The Jerusalem Sinner Saved; or Good News for the Vilest of Men by John Bunyan 1689

I therefore urge this head, not because I would have little sinners go and
tell God that they are little sinners, thereby to think to obtain mercy;
for, verily, so they are never like to have it: for such words declare, that
such a one hath no true sense at all of the nature of his sins.
Sin, as I said, in the nature of it, is horrible, though it be but one single
sin as to act; yea, though it be but a sinful thought; and so worthily calls
for the damnation of the soul.
The comparison, then, of little and great sinners, is to go for good sense
among men. But to plead the fewness of thy sins, or the comparative
harmlessness of their quantity before God, argueth no sound
knowledge of the nature of thy sin, and so no true sense of the nature
or need of mercy.
Little sinner, when therefore thou goest to God, though thou knowest in
thy conscience that thou, as to acts, art no thief, no murderer, no whore,
no liar, no false swearer, or the like, and in reason must needs
understand that thus thou art not so profanely vile as others; yet when
thou goest to God for mercy, know no man’s sins but thine own, make
mention of no man’s sins but thine own. Also labour not to lessen thy
own, but magnify and greaten them by all just circumstances, and be as
if there was never a sinner in the world but thyself. Also cry out, as if
thou wast the only undone man; and that is the way to obtain God’s
mercy.
It is one of the comeliest sights in the world to see a little sinner
commenting upon the greatness of his sins, multiplying and
multiplying them to himself, till he makes them in his own eyes bigger
and higher than he seeth any other man’s sins to be in the world; and as
base a thing it is to see a man do otherwise, and as basely will come on
it; Luke xviii. 10–14.
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