From George de Benneville’s “Life and Trance” (1793)
Oh, my Lord and my God, thou hast saved me through pure grace. What shall I render to thee for all thy benefits? Oh! my divine love, whom I honor and adore, give me a pure and holy heart, filled with thy virtue and thy love, even such as thou wouldst that I should have; and renew a right spirit within my heart. Now I know that thy marvelous mercy hath given me a savior before I knew my danger and slavery; a physician who had the care of my disease before that I felt or knew the same; a redeemer who undertook to pay the debt that I was neither willing nor able to pay. Oh, my benefactor, guide me by the efficacy of thy spirit to walk in the way of thy truth and universal love. Teach me thy eternal and universal word; speak my Lord and my God, for thy servant heareth. Give me thy grace, O my divine love, that I may have the eyes of my faith fixed constantly upon thee, and that I may follow thee whithersoever thou mayest please to lead me, that thy holy will may be accomplished in time and eternity, to the praise of thy glory, and my complete salvation.
O my dear soul, sink thyself down into nothingness and the deepest humiliation, and adore in spirit and in truth; honor the ocean of love, and the great wonders of the wisdom and power of thy God who hath employed all these boundless incomprehensible miracles to restore and to save thee, and not thee only, but all the human species, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh! the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and power of God. How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. For of him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory eternal.
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O my Lord and my God, what great wonders hast thou caused to pass before mine eyes! Who am I, O my God, dust and ashes, an ungrateful and rebellious creature. I should not dare to lift mine eyes towards the heavens if the blood of Jesus Christ thy son did not plead for me. My soul rejoices and is glad, she shouts for joy. O my God, whom I adore, love, and respect; before whom I desire to be without ceasing, self-annihilated at thy feet. O my God and my love, the seraphims and cherubims, burning with the fire of thy heavenly love, adore and honor thee. Give me thy grace also, O my God, that I may be consumed before thee, while I sing the majesty, glory, and the memory of God, who hath created and redeemed me. I would praise him incessantly, not in shadow or figure, but in reality and truth. I would continue devoted to thee, and always be swallowed up in the ocean of love without a wish to leave it.