Chapter 3: A Prayer concerning the creation of the first man, and his unhappy fall

I BLESS You, and give thanks to You, O Holy Trinity, and undivided Unity — Father, Son and Holy Ghost — one true and Almighty God, Who, that You might proclaim the unspeakable abundance of Your Goodness, did in the beginning create the heaven and the earth, and the sea and all the things that are therein; and did exalt man above Your other creatures, to Your own image and likeness, by making him powerful in dominion, wise in understanding, and innocent in life.

I praise and glorify You for Your surpassing munificence in endowing man in paradise with delights of every kind, giving him the things above him to enjoy, and the things beneath him to rule — all to be held upon condition of ever praising You.

I praise and magnify You, most gracious God, for Your infinite compassion, and Your unspeakable mercy, in sparing man, who had gone astray, and been ungrateful for all Your benefits, from a fall beyond recovery, when depriving him for his sins of the joys of paradise, that so he might be brought to repent of them. He had indeed, by his transgression, deserved to be condemned for ever, without hope of pardon; but You, by allowing Your unspeakable mercy to take the place of the severity of Your Justice, did lay upon him the burden of a fitting penance, the smart of which was to be healed after many days by the balm of a longwished-for pardon. And this was done that the creature, whom You had endowed with reason, and who had fallen into sin by his own fault, might be saved by Your grace.

Every faithful soul therefore is bound to render thanks to You, and never to trust in its own strength, or boast of its own merits or righteousness. Your creatures, O my God, are we all: by Your Goodness we exist: of Your Bounty have we received all that we have: of our own perversity it is that we fall, and are found wanting in Your sight; and were it not that by Your merciful aid we are again raised up and strengthened, we should sink lower and lower, and end by being consumed in our iniquities.

Your compassion, then, most gracious God, we entreat; the abundance of Your tender lovingkindness we remember, we joyfully extol, we proclaim as best we may; and for the multitude of Your compassions, poured forth without stint upon us, Your polluted children, sold under sin, we offer to You, with thanksgiving, our Sacrifice of love and praise.

Chapter III