Dedication

Your Grace may have forgotten (for you are not wont to write your good turns in marble) what great things you did for me in my straits: what kindness and good will I then found from you, what industry of doing me good, even to admiration. However, they must never slip out of my remembrance and acknowledgment till I have forgot myself, and remember no more what I am. But since your humanity hath been such as cannot be fully spoken out, let me comprise the whole matter in this short compendium; that my family had perished, if God's mercy, by the means of your compassion, had not saved it.

What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits? and what to your Grace for so great a one? But can such a one as I think of making returns to God or you? Let God himself, the Father of mercies, (since I cannot) become your reward: and by an addition of his mercy, make me capable of rendering him myself; grant that I might be wholly his, and he yours. I pray that he would long preserve, protect, and direct your Grace, and at length make you everlastingly happy. This, from the heart and without ceasing, is the prayer of,

Most Reverend Father,
Your Grace's most humble and most devoted servant,
John Lightfoot