N03023:106
The Jerusalem-sinner saved: or, Good news for the vilest of men, being a help…
The Jerusalem-sinner saved: or, Good news for the vilest of men, being a help for despairing souls: showing that Jesus Christ would have mercy in the first place offered to the biggest sinners. : In which is added, an answer to those grand objections that lie in the ways of them that would believe: for the comfort of those that fear they have sinned against the Holy Ghost / by John Bunyan of Bedford.The Jerusalem-sinner saved: or, Good news for the vilest of men, being a help for despairing souls: shewing that Jesus Christ would have mercy in the first place offered to the biggest sinners. : In which is added, an answer to those grand objections that lie in the ways of them that would believe: for the comfort of those that fear they have sinned against the Holy Ghost / by John Bunyan of Bedford.
Boston: printed for J. Edwards and H. Foster, 1733
Title page typeset from the transcription.
GOOD NEWS For the Vilest of Men: OR A Help for Despairing SOULS.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But I say, why all these thus named? Why have we not a Catalogue of some holy Men that were so in their own Eyes, and in the Judgment of the World? Alas if at any time any of them are mentioned, how seemingly coldly doth the Record of Scripture present them to us. Nicodemus, a Night Professor, and Simon the Pharisee with his Fifty Pence, and their great Ignorance of the Methods of Grace, we have now and then touched upon.
Mercy seems to be out of its proper Channel when it deals with Self righteous Men; but then it runs with a full Stream, when it extends it self to the biggest Sinners. As God's Mercy is not regulated by Man's Goodness, nor obtained by Man's Worthiness ⟨p. 26⟩so not much set out by saving of any such; but more of this anon.
And here let me ask my Reader a Question: Suppose, that as thou art walking by some Pond-side; thou shouldest espy in it, four or five Children all in danger of drowning, and one in more Danger than all the rest; judge which has most Need to be helped out first? I know thou wilt say, he that is nearest drowning; Why this is the Case: the bigger Sinner, the nearer drowning; therefore the bigger Sinner, the more need of Mercy: Yea, of help by Mercy in the first Place. And to this our Text agrees, when it saith, Beginning at Jerusalem: Let the Jerusalem sinner, says Christ, have the first Offer, the first Invitation, the first tender of my Grace and Mercy, for he is the biggest Sinner, and so has most Need thereof.