by Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)

… If we tru­ly come to God for mer­cy, the great­ness of our sin will be no imped­i­ment to par­don. — If it were an imped­i­ment, David would nev­er have used it as a plea for par­don, as we find he does in the text. — The fol­low­ing things are need­ful in order that we tru­ly come to God for mercy:

 I. That we should see our mis­ery, and be sen­si­ble of our need of mer­cy. They who are not sen­si­ble of their mis­ery can­not tru­ly look to God for mer­cy; for it is the very notion of divine mer­cy, that it is the good­ness and grace of God to the mis­er­able. With­out mis­ery in the object, there can be no exer­cise of mer­cy. To sup­pose mer­cy with­out sup­pos­ing mis­ery, or pity with­out calami­ty, is a con­tra­dic­tion: there­fore men can­not look upon them­selves as prop­er objects of mer­cy, unless they first know them­selves to be mis­er­able; and so, unless this be the case, it is impos­si­ble that they should come to God for mer­cy. They must be sen­si­ble that they are the chil­dren of wrath; that the law is against them, and that they are exposed to the curse of it: that the wrath of God abideth on them; and that he is angry’ with them every day while they are under the guilt of sin. — They must be sen­si­ble that it is a very dread­ful thing to be the object of the wrath of God; that it is a very awful thing to have him for their ene­my; and that they can­not bear his wrath. They must he sen­si­ble that the guilt of sin makes them mis­er­able crea­tures, what­ev­er tem­po­ral enjoy­ments they have; that they can be no oth­er than mis­er­able, undone crea­tures, so long as God is angry with them; that they are with­out strength, and must per­ish, and that eter­nal­ly, unless God help them. They must see that their case is utter­ly des­per­ate, for any thing that any one else can do for them; that they hang over the pit of eter­nal mis­ery; and that they must nec­es­sar­i­ly drop into it, if God have not mer­cy on them.

 II. They must be sen­si­ble that they are not wor­thy that God should have mer­cy on them. They who tru­ly come to God for mer­cy, come as beg­gars, and not as cred­i­tors: they come for mere mer­cy. For sov­er­eign grace, and not for any thing that is due. There­fore, they must see that the mis­ery under which they lie is just­ly brought upon them, and that the wrath to which they are exposed is just­ly threat­ened against them; and that they have deserved that God should be their ene­my, and should con­tin­ue to be their ene­my. They must be sen­si­ble that it would be just with God to do as he hath threat­ened in his holy law, viz. make them the objects of his wrath and curse in hell to all eter­ni­ty. — They who come to God for mer­cy in a right man­ner are not dis­posed to find fault with his sever­i­ty; but they come in a sense of their own utter unwor­thi­ness, as with ropes about their necks, and lying in the dust at the foot of mercy.

 III. They must come to God for mer­cy in and through Jesus Christ alone. All their hope of mer­cy must be from the con­sid­er­a­tion of what he is, what he hath done, and what he hath suf­fered; and that there is no oth­er name giv­en under heav­en, among men, where­by we can be saved, but that of Christ; that he is the Son of God, and the Sav­iour of the world; that his blood cleans­es from all sin, and that he is so wor­thy, that all sin­ners who are in him may well be par­doned and accept­ed. — It is impos­si­ble that any should come to God for mer­cy, and at the same time have no hope of mer­cy. Their com­ing to God for it, implies that they have some hope of obtain­ing, oth­er­wise they would not think it worth the while to come. But they that come in a right man­ner have all their hope through Christ, or from the con­sid­er­a­tion of his redemp­tion, and the suf­fi­cien­cy of it. — If per­sons thus come to God for mer­cy, the great­ness of their sins will be no imped­i­ment to par­don. Let their sins be ever so many, and great, and aggra­vat­ed, it will not make God in the least degree more back­ward to par­don them. This may be made evi­dent by the fol­low­ing considerations:

 1. The mer­cy of God is as suf­fi­cient for the par­don of the great­est sins, as for the least; and that because his mer­cy is infi­nite. That which is infi­nite, is as much above what is great, as it is above what is small. Thus God being infi­nite­ly great, he is as much above kings as he is above beg­gars; he is as much above the high­est angel, as he is above the mean­est worm. One finite mea­sure doth not come any near­er to the extent of what is infi­nite than anoth­er. — So the mer­cy of God being infi­nite, it must be as suf­fi­cient for the par­don of all sin, as of one. If one of the least sins be not beyond the mer­cy of God, so nei­ther are the great­est, or ten thou­sand of them. — How­ev­er, it must be acknowl­edged, that this alone doth not prove the doc­trine. For though the mer­cy of God may be as suf­fi­cient for the par­don of great sins as oth­ers; yet there may be oth­er obsta­cles, besides the want of mer­cy. The mer­cy of God may be suf­fi­cient, and yet the oth­er attrib­ut­es may oppose the dis­pen­sa­tion of mer­cy in these cas­es. — There­fore I observe,

 2. That the sat­is­fac­tion of Christ is as suf­fi­cient for the removal of the great­est guilt, as the least: 1 John i. 7. ” The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin.” Acts xiii. 39. ” By him all that believe are jus­ti­fied from all things from which ye could not be jus­ti­fied by the law of Moses.” All the sins of those who tru­ly come to God for mer­cy, let them be what they will, are sat­is­fied for, if God be true who tells us so; and if they be sat­is­fied for, sure­ly it is not incred­i­ble, that God should be ready to par­don them. So that Christ hav­ing ful­ly sat­is­fied for all sin, or hav­ing wrought out a sat­is­fac­tion that is suf­fi­cient for all, it is now no way incon­sis­tent with the glo­ry of the divine attrib­ut­es to par­don the great­est sins of those who in a right man­ner come unto him for it. God may now par­don the great­est sin­ners with­out any prej­u­dice to the hon­our of his holi­ness. The holi­ness of God will not suf­fer him to give the least coun­te­nance to sin, but inclines him to give prop­er tes­ti­monies of his hatred of it. But Christ hav­ing sat­is­fied for sin, God can now love the sin­ner, and give no coun­te­nance at all to sin, how­ev­er great a sin­ner he may have been. It was a suf­fi­cient tes­ti­mo­ny of God’s abhor­rence of sin, that he poured out his wrath on his own dear Son, when he took the guilt of it upon him­self. Noth­ing can more show God’s abhor­rence of sin than this. If all mankind had been eter­nal­ly damned, it would not have been so great a tes­ti­mo­ny of it.

God may, through Christ, par­don the great­est sin­ner with­out any prej­u­dice to the hon­our of his majesty. The hon­our of the divine majesty indeed requires sat­is­fac­tion; but the suf­fer­ings of Christ ful­ly repair the injury. Let the con­tempt be ever so great, yet if so hon­ourable a per­son as Christ under­takes to be a Medi­a­tor for the offend­er, and suf­fersso much for him, it ful­ly repairs the injury done to the Majesty of heav­en and earth. The suf­fer­ings of Christ ful­ly sat­is­fy jus­tice. The jus­tice of God, as the supreme Gov­er­nor and Judge of the world, requires the pun­ish­ment of sin. The supreme Judge must judge the world accord­ing to a rule of jus­tice. God doth not show mer­cy as a judge, but as a sov­er­eign; there­fore his exer­cise of mer­cy as a sov­er­eign, and his jus­tice as a judge, must be made con­sis­tent one with anoth­er; and this is done by the suf­fer­ings of Christ, in which sin is pun­ished ful­ly, and jus­tice answered. Rom. iii. 25,26. “Whom God hath set forth to be a pro­pi­ti­a­tion through faith in his blood, to declare his right­eous­ness for the remis­sion of sins that are past, through the for­bear­ance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his right­eous­ness; that he might be just, and the jus­ti­fi­er of him which believeth in Jesus.” — The law is no imped­i­ment in the way of the par­don of the great­est sin, if men do but tru­ly come to God for mer­cy: for Christ hath ful­filled the law, he hath borne the curse of it, in his suf­fer­ings; Gal. iii. 13. ” Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is writ­ten, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”

 3. Christ will no! refuse to save the great­est sin­ners, who in a right man­ner come to God for mer­cy; for this is his work. It is his busi­ness to be a Sav­iour of sin­ners; it is the work upon which he came into the world; and there­fore he will not object to it. He did not come to call the right­eous, but sin­ners to repen­tance, Matt. ix. 13. Sin is the very evil which he came into the world to rem­e­dy: there­fore he will not object to any man that he is very sin­ful. The more sin­ful he is, the more need of Christ. — The sin­ful­ness of man was the rea­son of Christ’s com­ing into the world; this is the very mis­ery from which he came to deliv­er men. The more they have of it, the more need they have of being deliv­ered; ” They that are whole need not a physi­cian, but they that are sick,” Matt. ix. 12. The physi­cian will not make it an objec­tion against heal­ing a man who applies to him, that he stands in great need of his help. If a physi­cian of com­pas­sion comes among the sick and wound­ed, sure­ly he will not refuse to heal those that stand in most need of heal­ing, if he be able to heal them.

 4. Here­in cloth the glo­ry of grace by the redemp­tion of Christ much con­sist, viz. in its suf­fi­cien­cy for the par­don of the great­est sin­ners. The whole con­trivance of the way of sal­va­tion is for this end, to glo­ri­fy the free grace of God. God had it on his heart from all eter­ni­ty to glo­ri­fy this attribute; and there­fore it is, that the device of sav­ing sin­ners by Christ was con­ceived. The great­ness of divine grace appears very much in this, that God by Christ saves the great­est offend­ers. The greater the guilt of any sin­ner is, the more glo­ri­ous and won­der­ful is the grace man­i­fest­ed in his par­don: Rom. v. 20.” Where sin abound­ed, grace did much more abound.” The apos­tle, when telling how great a sin­ner he had been, takes notice of the abound­ing of grace in his par­don, of which his great guilt was the occa­sion: 1 Tim. i. 13. ” Who was before a blas­phe­mer, and a per­se­cu­tor, and inju­ri­ous. But I obtained mer­cy; and the grace of our Lord was exceed­ing abun­dant, with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” The Redeemer is glo­ri­fied, in that he proves suf­fi­cient to redeem those who are exceed­ing sin­ful, in that his blood proves suf­fi­cient to wash away the great­est guilt, in that he is able to save men to the utter­most, and in that he redeems even from the great­est mis­ery. It is the hon­our of Christ to save the great­est sin­ners, when they come to him, as it is the hon­our of a physi­cian that he cures the most des­per­ate dis­eases or wounds. There­fore, no doubt, Christ will be will­ing to save the great­est sin­ners, if they come to him; for he will not be back­ward to glo­ri­fy him­self, and to com­mend the val­ue and virtue of his own blood. See­ing he hath so laid out him­self to redeem sin­ners, he will not be unwill­ing to show, that he is able to redeem to the uttermost.

 5. Par­don is as much offered and promised to the great­est sin­ners as any, if they will come aright to God for mer­cy. The invi­ta­tions of the gospel are always in uni­ver­sal terms: as, Ho, every one that thirsteth; Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden; and, Whoso­ev­er will, let him come. And the voice of Wis­dom is to men in gen­er­al: Prov. viii. 4. ” Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men.” Not to moral men, or reli­gious men, but to you, O men. So Christ promis­es, John vi. 37. ” Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” This is the direc­tion of Christ to his apos­tles, after his res­ur­rec­tion, Mark xvi. 15, 16. “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every crea­ture: he that believeth, and is bap­tized, shall be saved.” Which is agree­able to what the apos­tle saith, that “the gospel was preached to every crea­ture which is under heav­en,” Colos­sians 1:23.

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