is to sin against God,
and learn withal to depend on him for less and more; and to carry more
humbly; for it may be, God seeth, that if they saw their sins pardoned,
they would forget themselves, and rush into new sins again.

8. The believer must not think it strange, if he find more trouble after
greater sins, and a greater difficulty to lay hold on Christ for pardon
of those, than for pardon of others. For as God hath been more
dishonoured by these, so is his anger more kindled upon that account;
and it is suitable for the glory of God's justice, that our sorrow for
such sins be proportionally greater; and this will likewise increase the
difficulty; and ordinarily the effects of God's fatherly displeasure
make deeper wounds in the soul after such sins, and these are not so
easily healed; all which will call for suitable and proportionally
greater godly sorrow and repentance, and acts of faith, because faith
will meet with more opposition and discouragement there, and therefore
must be the more strong, to go through these impediments, and to lay
hold on his cross. Yet though this should make all watchful, and to
guard against gross and crying sins, it should not drive any to despair,
nor to say with that despairing wretch, their sin is greater than it can
be forgiven; the ocean of mercy can drown and swallow up greater as well
as lesser sins; Christ is an all-sufficient Mediator for the greatest
sins as well as the least. "O, for thy name's sake, pardon mine
iniquity, for it is great!" will come in season to a soul ready to sink
with the weight of this millstone tied about its neck.

9. As the greater sins should not make us despair of taking this course
for remission, so nor should the smallness of sin make us to neglect
this way; for the least sin cannot be pardoned but through Jesus Christ;
for the law of God is violated thereby, justice provoked, God's
authority vilified, &c. and therefore cannot be now pardoned, by reason
of the threatenings annexed to the law, without a ransom. Death is the
wages of sin, lesser and greater, and the curse is due to all sin,
greater and smaller. There, the believer would not suffer one sin, seen
and discovered, to lie unpardoned, but on the first discovery thereof,
take it away to Christ, and nail it to the cross.

10. The believer would not conclude, that his sins are not pardoned,
because possibly temporal strokes, inflicted because of them, are not
removed; for though David's