Justice and Mercy

Ella W. Hoag

"Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face." Thus wrote the Psalmist in proclaiming the praise of the Almighty. Men who have believed in God have almost universally accepted the concept of Him as a God of justice. Many have also believed Him to be merciful. They have not, however, always understood that one of these qualities is practically valueless unless associated with the other, and that they are invariably united in the Mind which is God.

The human sense of justice, on the other hand, is apt to know little if anything of mercy. "The rendering to every one his due," is the most common definition of justice; and its fulfillment often appears to produce veritable Shylocks. Moses' precept, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," was apparently the highest type of justice understood and expressed in the early Levitical days; and even in this more enlightened age mankind still believes that what it calls retribution is just and right. Consequently, much of the same unmerciful element is to be seen to-day in the expression of what is known as human justice.

There is no doubt that Jesus' teaching was entirely away from the ordinary custom of meting out justice without mercy. In refuting the dictum of Moses just referred to, he said positively, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." The teaching of Christian Science is in a direct line with this; for on page 11 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy tells us, "Love metes not out human justice, but divine mercy." And later she adds, "To mete out human justice to those who persecute and despitefully use one, is not leaving all retribution to God and returning blessing for cursing."

Christian Science, however, makes it very plain that so long as mortals sin they will suffer. Our Leader states this simply and clearly, but most forcibly, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 22), where she says: "Justice requires reformation of the sinner. Mercy cancels the debt only when justice approves." Indeed, it is easy to see that divine justice is always merciful because it so uncovers and rebukes sin through the suffering which sin itself inevitably produces and entails, that the sinner gladly turns from it to the tender ministrations of that divine Love which permits only good to be lasting and real; which causes and maintains, creates and sustains, only the perfection wherein is neither sin nor suffering.

How plainly we see, therefore, that since God's justice is always merciful and His mercy is always just, we may gladly leave to His wisdom the correction necessary to deliver men from their follies and mistakes, from their sins of both omission and commission. What a rebuke is this teaching to the ordinary sense of mortals, who are so apt to put themselves in God's place, imagining that it is their prerogative both to reward and to punish their neighbor. This does not, of course, in any way annul the necessity of maintaining human laws by those in authority. But it does make it possible so to depend on the guidance of divine Mind that in such enforcement God's law shall always control even to the point of expressing the unity of divine justice and mercy.

In Science and Health (p. 592) Mrs. Eddy throws still further light on the subject when, in defining Moses, she writes, "A type of moral law and the demonstration thereof; the proof that, without the gospel,—the union of justice and affection,—there is something spiritually lacking, since justice demands penalties under the law." The union of the moral law and the gospel! The coalescing of justice and affection! What a glorious revelation! The fullness of the tender lesson contained in our Leader's definition will not, however, be gained unless we note especially that we are to avoid that sense of justice which demands penalties. This assurance certainly emphasizes the fact that it is our right always to express the same affectionate justice which Jesus exemplified when he prayed, "Father, forgive them;" for did he not know that God's forgiveness always causes sin to expose and destroy itself?

As Christian Scientists learn to live the justice which is affectionate and the affection which is just, they will come to understand that sin seen and forsaken can have no penalty attached to it; and thus they will have passed another milestone of freedom from false responsibility for their neighbor!

Ella W. Hoag

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