…this man went down to his house justified rather than the other… – Luke 18:14

Careless man, I have a word with thee: You say, “Well, that is a good prayer, certainly, for a man who is dying. When a poor fellow has the cholera, and sees black death staring him in the face, or when he is terrified and thunderstruck in the time of storm, or when he finds himself amidst the terrible confusion and alarm of a perilous catastrophe or a sudden accident, while drawing near to the gates of death, it is only right that he should say, Lord have mercy upon me.” Ah, friend, the prayer must be suitable to you then, if you are a dying man; it must be suitable to you, for you know not how near you are to the borders of the grave. Oh, if thou didst but understand the frailty of life and the slipperiness of that poor prop on which thou art resting, thou wouldst say, “Alas for my soul! if the prayer will suit me dying, it must suit me now; for I am dying, even this day, and know not when I may come to the last gasp.” “Oh,” says one, “I think it will suit a man that has been a very great sinner.” Correct, my friend, and therefore, if you knew yourself; it would suit you. You are quite correct in saying, that it won’t suit any but great sinners; and if you don’t feel yourself to be a great sinner, I know you will never pray it. But there are some that feel themselves to be what you ought to feel and know that you are. Such will, constrained by grace, use the prayer with an emphasis, putting a tear upon each letter, and a sigh upon each syllable, as they cry, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” But mark, my friend, thou mayest smile contemptuously on the man that makes this confession, but he shall go from this house justified, while thou shalt go away still in thy sins, without a hope, without a ray of joy to cheer thy unchastened spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0216.cfm