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

lood. True, says such, God has mercy, but he is loath to part with it;
you must please him well, if you get any from him; he is not so free as
many suppose, nor is he so willing to save as some pretended gospellers
imagine. But I ask such, if the Father and Son be not unspeakably free
to shew mercy, why was this clause put into our commission to preach
the gospel? Yea, why did he say, “Begin at Jerusalem:” for when men,
through the weakness of their wits, have attempted to shew other
reasons why they should have the first proffer of mercy; yet I can prove
(by many undeniable reasons) that they of Jerusalem (to whom the
apostles made the first offer, according as they were commanded) were
the biggest sinners that ever did breathe upon the face of God’s earth,
(set the unpardonable sin aside), upon which my doctrine stands like a
rock, that Jesus the Son of God would have mercy in the first place
offered to the biggest sinners: and if this doth not shew the heart of the
Father and the Son to be infinitely free in bestowing forgiveness of sins,
I confess myself mistaken.
Neither is there, set this aside, another argument like it, to shew us the
willingness of Christ to save sinners; for, as was said before, all the rest
of the signs of Christ’s mercifulness might have been limited to sinners
that are so and so qualified; but when he says, “Begin at Jerusalem,” the
line is stretched out to the utmost: no man can imagine beyond it; and it
is folly here to pinch and pare, to narrow, and seek to bring it within
scanty bounds; for he plainly saith, “Begin at Jerusalem,” the biggest
sinner is the biggest sinner; the biggest is the Jerusalem sinner.
It is true, he saith, that repentance and remission of sins must go
together, but yet remission is sent to the chief, the Jerusalem sinner; nor
doth repentance lessen at all the Jerusalem sinner’s crimes; it
diminisheth none of his sins, nor causes that there should be so much
as half a one the fewer: it only puts a stop to the Jerusalem sinner’s
course, and makes him willing to be saved freely by grace; and for time
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