But do Thou, my inmost Physician, make plain unto me what fruit I
may reap by doing it. For the confessions of my past sins, which
Thou hast forgiven and covered, that Thou mightest bless me in Thee,
changing my soul by Faith and Thy Sacrament, when read and heard, stir
up the heart, that it sleep not in despair and say "I cannot," but
awake in the love of Thy mercy and the sweetness of Thy grace, whereby
whoso is weak, is strong, when by it he became conscious of his own
weakness. And the good delight to hear of the past evils of such as
are now freed from them, not because they are evils, but because
they have been and are not. With what fruit then, O Lord my God, to
Whom my conscience daily confesseth, trusting more in the hope of
Thy mercy than in her own innocency, with what fruit, I pray, do I
by this book confess to men also in Thy presence what I now am, not
what I have been? For that other fruit I have seen and spoken of.
But what I now am, at the very time of making these confessions,
divers desire to know, who have or have not known me, who have heard
from me or of me; but their ear is not at my heart where I am,
whatever I am.
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