by Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)

“For thy name’s sale, O Lord, par­don my iniq­ui­ty; for it is great.” (Psalm 25:11)

 It is evi­dent by some pas­sages in this psalm, that when it was penned, it was a time of afflic­tion and dan­ger with David. This appears par­tic­u­lar­ly by the 15th and fol­low­ing vers­es: “Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net,” etc. His dis­tress makes him think of his sins, and leads him to con­fess them, and to cry to God for par­don, as is suit­able in a time of afflic­tion. See verse 7, “Remem­ber not the sins of my youth, nor my trans­gres­sions;” and verse 18, “Look upon mine afflic­tion, and my pain, and for­give all my sins.”

It is observ­able in the text, what argu­ments the psalmist makes use of in plead­ing for pardon.

I. He pleads for par­don for God’s name’s sake. He has no expec­ta­tion of par­don for the sake of any right­eous­ness or wor­thi­ness of his for any good deeds he had done, or any com­pen­sa­tion he had made for his sins; though if man’s right­eous­ness could be a just plea, David would have had as much to plead as most. But he begs that God would do it for his own name’s sake, for his own glo­ry, for the glo­ry of his own free grace, and for the hon­our of his own covenant-faithfulness.

II. The psalmist pleads the great­ness of his sins as an argu­ment for mer­cy. He not only doth not plead his own right­eous­ness, or the small­ness of his sins; he not only cloth not say, Par­don mine iniq­ui­ty, for I have done much good to coun­ter­bal­ance it; or, Par­don mine iniq­ui­ty, for it is small, and thou hast no great rea­son to be angry with me; mine iniq­ui­ty is not so great, that thou hast any just cause to remem­ber it against me; mine offence is not such but that thou mayest well enough over­look it: but on the con­trary he says, Par­don mine iniq­ui­ty, for it is great; hepleads the great­ness of his sin, and not the small­ness of it; the enforces his prayer with this con­sid­er­a­tion, that his sins are very heinous.

But how could he make this a plea for par­don? I answer, Because the greater his iniq­ui­ty was, the more need he had of par­don. It is as much as if he had said, Par­don mine iniq­ui­ty, for it is so great that I can­not bear the pun­ish­ment; my sin is so great that I am in neces­si­ty of par­don; my case will be exceed­ing­ly mis­er­able, unless thou be pleased to par­don me. He makes use of the great­ness of his sin, to enforce his plea for par­don, as a man would make use of the great­ness of calami­ty in beg­ging for relief. When a beg­gar begs for bread, he will plead the great­ness of his pover­ty and neces­si­ty. When a man in dis­tress cries for pity, what more suit­able plea can be urged than the extrem­i­ty of his case? — And God allows such a plea as this: for he is moved to mer­cy towards us by noth­ing in us but the mis­er­able­ness of our case. He doth not pity sin­ners because they are wor­thy, but because they need his pity. …

Read more about the Doc­trine of the pardon