N03023:341
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.
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.
I therefore urge this Head, not because I would have little Sinners go and tell God ⟨p. 113⟩that they are little Sinners, thereby to think to obtain his 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; tho' it be but one single sin as to act; ye•, tho' it be but a sinful thought, and so worthily calls for the Damnation of the Soul.
The Comparison then, of little & great sinners, is to go for good sense among Men: But to plead the fewness of thy sins, or the comparative harmlessness of their quality 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, tho' thou knowest in thy Conscience, that thou as to acts are no Thief, no Murderer, no Whore, no Liar, no false •wearer, or the like; and in Reason must understand, that then thou art not so profanely Vile as others; yet when thou goest to God for Mercy, know no Mans sins but thine own, make mention of no Mans 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 thy self. Also cry out as if thou wast the only undone Man, and that is the way to obtain God's Mercy.