EMMET FOX - 3rd April 2026

PEACEMAKERS
Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of god
(Matthew 5:9).

To the casual reader this Beatitude might sound like a mere conventional
religious generalization, even a sententious platitude. Here we receive an
invaluable practical lesson in the art of prayer—and prayer is our only means
of returning to communion with God. As a matter of fact, prayer is the only
real action in the full sense of the word, because prayer is the only thing that
changes one’s character. when such a change takes place, you become a different
person and, therefore, for the rest of your life you act in a different way. If
you should get a very strong realization of the Presence of God with you, it
would make a very great and dramatic change in your character, so that, in the
twinkling of an eye, your outlook, your habits, your whole life would completely
change. Many such cases are on record, including cases of what used to be
called “conversion.” Because the change is radical, Jesus refers to it as being
“born again.”

The great essential for success in obtaining that sense of the Presence of God
is that we first attain some degree of true peace of mind.

© 1931 by Emmet Fox

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THE MERCIFUL

Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy (Matthew 5:7).

This is a brief summary of the law of life that Jesus develops more fully later in the Sermon (Matthew 7:1-5). As it stands, this Beatitude is as obvious in its meaning as the law in question is simple and inflexible in its action.

The point that the Christian needs to note is that the principle covered in this Beatitude lies in its application to the realm of thought. Let us be merciful in our mental judgments of our brother, for, in truth, we are all one, and the more deeply he seems to err, the more urgent is the need for us to help him with the right thought, and so make it easier for him to get free.

Because in deed and in truth we are all one,, component parts of the living garment of God, you yourself will ultimately receive the same treatment that you mete out to others; you will receive the same merciful help in your own hour of need from those who are farther along the path than you are.

© 1931 by Emmet Fox 

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THE BEATITUDES

The Sermon on the Mount opens with the eight Beatitudes. They are actually a prose poem in eight verses and constitute a general summary of the Christian teaching. A general summing up, such as this, is highly characteristic of the old Oriental mode of approach to a religious and philosophical teaching, and it naturally recall the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Ten Commandments of Moses, and other such compact groupings of ideas.

Jesus concerned himself exclusively with the teaching of general principles, and these general principles always had to do with mental states, for he knew that if one’s mental state are right, everything else might be right tool. Unlike the other great religious teachers, he gives us no detailed instruction about what we are to do or are not to do.

…. The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

…the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:21, 23-24).

© 1931 by Emmet Fox

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WHO SHALL SEE GOD
… for they shall see God. In this wonderful Beatitude we are told exactly
how this supreme task is to be accomplished and who they are who shall do it.
They are the pure in heart. Purity, in its full and complete sense, is
recognizing God alone as the only real Cause, and the only real Power in
existence. It is what is called elsewhere in the Sermon “the single eye.”

Note that Jesus speaks of the pure in heart. The word heart in the Bible
usually means that part of man’s mentality that modern psychology knows under
the name of the “subconscious mind.” This is exceedingly important because it
is not sufficient for us to accept the Truth with the conscious mind only. At
that stage it is still a mere opinion. It is not until it is accepted by the
subconscious mind, and thus assimilated into the whole mentality, that it can
make any difference in one’s character or life.

… as he thinketh in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).
© 1931 by Emmet Fox

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THE PURE IN HEART

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). 

This is one of those wonderful gnomic sayings in which the Bible is so rich. It is a summing up in a few words of a whole philosophy of religion.

Let us begin by considering what the promise in this Beatitude is. It is nothing less than to see God. To “see” in the sense referred to here, signifies spiritual perception, and spiritual perception is just that capacity to apprehend the true nature of Being that we all so sadly lack.

We live in God’s world, but we do not in the least know it as it is. Heaven lies all about us—but because we are lacking in spiritual perception, we are unable to recognize it, to experience it, and, therefore, so far as we are concerned, we may be said to be shut out of Heaven.

We are very much in the position of a color-blind man in a beautiful flower garden. All around him are glorious colors; but he sees only blacks, whites, and grays. If we suppose him to be also devoid of the sense of smell, we shall see what a very small part of the glory of the garden exists for him. Yet it is all there, if he could but sense it.

Our task is to surmount these limitations as rapidly as may be, until we reach the point where we can know things as they really are—experience Heaven as it really is. That is what is meant by “seeing God.” To see God is to apprehend Truth as it really is, and this is infinite freedom and perfect bliss.

© 1931 by Emmet Fox

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THE BEATITUDES

The Sermon on the Mount opens with the eight Beatitudes. They are actually a prose poem in eight verses and constitute a general summary of the Christian teaching. A general summing up, such as this, is highly characteristic of the old Oriental mode of approach to a religious and philosophical teaching, and it naturally recall the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Ten Commandments of Moses, and other such compact groupings of ideas.

Jesus concerned himself exclusively with the teaching of general principles, and these general principles always had to do with mental states, for he knew that if one’s mental state are right, everything else might be right tool. Unlike the other great religious teachers, he gives us no detailed instruction about what we are to do or are not to do.

…. The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

…the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:21, 23-24).

© 1931 by Emmet Fox

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