So long as there is a judgment seat there must also be a mercy seat. Without mercy there can be no judgment. The Israelites, in their highest concept of the Almighty, believed that His very presence dwelt above the mercy seat in the ark of the covenant. But their access to this mercy seat was remote and often unavailing. Condemnation, with its attendant evils of despair and revenge, colored no less their relations with each other than it did their concept of God's attitude towards them. Had they understood that to obtain mercy they must also be merciful, the presence of God would not have been confined for them within the narrow space above the ark. It would have been within their own hearts, expressed in every deed of their daily lives. In this way the Psalmist's prophecy would have been fulfilled: "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other."
Jesus found little or no evidence of religious or political mercy in the Judea of his time. On the contrary, he found everywhere the mercilessness of bigotry and formalism fighting ruthlessly to preserve the tradition and the letter of the past; he found tyranny and corruption curtailing and darkening men's lives. With his advent there was ushered in not only the exhortation to mercy; there came the very presence of mercy itself, bringing salvation. He not only showed them compassion— even while he dauntlessly uncovered and refuted the evils of hypocrisy and self-righteousness he saw around him—but he sought in countless ways, through parable, through healing, through his own gracious and loving example, to make them understand that the truth which he expressed was one with mercy; that apart from righteousness they could never know peace.
On page 36 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "A selfish and limited mind may be unjust, but the unlimited and divine Mind is the immortal law of justice as well as of mercy." This spiritual law of justice and mercy, meeting the needs of all in their individual and national relations with each other, can only express itself in a mercifulness wherein there is no oppression, no harshness, no fierce entering into combat for its rights. He who has mercy in his heart, has a sure defense against cruelty, and is incapable, whatever the provocation, of methods of revenge.
