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CHAPTER X.

OF OBLATION.

Cordial thanks being given to God, presently the heart breaketh naturally into that affection, which the kingly prophet David felt in himself, when he said: " Quid retrihuam Domino, pro omnibus qnse retribuit mihiP"[1] " What shall I render to our Lord, for all things that he hath rendered to me?" Which desire, we shall in some sort satisfy, if we offer to God whatsoever we have. First, therefore, we must offer to God ourselves, for his perpetual servants, wholly resigning ourselves to his holy will, howsoever he shall please to dispose of us. We must likewise direct all our thoughts, words, and works, whatsoever we shall do or suffer, to the supreme honor and glory of his sacred name. Then we must offer to God the Father, all the merits of his only begotten Son, all the labors and sorrows he did undergo, in this miserable world, to fulfil the will of his heavenly Father, beginning from his nativity, and hard manger, to his contumelious crucifying, and giving up the ghost; forasmuch, as these are all the goods and means,

  1. Psal. 115