"What shall I give back to the Lord" for the fact that while my memory recalls these things my soul no longer fears them? I will love you, Lord, and thank you, and confess to your name, because you have put away from me such wicked and evil deeds. To your grace I attribute it and to your mercy, that you have melted away my sin as if it were ice.⁠a To your grace also I attribute whatever evil I did not commit—for what might I not have done, loving sin as I did, just for the sake of sinning? Yes, I now confess that all my sins have been forgiven me, both those which I committed willfully and those which, by your providence, I did not commit. What man is there who, when reflecting upon his own infirmity, dares to ascribe his chastity and innocence to his own powers, so that he should love you less—as if he were in less need of your mercy in which you forgive the transgressions of those who return to you? As for that man who, when called by you, obeyed your voice and shunned those things which he reads about me here as I recall and confess them of myself, let him not despise me—for I, who was sick, have been healed by the same Physician by whose aid he did not fall sick, or rather was less sick than I. And for this let him love you just as much—indeed, all the more—since he sees me restored from such a great weakness of sin by the very same Savior by whom he sees himself preserved from such a weakness.