4 Here arises a difficulty which must in real truth be resolved, and which requires your fixed attention, Beloved, lest haply my words may not be equal to the removing and clearing of the whole obscurity of it by reason of the stress of time; especially as this flesh of mine exhausted by its heat, now longs to be recruited, and demanding its due, and clogging the eagerness of the soul gives proof of that which is said, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Cause there is for fear, yea great cause for fear, lest by these words of the Lord, there steal over the minds of those who understand them not aright, who indulge their fleshly lusts, and are loth to be brought away from them into liberty, that sentiment which, even as the Apostles preached, sprung up in the tongues of slanderous men, of whom the Apostle Paul says, “And as some affirm that we say, Let us do evil that good may come.” For a man may say, “If 'he to whom little is forgiven, loves little;' and he to whom more is forgiven, loves more; and it is better to love more, than to love less; it is right that we should sin much, and owe much which we may desire to be forgiven us, that so we may love Him the more who forgives us our large debts. For that woman in the Gospel who was a sinner, in the same proportion as she owed more, loved the more Him who forgave her her debts, as the Lord Himself says, 'Her many sins are forgiven her, for she loved much.' Now why did she love much, but because she owed much? And afterwards He added and subjoined, 'But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.' Is it not better,” he may say, “that much should be forgiven me, than less, that thereupon I may love my Lord the more”? You see no doubt the great depth of this difficulty; ye see it, I am sure. You see too my stress of time; yes, this also do ye see and feel.
Source: Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament (New Advent)