Barnpreacher
Puritan Board Junior
I'm not sure why you would call the holding cell, whereby the criminal is held over until punishment is executed, a "mercy."
Did a lost man hear the gospel today? I would call that God being merciful in common grace. Did God shine the sun down upon a lost man today? I would call that God being merciful in common grace. Did God allow a lost man's little child to hug his neck and kiss him on the cheek tonight? I would call that God being merciful in common grace.
How is it mercy when those very words of the gospel will condemn that lost man's soul if he is not of the elect? How is a prolonged life of sin, piling up debt upon debt for sins committed in one's lifetime that will be paid for through eternal torment of that man's soul MERCY? I think we have to be careful when speaking of things as "mercy" and "grace" when in reality (as I read the Scriptures and as I think about the truth of those situations) they are not.
As Matthew Poole notes in I Timothy 4:10, God is the preserver of life for all men. There is no common grace found in that life of a lost man? Like the rain falling on the just and the unjust?