The Jerusalem Sinner Saved; or Good News for the Vilest of Men by John Bunyan 1689

weaken the so swarming of those vermin, is, in the first place, to
sweeten the skin, head, and clothes of the chief breeders; and then,
though all the family should be apt to breed them, the number of them,
and so the greatness of that plague there, will be the more impaired.
Why, there are some people that are in chief the devil’s sin-breeders in
the towns and places where they live. The place, town, or family where
they live, must needs be horribly verminous, as it were, eaten up with
vermin. Now, let the Lord Jesus, in the first place, cleanse these great
breeders, and there will be given a nip to those swarms of sins that used
to be committed in such places throughout the town, house, or family,
where such sin-breeding persons used to be.
I speak by experience: I was one of these verminous ones, one of these
great sin-breeders; I infected all the youth of the town where I was
born, with all manner of youthful vanities. The neighbors counted me
so; my practice proved me so: wherefore Christ Jesus took me first, and
taking me first, the contagion was much allayed all the town over.
When God made me sigh, they would hearken, and inquiringly say,
What is the matter with John? They also gave their various opinions of
me: but, as I said, sin cooled, and failed, as to his full career. When I
went out to seek the bread of life, some of them would follow, and the
rest be put into a muse at home. Yea, almost the town, at first, at times
would go out to hear at the place where I found good; yea, young and old
for a while had some reformation on them; also some of them,
perceiving that God had mercy upon me, came crying to him for mercy
too.
But what need I give you an instance of poor I; I will come to Manasseh
the king. So long as he was a ring-leading sinner, the great idolater, the
chief for devilism, the whole land flowed with wickedness; for he “made
them to sin,” and do worse than the heathen that dwelt round about
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