The practice of piety directing a Christian how to walk, that he may please…

A Thanksgiving to be said of one that is recovered from sickness.

O Gracious and merciful Father, who art the Lord of Health and Sickness,¹ of Life and of Death: who killest, and makest alive; who bringest down to the Grave and raisest up again; who art the only preserver of all those that trust in thee, I thy poor and unworthy Servant, having now (by experience of my painful sickness) felt the grievousness of misery due unto sin, and the greatness of thy mercy in forgiving sinners, and perceiving with what a fatherly compassion thou hast heard my Prayers, and restored me to my health and strength again; do here (upon the bended knees of my heart) return (with the thankful Leper) to acknowledge thee alone to be the God ⟨p. 389⟩of my health and salvation: and to give thee the praise and glory for my strength and deliverance out of that grievous Disease and Malady: and for thus turning my mourning into mirth, my sickness into health, and my death into life. My sins deserved punishment, and thou hast corrected me, but hast not given me over unto death. ^†I looked (from the day to the night) when thou wouldest make an end of me: I did chatter like a Crane or a Swallow: I mourned (as a Dove) when the bitterness of sickness oppressed me: I lifted up mine eyes unto thee, O Lord, and thou didst comfort me, for thou didst cast all my sins behind thy back, and didst deliver my soul from the pit of corruption; and when I found no help in my self, nor in any other creature (saying, I am deprived of the residue of my years, I shall see man no more among the Inhabitants of the World) then didst thou restore me to health again, and gavest life unto me; I found thee, O Lord, ready to save me.

O Gracious and merciful Father, who art the Lord of Health and Sickness,¹