While justice is the first feature of the commandment of love, it is not the end of its requirements; it requires that, going beyond strict justice, our love shall prompt us to the exercise of mercy and forgiveness. And in thus exercising mercy, we are again but copying Divine love. … Hence in our dealings with others who, like ourselves, are fallen and imperfect, we are to remember this feature and not only be just toward them but, additionally, to be merciful, generous, kind, even to the unthankful, that thus we may be children of our Father in heaven.
Truth is the Lord's Word; and mercy is the application of the Lord's Word amid the distress of the present. No jeweled chain forms a better adornment than these are to the Christian's character. Love for mercy and truth should be crystallized in the heart. So crystallized, they become our eternal adornment, making us more attractive than the rarest gem or the costliest diadem, and shed their bright luster all about us.
REPRINTS
Psa. 37:26; 85:10; Prov. 11:17; 14:21, 22, 31; 20:28; 21:21; Hos. 4:1; 12:6; Mic. 6:8; Matt. 5:7; 23:23; Luke 6:36; Rom. 12:8; Col. 3:12, 13; Jas. 2:13; Prov. 23:23; Zech. 8:16, 19; 1 Cor. 13:6; Eph. 4:25; 2 Cor. 6:7, 8; Rom. 2:8; Gal. 3:1; 2 Thes. 2:10.
