Love, as we have seen, is the general characteristic, exhibiting itself in these five different forms. Mercy is one of these, but is given to the guilty only. Pity is given to guilty or innocent, who may be in distress, pain or suffering. Grace is also given to guilty, or innocent, and does not necessarily suppose distress in the object, but involves an affectionate interest in it, arising either from peculiar relation to it, or ownership of it, or compassion for its dependence. Grace is undeserved favour to innocent or guilty arising from affection.
Mercy is undeserved compassion to the guilty only.
I His Verity. He is True God. By this is meant, the exact correspondence of the nature of God with the ideal of absolute perfection. The foundation of that ideal may be indeterminable. But, whether it is in the nature of God himself, or in his will proceeding from his nature, or in eternal principles of the fit and the necessary and the right, which exactly coincide with that nature, God and that ideal must be perfect counterparts.