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

of dissimulation; he knows them that trust in him, and that sincerely
come to him by Christ for mercy; Nahum i. 7.
It is then not the abundance of sins committed, but the not coming
heartily to God by Christ for mercy, that shuts men out of doors. And
though their not coming heartily may be said to be but a sin, yet it is
such a sin as causeth that all thy other sins abide upon thee unforgiven.
God complains of this. “They have not cried unto me with their heart;
they turned, but not to the most High. They turned feignedly;” Jer. iii.
10; Hos. vii. 14, 16.
Thus doing, his soul hates; but the penitent, humble, brokenhearted
sinner, be his transgressions red as scarlet, red like crimson, in number
as the sand; though his transgressions cry to heaven against him for
vengeance, and seem there to cry louder than do his prayers, or tears, or
groans for mercy, yet he is safe. To this man God will look; Isa. i. 18;
chap lxvi. 2.
Seventhly, Would Jesus Christ have mercy offered in the first place to the
biggest sinners? Then here is ground for those that, as to practice, have
not been such, to come to him for mercy.
Although there is no sin little of itself; because it is a contradiction of
the nature and majesty of God; yet we must admit of divers numbers,
and also of aggravations. Two sins are not so many as three; nor are
three that are done in ignorance so big as one that is done against light,
against knowledge and conscience. Also there is the child in sin, and a
man in sin that has his hairs gray, and his skin wrinkled for very age.
And we must put a difference betwixt these sinners also. For can it be
that a child of seven, or ten, or sixteen years old, should be such a sinner
—a sinner so vile in the eye of the law as he is who has walked
according to the course of this world, forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy
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