Therefore take good courage and believe. The design of Satan is to tell the presumptuous, that their presuming on mercy is good; but to persuade the believer, that his believing is impudent bold dealing with God. I never heard a presumptuous man in my life say that he was afraid that he presumed; but I have heard many an honest humble soul say, that they have been afraid that their faith has been presumption. Why should Satan molest those whose ways he knows will bring them to him? And who can think that he should be quiet when men take the right course to escape his hellish snares? This, therefore, is the reason why the truly humbled is opposed, while the presumptuous goes on by wind and tide. The truly humble Satan hates, but he laughs to see the foolery of the other.
Does thy hand and heart tremble? Upon thee the promise smiles. “To this man will I look,” says God, “even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word;” Isa. lxvi. 2.
What, therefore, I have said of presumption concerns not the humble in spirit at all. I therefore am for gathering up the stones, and for taking the stumblingblocks out of the way of God’s people: and forewarning of them that lay the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their faces, and that are for presuming upon God’s mercy; and let them look to themselves; Ezek. xiv. 6–8.
Also our text stands firm as ever it did, and our observation is still of force, that Jesus Christ would have mercy offered in the first place to the biggest sinners. So then let none despair, let none presume; let none despair that are sorry for their sins, and would be saved by Jesus Christ; let none presume that abide in the liking of their sins, though they seem to know the exceeding grace of Christ; for though the door stands wide open for the reception of the penitent, yet it is fast enough barred and bolted against the presumptuous sinner. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man sows, that he shall reap. It cannot be that God should be wheedled out of his mercy, or prevailed upon by lips of dissimulation; he knows them that trust in him, and that sincerely come to him by Christ for mercy; Nahum i. 7.
It is then not the abundance of sins committed, but the not coming heartily to God by Christ for mercy, that shuts men out of doors. And though their not coming heartily may be said to be but a sin, yet it is such a sin as causeth that all thy other sins abide upon thee unforgiven.
God complains of this. “They have not cried unto me with their heart; they turned, but not to the most High. They turned feignedly;” Jer. iii. 10; Hos. vii. 14, 16.
Thus doing, his soul hates; but the penitent, humble, brokenhearted sinner, be his transgressions red as scarlet, red like crimson, in number as the sand; though his transgressions cry to heaven against him for vengeance, and seem there to cry louder than do his prayers, or tears, or groans for mercy, yet he is safe. To this man God will look; Isa. i. 18; chap lxvi. 2.
Seventhly, Would Jesus Christ have mercy offered in the first place to the biggest sinners? Then here is ground for those that, as to practice, have not been such, to come to him for mercy.
Although there is no sin little of itself; because it is a contradiction of the nature and majesty of God; yet we must admit of divers numbers, and also of aggravations. Two sins are not so many as three; nor are three that are done in ignorance so big as one that is done against light, against knowledge and conscience. Also there is the child in sin, and a man in sin that has his hairs gray, and his skin wrinkled for very age. And we must put a difference betwixt these sinners also. For can it be that a child of seven, or ten, or sixteen years old, should be such a sinner—a sinner so vile in the eye of the law as he is who has walked according to the course of this world, forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years? Now the youth, this stripling, though he is a sinner, is but a little sinner, when compared with such.
Now, I say, if there be room for the first sort, for those of the biggest size, certainly there is room for the lesser size? If there be a door wide enough for a giant to go in at, there is certainly room for a dwarf. If Christ Jesus has grace enough to save great sinners, he has surely grace enough to save little ones. If he can forgive five hundred pence, for certain he can forgive fifty; Luke vii. 41, 42.