who even loved a sin for its own
sake? Yea, all I confess to have been forgiven me; both what evils I
committed by my own wilfulness, and what by Thy guidance I committed
not. What man is he, who, weighing his own infirmity, dares to ascribe
his purity and innocency to his own strength; that so he should love
Thee the less, as if he had less needed Thy mercy, whereby Thou
remittest sins to those that turn to Thee? For whosoever, called by
Thee, followed Thy voice, and avoided those things which he reads me
recalling and confessing of myself, let him not scorn me, who being
sick, was cured by that Physician, through whose aid it was that he
was not, or rather was less, sick: and for this let him love Thee as
much, yea and more; since by whom he sees me to have been recovered
from such deep consumption of sin, by Him he sees himself to have been
from the like consumption of sin preserved.

What fruit had I then (wretched man!) in those things, of the
remembrance whereof I am now ashamed? Especially, in that theft
which I loved for the theft's sake; and it too was nothing, and
therefore the more miserable I, who loved it. Yet alone I had not done
it: such was I then, I remember, alone I had never done it. I loved
then in it also the company of the accomplices, with whom I did it?
I did not then love nothing else but the theft, yea rather I did
love nothing else; for that circumstance of the company was also
nothing. What is, in truth? who can teach me, save He that
enlighteneth my heart, and discovereth its dark corners? What is it
which hath come into my mind to enquire, and discuss, and consider?