mountain or hill: wherefore he comes, and he saith, Save me, O Lord;
if thou wilt but save me, I will fall in with thy design; I will help
to bring what sinners to thee I can. And, Lord, I am willing to be
made a preacher myself; for that I have been a horrible sinner:
wherefore, if thou shalt forgive my great transgressions, I shall be
a fit man to tell of thy wondrous grace to others. Yea, Lord, I dare
promise, that if thou wilt have mercy upon me, it shall tend to the
glory of thy grace, and also to the increase of thy kingdom; for I
will tell it, and sinners will hear on't. And there is nothing so
suiteth with the hearing sinner as mercy, and to be informed that God
is willing to bestow it upon him. "I will teach transgressors thy
ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee."

Nor will Christ Jesus miss of his design in proffering of mercy in
the first place to the biggest sinners. You know what work the Lord,
by laying hold of the woman of Samaria, made among the people there.
They knew that she was a town sinner, an adulteress, yea, one that
after the most audacious manner lived in uncleanness with a man that
was not her husband: but when she, from a turn upon her heart, went
into the city, and said to her neighbours, "Come," Oh how they came!
how they flocked out of the city to Jesus Christ! "Then they went
out of the city, and came to him." "And many of the Samaritans
(people perhaps as bad as herself) believed on him, for the saying of
the woman, which testified, saying, he told me all that ever I did;"
John iv. 39.

That word, "He told me all that ever I did," was a great argument
with them; for by that they gathered, that though he knew her to be
vile, yet he did not despise her, nor refuse to shew how willing he
was to communicate his grace unto her; and this fetched over, first