WHILE grace has reference to the sins of men, and is that blessed attribute of God, which these sins call out and display-mercy has special and immediate regard to the misery which is the consequence of these sins, being the tender sense of this misery displaying itself in the effort, which only the continued perverseness of man can hinder or defeat, to assuage and entirely remove it....
In the Divine mind, and in the order of our salvation as conceived therein, the mercy precedes the grace. God so loved the world with a pitying love (herein was the mercy) that He gave His only-begotten Son (herein the grace), that the world through Him might be saved. (Eph. 2:44But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, (Ephesians 2:4); Luke 1:78, 7978Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, 79To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:78‑79).) But in the order of the manifestation of God's purpose of salvation the grace must go before the mercy—the grace must make way for the mercy.
It is true that the same persons are the subjects of both, being at once the guilty and the miserable; yet the righteousness of God, which it is quite as necessary should be maintained as His love, demands that the guilt should be done away before the misery can be assuaged; only the forgiven may be blest. He must pardon before He can heal; men must be justified before they can be sanctified. And as the righteousness of God absolutely and in itself requires this, so not less does the sinner's conscience, which needs to know how God can in righteousness pardon a guilty sinner. —Extract.