5132. 'And show, I beg you, mercy to me' means the reception of charity. This is clear from the meaning of 'mercy' as love, dealt with in 3063, 3073, 3120, 5042, in this case love towards the neighbour, which is charity, since the reception of faith is spoken of above in 5130; for on the level of the senses, when these are born again, faith and charity must make one. The reason 'mercy' means charity is that all who have charity have mercy, that is, all who love their neighbour are merciful towards him. This also explains why the Word describes the practice of charity as acts of mercy, as in Matthew,

I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in, naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to me. Matthew 25:35-36.

And in other places the practice of charity is described as acts of mercy done to the poor, the afflicted, widows, and orphans.

[2] Charity consists essentially in desiring the welfare of one's neighbour, in having an affection for what is good, and in acknowledging that since what is good is one's neighbour, those who are governed by good are consequently one's neighbour, but varyingly so, depending on the amount of good that governs the individual person. Therefore since charity consists in having an affection for what is good, it also consists in feelings of mercy for those in distress. The good of charity holds such feelings within it because it comes down from the Lord's love towards the whole human race, a love which is 'mercy' because the whole human race is in distress. Mercy sometimes seems to exist among the evil who have no charity. But this is a case of pain because of their own suffering; for it consists in a concern for friends whom they identify with themselves, and when those friends suffer, they suffer too. This kind of mercy is not the mercy that belongs to charity but that which goes with friendship based on self-interest, which regarded in itself is the opposite of mercy. That kind of person despises and hates everyone else apart from himself, and so everyone else apart from the friends whom he identifies with himself.

3121. 'And His truth towards my master' means an influx of charity from that inflowing love. This is clear from the meaning of 'truth' as charity. In the proper sense 'truth' means the same as faith, and in the Hebrew language faith is expressed by such a term, so that what is called truth in the Old Testament Word is regularly called faith in the New Testament Word. This is also why, in what has gone before, truth has often been called the truth of faith, and good the good of love. But in the internal sense faith is nothing else than charity - see what has often been stated and shown already, such as the following:

No faith exists except through love, 30-38.

Faith does not exist except where charity does so, 654, 724, 1162, 1176, 2261.

Faith is faith grounded in charity, 1608, 2049, 2116, 2343, 2349, 2417.

Charity constitutes the Church, not faith separated from charity, 809, 916, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844, 2190, 2228, 2442.

From these paragraphs it is evident that in the internal sense truth or faith is the same as charity. Indeed all faith springs from charity, and faith that does not spring from it is not faith. Or what amounts to the same, all truth in the internal sense is good, since all truth is grounded in good, and truth that is not grounded in it is not truth. For truth is nothing else than the form that good takes, 3049; it is born from, and receives its life from nothing other than good.