Mercy even with us is an optional virtue; we do not have to be merciful

MERCY-HUMAN

Mercy even with us is an optional virtue; we do not have to be merciful. We usually admire people who are, but we do not say that people must be so. We say everybody must be just. We say, for example, an employer, if he agrees to pay a certain wage, must pay that particular wage. If he does not pay it, then he is unjust and is liable to a lawsuit. All our contracts are based on the integrity and honesty and justice of people with whom we do business. They are actually subject to trials and imprisonment and even execution if they violate their duty of man to man. What about mercy among men? We love it. We admire it. We encourage it. We sometimes practice it. But we do not say mercy is obligatory… If this is true even of human affairs, we can see immediately that God does not have to be merciful. He gave us life and conscience. He gave us intelligence to meet our obligations, and He has a right to hold us responsible for using them. He has no further obligation to forgive us if we do not. We say that the Judge of all the earth cannot do wrong, but we cannot say that the Judge of all the earth must be merciful.

John Gerstner

The Problem of Pleasure, Soli Deo Gloria, 2002, p. 21-22.

Mercifulness, then, is a gracious disposition toward our fellow creatures and fellow Christians. It is a spirit of kindness and benevolence which sympathizes with the sufferings of the afflicted, so that we weep with those that weep. It ennobles its possessor so that he tempers justice with mercy, and scorns the taking of revenge.

A.W. Pink
The Sermon on the Mount, The Beatitudes.

Mercy, like the regions of space, has no limit, and as these stretch away before the traveler who looks out from the farthest star, so the loftiest intellect and the largest heart can discover no bounds to mercy. Like our Father in heaven, we are to forgive without stint, forgiving as we expect to be forgiven.

Donald Guthrie

Mercy is something we extend, not just something we intend.

George Grant

The High Calling of Service, Tabletalk, May 2008, p. 68, Used by Permission.

[Mercy is] forbearance to inflict harm under circumstances of provocation, when one has the power to inflict it; compassionate treatment of an offender or adversary; clemency.

Daniel Webster

True Christian mercy, that which will be accepted in the sight of God, and receive His smile; that which will ensure His gracious and unmerited reward, and which will have no slight connection with our celestial happiness, is exercised in designed obedience to God's command, in express imitation of His conduct, and with an earnest desire to promote His glory.

John Angell James
Christian Mercy Explained and Enforced, Sermon, May 21, 1820.

The key to becoming a merciful person is to become a broken person. You get the power to show mercy from the real feeling in your heart that you owe everything you are and have to sheer divine mercy. Therefore, if we want to become merciful people, it is imperative that we cultivate a view of God and ourselves that helps us to say with all our heart that every joy and virtue and distress of our lives is owing to the free and undeserved mercy of God.

John Piper
Blessed are the Merciful, Sermon: Matthew 5:7, February 23, 1986, www.DesiringGod.org. Used by Permission.

He that demands mercy, and shows none, ruins the bridge over which he himself is to pass.

Thomas Adams

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 112.

[Mercy] is the forgiving spirit; it is the non-retaliating spirit; it is the spirit that gives up all attempt at self-vindication and would not return an injury for an injury, but rather good in the place of evil and love in the place of hatred. That is mercifulness. Mercy being received by the forgiven soul, that soul comes to appreciate the beauty of mercy, and yearns to exercise toward other offenders similar grace to that which is exercised towards one’s self

A.T. Pierson

Those who are furthest from giving mercy are furthest from receiving it.

John MacArthur

The noun (mercy) and its derivatives always deal with what we see of pain, misery, and distress, these results of sin; and grace always with the sin and the guilt itself. The one extends relief, the other pardon; the one cures, heals, helps, the other cleanses and reinstates. With God (grace) is always first and (mercy) is second.

R.C.H. Lenski
Interpretation of Saint Matthews Gospel by Richard C. Lenski copyright © 1932 Augsburg Publishing House, p.191.

Mercy is compassion in action.

Author Unknown

Distinguish grace from mercy:
Grace-God’s solution to man’s sin.

Mercy-God’s solution to man’s misery.

Grace-Covers the sin.
Mercy-Removes the pain.

Grace-Gives us what we do not deserve.
Mercy-Does not give us what we do deserve

Grace-Unearned favor which saves us.
Mercy-Undeserved favor which forgives us.

Grace-Deals with the cause of sin.
Mercy-Deals with the symptoms of sin.

Grace-Offers pardon for the crime.
Mercy-Offers relief from the punishment.

Grace-Cures or heals the “disease.”
Mercy-Eliminates the pain of the “disease.”

Grace-Regarding salvation it says, “Heaven.”
Mercy-Regarding salvation it says, “No Hell.”

Grace-Says, “I pardon you.”
Mercy-Says, “I pity you”

Author Unknown

http://www.preceptaustin.org/matthew_57.htm