peace

• tendency not natural; derives from revelation

39:5.53. The Souls of Peace. The early mil­len­ni­ums of the up­ward striv­ings of evo­lu­tion­ary men are marked by many a strug­gle. Peace is not the nat­u­ral state of the ma­te­rial realms. The worlds first re­al­ize “peace on earth and good will among men” through the min­istry of the se­raphic souls of peace. Al­though these an­gels were largely thwarted in their early ef­forts on Uran­tia, Vevona, chief of the souls of peace in Adam’s day, was left on Uran­tia and is now at­tached to the staff of the res­i­dent gov­er­nor gen­eral. And it was this same Vevona who, when Mi­chael was born, her­alded to the worlds, as the leader of the an­gelic host, “Glory to God in Ha­vona and on earth peace and good will among men.”

• primitive man could not long live in

63:4.9It is im­pos­si­ble to in­duce such prim­i­tive be­ings long to live to­gether in peace. Man is the de­scen­dant of fight­ing an­i­mals, and when closely as­so­ci­ated, un­cul­tured peo­ple ir­ri­tate and of­fend each other. The Life Car­ri­ers know this ten­dency among evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures and ac­cord­ingly make pro­vi­sion for the even­tual sep­a­ra­tion of de­vel­op­ing hu­man be­ings into at least three, and more of­ten six, dis­tinct and sep­a­rate races.

• tendency not natural; derives from revelation

68:3.5The peace ten­dency of the hu­man race is not a nat­u­ral en­dow­ment; it is de­rived from the teach­ings of re­vealed re­li­gion, from the ac­cu­mu­lated ex­pe­ri­ence of the pro­gres­sive races, but more es­pe­cially from the teach­ings of Je­sus, the Prince of Peace.

• secured only by social regulative system

70:0.2On an evo­lu­tion­ary world, an­tag­o­nisms are nat­u­ral; peace is se­cured only by some sort of so­cial reg­u­la­tive sys­tem. So­cial reg­u­la­tion is in­sep­a­ra­ble from so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion; as­so­ci­a­tion im­plies some con­trol­ling au­thor­ity. Gov­ern­ment com­pels the co-or­di­na­tion of the an­tag­o­nisms of the tribes, clans, fam­i­lies, and in­di­vid­u­als.

• measure of civilization’s advancement

70:1.1War is the nat­u­ral state and her­itage of evolv­ing man; peace is the so­cial yard­stick mea­sur­ing civ­i­liza­tion’s ad­vance­ment. Be­fore the par­tial so­cial­iza­tion of the ad­vanc­ing races man was ex­ceed­ingly in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic, ex­tremely sus­pi­cious, and un­be­liev­ably quar­rel­some. Vi­o­lence is the law of na­ture, hos­til­ity the au­to­matic re­ac­tion of the chil­dren of na­ture, while war is but these same ac­tiv­i­ties car­ried on col­lec­tively. And wher­ever and when­ever the fab­ric of civ­i­liza­tion be­comes stressed by the com­pli­ca­tions of so­ci­ety’s ad­vance­ment, there is al­ways an im­me­di­ate and ru­inous re­ver­sion to these early meth­ods of vi­o­lent ad­just­ment of the ir­ri­ta­tions of hu­man in­teras­so­ci­a­tions.

• will come once man is convinced it is best for his material welfare

70:2.20Man will never ac­cept peace as a nor­mal mode of liv­ing un­til he has been thor­oughly and re­peat­edly con­vinced that peace is best for his ma­te­rial wel­fare, and un­til so­ci­ety has wisely pro­vided peace­ful sub­sti­tutes for the grat­i­fi­ca­tion of that in­her­ent ten­dency pe­ri­od­i­cally to let loose a col­lec­tive drive de­signed to lib­er­ate those ever-ac­cu­mu­lat­ing emo­tions and en­er­gies be­long­ing to the self-preser­va­tion re­ac­tions of the hu­man species.

• early treaties commemorated p. by blood sucking, offerings of maidens

70:3.10The first treaties of peace were the “blood bonds.” The peace am­bas­sadors of two war­ring tribes would meet, pay their re­spects, and then pro­ceed to prick the skin un­til it bled; where­upon they would suck each other’s blood and de­clare peace.

70:3.11The ear­li­est peace mis­sions con­sisted of del­e­ga­tions of men bring­ing their choice maid­ens for the sex grat­i­fi­ca­tion of their one­time en­e­mies, the sex ap­petite be­ing uti­lized in com­bat­ing the war urge. The tribe so hon­ored would pay a re­turn visit, with its of­fer­ing of maid­ens; where­upon peace would be firmly es­tab­lished. And soon in­ter­mar­riages be­tween the fam­i­lies of the chiefs were sanc­tioned.

• social value of p. for yellow race

79:6.82. So­cial. The yel­low race early learned the value of peace among them­selves. Their in­ter­nal peace­able­ness so con­tributed to pop­u­la­tion in­crease as to in­sure the spread of their civ­i­liza­tion among many mil­lions. From 25,000 to 5000 B.C. the high­est mass civ­i­liza­tion on Uran­tia was in cen­tral and north­ern China. The yel­low man was first to achieve a racial sol­i­dar­ity—the first to at­tain a large-scale cul­tural, so­cial, and po­lit­i­cal civ­i­liza­tion.

• among religionists › cf: peace incompatible with assertion of religious authority

134:4.3If dif­fer­ent re­li­gions rec­og­nize the spirit sov­er­eignty of God the Fa­ther, then will all such re­li­gions re­main at peace. Only when one re­li­gion as­sumes that it is in some way su­pe­rior to all oth­ers, and that it pos­sesses ex­clu­sive au­thor­ity over other re­li­gions, will such a re­li­gion pre­sume to be in­tol­er­ant of other re­li­gions or dare to per­se­cute other re­li­gious be­liev­ers.

134:4.4Re­li­gious peace—broth­er­hood—can never ex­ist un­less all re­li­gions are will­ing to com­pletely di­vest them­selves of all ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity and fully sur­ren­der all con­cept of spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty. God alone is spirit sov­er­eign.

• among religionists › cf: peace incompatible with assertion of religious authority

134:4.8But the mo­ment you lose sight of the spirit sov­er­eignty of God the Fa­ther, some one re­li­gion will be­gin to as­sert its su­pe­ri­or­ity over other re­li­gions; and then, in­stead of peace on earth and good will among men, there will start dis­sen­sions, re­crim­i­na­tions, even re­li­gious wars, at least wars among re­li­gion­ists.

• without sacrifice of free personality, spiritual originality

141:5.1One of the most event­ful of all the evening con­fer­ences at Am­athus was the ses­sion hav­ing to do with the dis­cus­sion of spir­i­tual unity. James Zeb­e­dee had asked, “Mas­ter, how shall we learn to see alike and thereby en­joy more har­mony among our­selves?” When Je­sus heard this ques­tion, he was stirred within his spirit, so much so that he replied: “James, James, when did I teach you that you should all see alike? I have come into the world to pro­claim spir­i­tual lib­erty to the end that mor­tals may be em­pow­ered to live in­di­vid­ual lives of orig­i­nal­ity and free­dom be­fore God. I do not de­sire that so­cial har­mony and fra­ter­nal peace shall be pur­chased by the sac­ri­fice of free per­son­al­ity and spir­i­tual orig­i­nal­ity. What I re­quire of you, my apos­tles, is spirit unity—and that you can ex­pe­ri­ence in the joy of your united ded­i­ca­tion to the whole­hearted do­ing of the will of my Fa­ther in heaven. You do not have to see alike or feel alike or even think alike in or­der spir­i­tu­ally to be alike. Spir­i­tual unity is de­rived from the con­scious­ness that each of you is in­dwelt, and in­creas­ingly dom­i­nated, by the spirit gift of the heav­enly Fa­ther. Your apos­tolic har­mony must grow out of the fact that the spirit hope of each of you is iden­ti­cal in ori­gin, na­ture, and des­tiny.

• among religionists › cf: division and turmoil result when men reject gospel

150:4.3“Are not two spar­rows sold for a penny? And yet I de­clare that not one of them is for­got­ten in God’s sight. Know you not that the very hairs of your head are all num­bered? Fear not, there­fore; you are of more value than a great many spar­rows. Be not ashamed of my teach­ing; go forth pro­claim­ing peace and good will, but be not de­ceived—peace will not al­ways at­tend your preach­ing. I came to bring peace on earth, but when men re­ject my gift, di­vi­sion and tur­moil re­sult. When all of a fam­ily re­ceive the gospel of the king­dom, truly peace abides in that house; but when some of the fam­ily en­ter the king­dom and oth­ers re­ject the gospel, such di­vi­sion can pro­duce only sor­row and sad­ness. La­bor earnestly to save the whole fam­ily lest a man’s foes be­come those of his own house­hold. But, when you have done your ut­most for all of ev­ery fam­ily, I de­clare to you that he who loves fa­ther or mother more than this gospel is not wor­thy of the king­dom.”

• among religionists › cf: time for open break with religious rulers

163:4.76. Make clear to all faith­ful be­liev­ers that the time for an open break with the re­li­gious lead­ers of the Jews at Je­ru­sa­lem has now come.

• among religionists › cf: woe upon you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites

163:6.5Then, speak­ing to all the dis­ci­ples, he said: “You have heard how many cities and vil­lages have re­ceived the good news of the king­dom, and how my min­is­ters and teach­ers have been re­ceived by both the Jew and the gen­tile. And blessed in­deed are these com­mu­ni­ties which have elected to be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom. But woe upon the light-re­ject­ing in­hab­i­tants of Cho­ra­zin, Beth­saida-Ju­lias, and Ca­per­naum, the cities which did not well re­ceive these mes­sen­gers. I de­clare that, if the mighty works done in these places had been done in Tyre and Sidon, the peo­ple of these so-called hea­then cities would have long since re­pented in sack­cloth and ashes. It shall in­deed be more tol­er­a­ble for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judg­ment.”

• among religionists › cf: time for open break with religious rulers

164:3.16Je­sus gave this man his sight by mirac­u­lous work­ing, on this Sab­bath morn­ing and in Je­ru­sa­lem near the tem­ple, for the prime pur­pose of mak­ing this act an open chal­lenge to the San­hedrin and all the Jew­ish teach­ers and re­li­gious lead­ers. This was his way of pro­claim­ing an open break with the Phar­isees. He was al­ways pos­i­tive in ev­ery­thing he did. And it was for the pur­pose of bring­ing these mat­ters be­fore the San­hedrin that Je­sus brought his two apos­tles to this man early in the af­ter­noon of this Sab­bath day and de­lib­er­ately pro­voked those dis­cus­sions which com­pelled the Phar­isees to take no­tice of the mir­a­cle.

• among religionists › cf: division and turmoil result when men reject gospel

165:6.3“But if the ser­vant is sloth­ful and be­gins to say in his heart, ‘My mas­ter de­lays his com­ing,’ and be­gins to mis­treat his fel­low ser­vants and to eat and drink with the drunken, then the lord of that ser­vant will come at a time when he looks not for him and, find­ing him un­faith­ful, will cast him out in dis­grace. There­fore you do well to pre­pare your­selves for that day when you will be vis­ited sud­denly and in an un­ex­pected man­ner. Re­mem­ber, much has been given to you; there­fore will much be re­quired of you. Fiery tri­als are draw­ing near you. I have a bap­tism to be bap­tized with, and I am on watch un­til this is ac­com­plished. You preach peace on earth, but my mis­sion will not bring peace in the ma­te­rial af­fairs of men—not for a time, at least. Di­vi­sion can only be the re­sult where two mem­bers of a fam­ily be­lieve in me and three mem­bers re­ject this gospel. Friends, rel­a­tives, and loved ones are des­tined to be set against each other by the gospel you preach. True, each of these be­liev­ers shall have great and last­ing peace in his own heart, but peace on earth will not come un­til all are will­ing to be­lieve and en­ter into their glo­ri­ous in­her­i­tance of son­ship with God. Nev­er­the­less, go into all the world pro­claim­ing this gospel to all na­tions, to ev­ery man, woman, and child.”

• among religionists › cf: woe upon you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites

166:1.4When the Mas­ter had thus spo­ken, they cast their eyes upon the ta­ble and re­mained silent. And since no one spoke, Je­sus con­tin­ued: “Many of you Phar­isees are here with me as friends, some are even my dis­ci­ples, but the ma­jor­ity of the Phar­isees are per­sis­tent in their re­fusal to see the light and ac­knowl­edge the truth, even when the work of the gospel is brought be­fore them in great power. How care­fully you cleanse the out­side of the cups and the plat­ters while the spir­i­tual-food ves­sels are filthy and pol­luted! You make sure to pre­sent a pi­ous and holy ap­pear­ance to the peo­ple, but your in­ner souls are filled with self-righ­teous­ness, cov­etous­ness, ex­tor­tion, and all man­ner of spir­i­tual wicked­ness. Your lead­ers even dare to plot and plan the mur­der of the Son of Man. Do not you fool­ish men un­der­stand that the God of heaven looks at the in­ner mo­tives of the soul as well as on your outer pre­tenses and your pi­ous pro­fes­sions? Think not that the giv­ing of alms and the pay­ing of tithes will cleanse you from un­righ­teous­ness and en­able you to stand clean in the pres­ence of the Judge of all men. Woe upon you Phar­isees who have per­sisted in re­ject­ing the light of life! You are metic­u­lous in tithing and os­ten­ta­tious in alms­giv­ing, but you know­ingly spurn the vis­i­ta­tion of God and re­ject the rev­e­la­tion of his love. Though it is all right for you to give at­ten­tion to these mi­nor du­ties, you should not have left these weight­ier re­quire­ments un­done. Woe upon all who shun jus­tice, spurn mercy, and re­ject truth! Woe upon all those who de­spise the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther while they seek the chief seats in the syn­a­gogue and crave flat­ter­ing salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places!”

166:1.5When Je­sus would have risen to de­part, one of the lawyers who was at the ta­ble, ad­dress­ing him, said: “But, Mas­ter, in some of your state­ments you re­proach us also. Is there noth­ing good in the scribes, the Phar­isees, or the lawyers?” And Je­sus, stand­ing, replied to the lawyer: “You, like the Phar­isees, de­light in the first places at the feasts and in wear­ing long robes while you put heavy bur­dens, griev­ous to be borne, on men’s shoul­ders. And when the souls of men stag­ger un­der these heavy bur­dens, you will not so much as lift with one of your fin­gers. Woe upon you who take your great­est de­light in build­ing tombs for the proph­ets your fa­thers killed! And that you con­sent to what your fa­thers did is made man­i­fest when you now plan to kill those who come in this day do­ing what the proph­ets did in their day—pro­claim­ing the righ­teous­ness of God and re­veal­ing the mercy of the heav­enly Fa­ther. But of all the gen­er­a­tions that are past, the blood of the proph­ets and the apos­tles shall be re­quired of this per­verse and self-righ­teous gen­er­a­tion. Woe upon all of you lawyers who have taken away the key of knowl­edge from the com­mon peo­ple! You your­selves refuse to en­ter into the way of truth, and at the same time you would hin­der all oth­ers who seek to en­ter therein. But you can­not thus shut up the doors of the king­dom of heaven; these we have opened to all who have the faith to en­ter, and these por­tals of mercy shall not be closed by the prej­u­dice and ar­ro­gance of false teach­ers and un­true shep­herds who are like whited sepul­chres which, while out­wardly they ap­pear beau­ti­ful, are in­wardly full of dead men’s bones and all man­ner of spir­i­tual un­clean­ness.”

• among religionists › cf: inevitable clash between religion of spirit and of authority

173:3.3Je­sus did not de­spise the Phar­isees and Sad­ducees per­son­ally. It was their sys­tems of teach­ing and prac­tice which he sought to dis­credit. He was hos­tile to no man, but here was oc­cur­ring the in­ev­i­ta­ble clash be­tween a new and liv­ing re­li­gion of the spirit and the older re­li­gion of cer­e­mony, tra­di­tion, and au­thor­ity.

175:1.1“This long time have I been with you, go­ing up and down in the land pro­claim­ing the Fa­ther’s love for the chil­dren of men, and many have seen the light and, by faith, have en­tered into the king­dom of heaven. In con­nec­tion with this teach­ing and preach­ing the Fa­ther has done many won­der­ful works, even to the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead. Many sick and af­flicted have been made whole be­cause they be­lieved; but all of this procla­ma­tion of truth and heal­ing of dis­ease has not opened the eyes of those who refuse to see light, those who are de­ter­mined to re­ject this gospel of the king­dom.

• among religionists › cf: cannot exist between light and darkness, truth and error

175:1.2“In ev­ery man­ner con­sis­tent with do­ing my Fa­ther’s will, I and my apos­tles have done our ut­most to live in peace with our breth­ren, to con­form with the rea­son­able re­quire­ments of the laws of Moses and the tra­di­tions of Is­rael. We have per­sis­tently sought peace, but the lead­ers of Is­rael will not have it. By re­ject­ing the truth of God and the light of heaven, they are align­ing them­selves on the side of er­ror and dark­ness. There can­not be peace be­tween light and dark­ness, be­tween life and death, be­tween truth and er­ror.

175:1.3“Many of you have dared to be­lieve my teach­ings and have al­ready en­tered into the joy and lib­erty of the con­scious­ness of son­ship with God. And you will bear me wit­ness that I have of­fered this same son­ship with God to all the Jew­ish na­tion, even to these very men who now seek my de­struc­tion. And even now would my Fa­ther re­ceive these blinded teach­ers and these hyp­o­crit­i­cal lead­ers if they would only turn to him and ac­cept his mercy. Even now it is not too late for this peo­ple to re­ceive the word of heaven and to wel­come the Son of Man.

175:1.4“My Fa­ther has long dealt in mercy with this peo­ple. Gen­er­a­tion af­ter gen­er­a­tion have we sent our proph­ets to teach and warn them, and gen­er­a­tion af­ter gen­er­a­tion have they killed these heaven-sent teach­ers. And now do your will­ful high priests and stub­born rulers go right on do­ing this same thing. As Herod brought about the death of John, you like­wise now make ready to de­stroy the Son of Man.

175:1.5“As long as there is a chance that the Jews will turn to my Fa­ther and seek sal­va­tion, the God of Abra­ham, Isaac, and Ja­cob will keep his hands of mercy out­stretched to­ward you; but when you have once filled up your cup of im­pen­i­tence, and when once you have fi­nally re­jected my Fa­ther’s mercy, this na­tion will be left to its own coun­sels, and it shall speed­ily come to an in­glo­ri­ous end. This peo­ple was called to be­come the light of the world, to show forth the spir­i­tual glory of a God-know­ing race, but you have so far de­parted from the ful­fill­ment of your di­vine priv­i­leges that your lead­ers are about to com­mit the su­preme folly of all the ages in that they are on the verge of fi­nally re­ject­ing the gift of God to all men and for all ages—the rev­e­la­tion of the love of the Fa­ther in heaven for all his crea­tures on earth.

175:1.6“And when you do once re­ject this rev­e­la­tion of God to man, the king­dom of heaven shall be given to other peo­ples, to those who will re­ceive it with joy and glad­ness. In the name of the Fa­ther who sent me, I solemnly warn you that you are about to lose your po­si­tion in the world as the stan­dard-bear­ers of eter­nal truth and the cus­to­di­ans of the di­vine law. I am just now of­fer­ing you your last chance to come for­ward and re­pent, to sig­nify your in­ten­tion to seek God with all your hearts and to en­ter, like lit­tle chil­dren and by sin­cere faith, into the se­cu­rity and sal­va­tion of the king­dom of heaven.

175:1.7“My Fa­ther has long worked for your sal­va­tion, and I came down to live among you and per­son­ally show you the way. Many of both the Jews and the Samar­i­tans, and even the gen­tiles, have be­lieved the gospel of the king­dom, but those who should be first to come for­ward and ac­cept the light of heaven have stead­fastly re­fused to be­lieve the rev­e­la­tion of the truth of God—God re­vealed in man and man up­lifted to God.

175:1.8“This af­ter­noon my apos­tles stand here be­fore you in si­lence, but you shall soon hear their voices ring­ing out with the call to sal­va­tion and with the urge to unite with the heav­enly king­dom as the sons of the liv­ing God. And now I call to wit­ness these, my dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom, as well as the un­seen mes­sen­gers by their sides, that I have once more of­fered Is­rael and her rulers de­liv­er­ance and sal­va­tion. But you all be­hold how the Fa­ther’s mercy is slighted and how the mes­sen­gers of truth are re­jected. Nev­er­the­less, I ad­mon­ish you that these scribes and Phar­isees still sit in Moses’ seat, and there­fore, un­til the Most Highs who rule in the king­doms of men shall fi­nally over­throw this na­tion and de­stroy the place of these rulers, I bid you co-op­er­ate with these el­ders in Is­rael. You are not re­quired to unite with them in their plans to de­stroy the Son of Man, but in ev­ery­thing re­lated to the peace of Is­rael you are to be sub­ject to them. In all these mat­ters do what­so­ever they bid you and ob­serve the es­sen­tials of the law but do not pat­tern af­ter their evil works. Re­mem­ber, this is the sin of these rulers: They say that which is good, but they do it not. You well know how these lead­ers bind heavy bur­dens on your shoul­ders, bur­dens griev­ous to bear, and that they will not lift as much as one fin­ger to help you bear these weighty bur­dens. They have op­pressed you with cer­e­monies and en­slaved you by tra­di­tions.

175:1.9“Fur­ther­more, these self-cen­tered rulers de­light in do­ing their good works so that they will be seen by men. They make broad their phy­lac­ter­ies and en­large the bor­ders of their of­fi­cial robes. They crave the chief places at the feasts and de­mand the chief seats in the syn­a­gogues. They covet lauda­tory salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places and de­sire to be called rabbi by all men. And even while they seek all this honor from men, they se­cretly lay hold of wid­ows’ houses and take profit from the ser­vices of the sa­cred tem­ple. For a pre­tense these hyp­ocrites make long prayers in pub­lic and give alms to at­tract the no­tice of their fel­lows.

175:1.10“While you should honor your rulers and rev­er­ence your teach­ers, you should call no man Fa­ther in the spir­i­tual sense, for there is one who is your Fa­ther, even God. Nei­ther should you seek to lord it over your breth­ren in the king­dom. Re­mem­ber, I have taught you that he who would be great­est among you should be­come the server of all. If you pre­sume to ex­alt your­selves be­fore God, you will cer­tainly be hum­bled; but whoso truly hum­bles him­self will surely be ex­alted. Seek in your daily lives, not self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion, but the glory of God. In­tel­li­gently sub­or­di­nate your own wills to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

175:1.11“Mis­take not my words. I bear no mal­ice to­ward these chief priests and rulers who even now seek my de­struc­tion; I have no ill will for these scribes and Phar­isees who re­ject my teach­ings. I know that many of you be­lieve in se­cret, and I know you will openly pro­fess your al­le­giance to the king­dom when my hour comes. But how will your rab­bis jus­tify them­selves since they pro­fess to talk with God and then pre­sume to re­ject and de­stroy him who comes to re­veal the Fa­ther to the worlds?

175:1.12“Woe upon you, scribes and Phar­isees, hyp­ocrites! You would shut the doors of the king­dom of heaven against sin­cere men be­cause they hap­pen to be un­learned in the ways of your teach­ing. You refuse to en­ter the king­dom and at the same time do ev­ery­thing within your power to pre­vent all oth­ers from en­ter­ing. You stand with your backs to the doors of sal­va­tion and fight with all who would en­ter therein.

175:1.13“Woe upon you, scribes and Phar­isees, hyp­ocrites that you are! for you do in­deed en­com­pass land and sea to make one pros­e­lyte, and when you have suc­ceeded, you are not con­tent un­til you have made him two­fold worse than he was as a child of the hea­then.

175:1.14“Woe upon you, chief priests and rulers who lay hold of the prop­erty of the poor and de­mand heavy dues of those who would serve God as they think Moses or­dained! You who refuse to show mercy, can you hope for mercy in the worlds to come?

175:1.15“Woe upon you, false teach­ers, blind guides! What can be ex­pected of a na­tion when the blind lead the blind? They both shall stum­ble into the pit of de­struc­tion.

175:1.16“Woe upon you who dis­sim­u­late when you take an oath! You are trick­sters since you teach that a man may swear by the tem­ple and break his oath, but that whoso swears by the gold in the tem­ple must re­main bound. You are all fools and blind. You are not even con­sis­tent in your dis­hon­esty, for which is the greater, the gold or the tem­ple which has sup­pos­edly sanc­ti­fied the gold? You also teach that, if a man swears by the al­tar, it is noth­ing; but that, if one swears by the gift that is upon the al­tar, then shall he be held as a debtor. Again are you blind to the truth, for which is the greater, the gift or the al­tar which sanc­ti­fies the gift? How can you jus­tify such hypocrisy and dis­hon­esty in the sight of the God of heaven?

175:1.17“Woe upon you, scribes and Phar­isees and all other hyp­ocrites who make sure that they tithe mint, anise, and cumin and at the same time dis­re­gard the weight­ier mat­ters of the law—faith, mercy, and judg­ment! Within rea­son, the one you ought to have done but not to have left the other un­done. You are truly blind guides and dumb teach­ers; you strain out the gnat and swal­low the camel.

175:1.18“Woe upon you, scribes, Phar­isees, and hyp­ocrites! for you are scrupu­lous to cleanse the out­side of the cup and the plat­ter, but within there re­mains the filth of ex­tor­tion, ex­cesses, and de­cep­tion. You are spir­i­tu­ally blind. Do you not rec­og­nize how much bet­ter it would be first to cleanse the in­side of the cup, and then that which spills over would of it­self cleanse the out­side? You wicked repro­bates! you make the out­ward per­for­mances of your re­li­gion to con­form with the let­ter of your in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Moses’ law while your souls are steeped in in­iq­uity and filled with mur­der.

175:1.19“Woe upon all of you who re­ject truth and spurn mercy! Many of you are like whited sepul­chres, which out­wardly ap­pear beau­ti­ful but within are full of dead men’s bones and all sorts of un­clean­ness. Even so do you who know­ingly re­ject the coun­sel of God ap­pear out­wardly to men as holy and righ­teous, but in­wardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and in­iq­uity.

175:1.20“Woe upon you, false guides of a na­tion! Over yon­der have you built a mon­u­ment to the mar­tyred proph­ets of old, while you plot to de­stroy Him of whom they spoke. You gar­nish the tombs of the righ­teous and flat­ter your­selves that, had you lived in the days of your fa­thers, you would not have killed the proph­ets; and then in the face of such self-righ­teous think­ing you make ready to slay him of whom the proph­ets spoke, the Son of Man. Inas­much as you do these things, are you wit­ness to your­selves that you are the wicked sons of them who slew the proph­ets. Go on, then, and fill up the cup of your con­dem­na­tion to the full!

175:1.21“Woe upon you, chil­dren of evil! John did truly call you the off­spring of vipers, and I ask how can you es­cape the judg­ment that John pro­nounced upon you?

175:1.22“But even now I of­fer you in my Fa­ther’s name mercy and for­give­ness; even now I prof­fer the lov­ing hand of eter­nal fel­low­ship. My Fa­ther has sent you the wise men and the proph­ets; some you have per­se­cuted and oth­ers you have killed. Then ap­peared John pro­claim­ing the com­ing of the Son of Man, and him you de­stroyed af­ter many had be­lieved his teach­ing. And now you make ready to shed more in­no­cent blood. Do you not com­pre­hend that a ter­ri­ble day of reck­on­ing will come when the Judge of all the earth shall re­quire of this peo­ple an ac­count­ing for the way they have re­jected, per­se­cuted, and de­stroyed these mes­sen­gers of heaven? Do you not un­der­stand that you must ac­count for all of this righ­teous blood, from the first prophet killed down to the times of Zechariah, who was slain be­tween the sanc­tu­ary and the al­tar? And if you go on in your evil ways, this ac­count­ing may be re­quired of this very gen­er­a­tion.

175:1.23“O Je­ru­sa­lem and the chil­dren of Abra­ham, you who have stoned the proph­ets and killed the teach­ers that were sent to you, even now would I gather your chil­dren to­gether as a hen gath­ers her chick­ens un­der her wings, but you will not!

175:1.24“And now I take leave of you. You have heard my mes­sage and have made your de­ci­sion. Those who have be­lieved my gospel are even now safe within the king­dom of God. To you who have cho­sen to re­ject the gift of God, I say that you will no more see me teach­ing in the tem­ple. My work for you is done. Be­hold, I now go forth with my chil­dren, and your house is left to you des­o­late!”

175:1.25And then the Mas­ter beck­oned his fol­low­ers to de­part from the tem­ple.

• among religionists › cf: woe upon you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites

175:4.2The mul­ti­tude who heard Je­sus swing from his mer­ci­ful ap­peal to the Jew­ish lead­ers into that sud­den and scathing re­buke which bor­dered on ruth­less de­nun­ci­a­tion, were stunned and be­wil­dered. That night, while the San­hedrin sat in death judg­ment upon Je­sus, and while the Mas­ter sat with his apos­tles and cer­tain of his dis­ci­ples out on the Mount of Olives fore­telling the death of the Jew­ish na­tion, all Je­ru­sa­lem was given over to the se­ri­ous and sup­pressed dis­cus­sion of just one ques­tion: “What will they do with Je­sus?”

• seek to live peaceably with all men

178:1.7Dis­play wis­dom and ex­hibit sagac­ity in your deal­ings with un­be­liev­ing civil rulers. By dis­cre­tion show your­selves to be ex­pert in iron­ing out mi­nor dis­agree­ments and in ad­just­ing tri­fling mis­un­der­stand­ings. In ev­ery pos­si­ble way—in ev­ery­thing short of your spir­i­tual al­le­giance to the rulers of the uni­verse—seek to live peace­ably with all men. Be you al­ways as wise as ser­pents but as harm­less as doves.

• among religionists › cf: division and turmoil result when men reject gospel

180:0.2“You well re­mem­ber when I sent you forth with­out purse or wal­let and even ad­vised that you take with you no ex­tra clothes. And you will all re­call that you lacked noth­ing. But now have you come upon trou­blous times. No longer can you de­pend upon the good will of the mul­ti­tudes. Hence­forth, he who has a purse, let him take it with him. When you go out into the world to pro­claim this gospel, make such pro­vi­sion for your sup­port as seems best. I have come to bring peace, but it will not ap­pear for a time.

• among religionists › cf: division and turmoil result when men reject gospel

180:6.1Af­ter Pe­ter, James, John, and Mat­thew had asked the Mas­ter nu­mer­ous ques­tions, he con­tin­ued his farewell dis­course by say­ing: “And I am telling you about all this be­fore I leave you in or­der that you may be so pre­pared for what is com­ing upon you that you will not stum­ble into se­ri­ous er­ror. The au­thor­i­ties will not be con­tent with merely putting you out of the syn­a­gogues; I warn you the hour draws near when they who kill you will think they are do­ing a ser­vice to God. And all of these things they will do to you and to those whom you lead into the king­dom of heaven be­cause they do not know the Fa­ther. They have re­fused to know the Fa­ther by re­fus­ing to re­ceive me; and they refuse to re­ceive me when they re­ject you, pro­vided you have kept my new com­mand­ment that you love one an­other even as I have loved you. I am telling you in ad­vance about these things so that, when your hour comes, as mine now has, you may be strength­ened in the knowl­edge that all was known to me, and that my spirit shall be with you in all your suf­fer­ings for my sake and the gospel’s. It was for this pur­pose that I have been talk­ing so plainly to you from the very be­gin­ning. I have even warned you that a man’s foes may be those of his own house­hold. Al­though this gospel of the king­dom never fails to bring great peace to the soul of the in­di­vid­ual be­liever, it will not bring peace on earth un­til man is will­ing to be­lieve my teach­ing whole­heart­edly and to es­tab­lish the prac­tice of do­ing the Fa­ther’s will as the chief pur­pose in liv­ing the mor­tal life.

• seek to live peaceably with all men

181:2.5As John Zeb­e­dee stood there in the up­per cham­ber, the tears rolling down his cheeks, he looked into the Mas­ter’s face and said: “And so I will, my Mas­ter, but how can I learn to love my breth­ren more?” And then an­swered Je­sus: “You will learn to love your breth­ren more when you first learn to love their Fa­ther in heaven more, and af­ter you have be­come truly more in­ter­ested in their wel­fare in time and in eter­nity. And all such hu­man in­ter­est is fos­tered by un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy, un­selfish ser­vice, and un­stinted for­give­ness. No man should de­spise your youth, but I ex­hort you al­ways to give due con­sid­er­a­tion to the fact that age of­ten­times rep­re­sents ex­pe­ri­ence, and that noth­ing in hu­man af­fairs can take the place of ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Strive to live peace­ably with all men, es­pe­cially your friends in the broth­er­hood of the heav­enly king­dom. And, John, al­ways re­mem­ber, strive not with the souls you would win for the king­dom.”

• among religionists › promote peace among various groups of believers

181:2.18“If your breth­ren de­sire to re­tain you as their coun­selor, I di­rect that you should, in all mat­ters tem­po­ral and spir­i­tual, do your ut­most to pro­mote peace and har­mony among the var­i­ous groups of sin­cere gospel be­liev­ers. Ded­i­cate the re­main­der of your life to pro­mot­ing the prac­ti­cal as­pects of broth­erly love among your breth­ren. Be kind to my broth­ers in the flesh when they come fully to be­lieve this gospel; man­i­fest lov­ing and im­par­tial de­vo­tion to the Greeks in the West and to Ab­ner in the East. Al­though these, my apos­tles, are soon go­ing to be scat­tered to the four cor­ners of the earth, there to pro­claim the good news of the sal­va­tion of son­ship with God, you are to hold them to­gether dur­ing the try­ing time just ahead, that sea­son of in­tense test­ing dur­ing which you must learn to be­lieve this gospel with­out my per­sonal pres­ence while you pa­tiently await the ar­rival of the new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. And so, An­drew, though it may not fall to you to do the great works as seen by men, be con­tent to be the teacher and coun­selor of those who do such things. Go on with your work on earth to the end, and then shall you con­tinue this min­istry in the eter­nal king­dom, for have I not many times told you that I have other sheep not of this flock?”

• without God, nothing leads to

195:8.12Sec­u­lar so­cial and po­lit­i­cal op­ti­mism is an il­lu­sion. With­out God, nei­ther free­dom and lib­erty, nor prop­erty and wealth will lead to peace.

• attained › as fruit of the Spirit

34:6.13The con­scious­ness of the spirit dom­i­na­tion of a hu­man life is pres­ently at­tended by an in­creas­ing ex­hi­bi­tion of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Spirit in the life re­ac­tions of such a spirit-led mor­tal, “for the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suf­fer­ing, gen­tle­ness, good­ness, faith, meek­ness, and tem­per­ance.” Such spirit-guided and di­vinely il­lu­mi­nated mor­tals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in hu­man faith­ful­ness per­form the du­ties of their earthly as­sign­ments, have al­ready be­gun to dis­cern the lights of eter­nal life as they glim­mer on the far­away shores of an­other world; al­ready have they be­gun to com­pre­hend the re­al­ity of that in­spir­ing and com­fort­ing truth, “The king­dom of God is not meat and drink but righ­teous­ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And through­out ev­ery trial and in the pres­ence of ev­ery hard­ship, spirit-born souls are sus­tained by that hope which tran­scends all fear be­cause the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the pres­ence of the di­vine Spirit.

• attained › as fruit of the Spirit

56:10.20To fi­nite man truth, beauty, and good­ness em­brace the full rev­e­la­tion of di­vin­ity re­al­ity. As this love-com­pre­hen­sion of De­ity finds spir­i­tual ex­pres­sion in the lives of God-know­ing mor­tals, there are yielded the fruits of di­vin­ity: in­tel­lec­tual peace, so­cial prog­ress, moral sat­is­fac­tion, spir­i­tual joy, and cos­mic wis­dom. The ad­vanced mor­tals on a world in the sev­enth stage of light and life have learned that love is the great­est thing in the uni­verse—and they know that God is love.

• dove is symbol of

85:3.4The wor­ship of in­sects and other an­i­mals was pro­moted by a later mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the golden rule—do­ing to oth­ers (ev­ery form of life) as you would be done by. The an­cients once be­lieved that all winds were pro­duced by the wings of birds and there­fore both feared and wor­shiped all winged crea­tures. The early Nordics thought that eclipses were caused by a wolf that de­voured a por­tion of the sun or moon. The Hin­dus of­ten show Vishnu with a horse’s head. Many times an an­i­mal sym­bol stands for a for­got­ten god or a van­ished cult. Early in evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion the lamb be­came the typ­i­cal sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mal and the dove the sym­bol of peace and love.

• to God-knowing believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?

100:2.7Je­sus por­trayed the pro­found surety of the God-know­ing mor­tal when he said: “To a God-know­ing king­dom be­liever, what does it mat­ter if all things earthly crash?” Tem­po­ral se­cu­ri­ties are vul­ner­a­ble, but spir­i­tual sureties are im­preg­nable. When the flood tides of hu­man ad­ver­sity, self­ish­ness, cru­elty, hate, mal­ice, and jeal­ousy beat about the mor­tal soul, you may rest in the as­sur­ance that there is one in­ner bas­tion, the citadel of the spirit, which is ab­so­lutely unas­sail­able; at least this is true of ev­ery hu­man be­ing who has ded­i­cated the keep­ing of his soul to the in­dwelling spirit of the eter­nal God.

• attained › by spiritual growth

100:4.3But the great prob­lem of re­li­gious liv­ing con­sists in the task of uni­fy­ing the soul pow­ers of the per­son­al­ity by the dom­i­nance of LOVE. Health, men­tal ef­fi­ciency, and hap­pi­ness arise from the uni­fi­ca­tion of phys­i­cal sys­tems, mind sys­tems, and spirit sys­tems. Of health and san­ity man un­der­stands much, but of hap­pi­ness he has truly re­al­ized very lit­tle. The high­est hap­pi­ness is in­dis­sol­ubly linked with spir­i­tual prog­ress. Spir­i­tual growth yields last­ing joy, peace which passes all un­der­stand­ing.

• cosmic poise betokening absence of doubt and turmoil

100:6.6One of the most amaz­ing ear­marks of re­li­gious liv­ing is that dy­namic and sub­lime peace, that peace which passes all hu­man un­der­stand­ing, that cos­mic poise which be­to­kens the ab­sence of all doubt and tur­moil. Such lev­els of spir­i­tual sta­bil­ity are im­mune to dis­ap­point­ment. Such re­li­gion­ists are like the Apos­tle Paul, who said: “I am per­suaded that nei­ther death, nor life, nor an­gels, nor prin­ci­pal­i­ties, nor pow­ers, nor things pres­ent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any­thing else shall be able to sep­a­rate us from the love of God.”

• attained › only in consecrated living

111:5.4Peace in this life, sur­vival in death, per­fec­tion in the next life, ser­vice in eter­nity—all these are achieved (in spirit) now when the crea­ture per­son­al­ity con­sents—chooses—to sub­ject the crea­ture will to the Fa­ther’s will. And al­ready has the Fa­ther cho­sen to make a frag­ment of him­self sub­ject to the will of the crea­ture per­son­al­ity.

• at any price does not foster survival
• attained › by assertion of triumph of truth, not compromise

133:7.12The hu­man mind does not well stand the con­flict of dou­ble al­le­giance. It is a se­vere strain on the soul to un­dergo the ex­pe­ri­ence of an ef­fort to serve both good and evil. The su­premely happy and ef­fi­ciently uni­fied mind is the one wholly ded­i­cated to the do­ing of the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. Un­re­solved con­flicts de­stroy unity and may ter­mi­nate in mind dis­rup­tion. But the sur­vival char­ac­ter of a soul is not fos­tered by at­tempt­ing to se­cure peace of mind at any price, by the sur­ren­der of no­ble as­pi­ra­tions, and by the com­pro­mise of spir­i­tual ide­als; rather is such peace at­tained by the stal­wart as­ser­tion of the tri­umph of that which is true, and this vic­tory is achieved in the over­com­ing of evil with the po­tent force of good.

• Jesus’ p. not pacific or negative

140:5.183. “Happy are the peace­mak­ers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” Je­sus’ hear­ers were long­ing for mil­i­tary de­liv­er­ance, not for peace­mak­ers. But Je­sus’ peace is not of the pa­cific and neg­a­tive kind. In the face of tri­als and per­se­cu­tions he said, “My peace I leave with you.” “Let not your heart be trou­bled, nei­ther let it be afraid.” This is the peace that pre­vents ru­inous con­flicts. Per­sonal peace in­te­grates per­son­al­ity. So­cial peace pre­vents fear, greed, and anger. Po­lit­i­cal peace pre­vents race an­tag­o­nisms, na­tional sus­pi­cions, and war. Peace­mak­ing is the cure of dis­trust and sus­pi­cion.

• attained › in salvation by faith

143:2.6“Sal­va­tion is by the re­gen­er­a­tion of the spirit and not by the self-righ­teous deeds of the flesh. You are jus­ti­fied by faith and fel­low­shipped by grace, not by fear and the self-de­nial of the flesh, al­beit the Fa­ther’s chil­dren who have been born of the spirit are ever and al­ways mas­ters of the self and all that per­tains to the de­sires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who fol­low in the way of this heav­enly peace are des­tined to be sanc­ti­fied to the eter­nal ser­vice of the ever-ad­vanc­ing sons of the eter­nal God. Hence­forth, it is not a duty but rather your ex­alted priv­i­lege to cleanse your­selves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for per­fec­tion in the love of God.

• passing all understanding

144:8.8“It would ap­pear that the Fa­ther in heaven has hid­den some of these truths from the wise and haughty, while he has re­vealed them to babes. But the Fa­ther does all things well; the Fa­ther re­veals him­self to the uni­verse by the meth­ods of his own choos­ing. Come, there­fore, all you who la­bor and are heavy laden, and you shall find rest for your souls. Take upon you the di­vine yoke, and you will ex­pe­ri­ence the peace of God, which passes all un­der­stand­ing.”

• attained › by vision of God

148:6.3“Al­though trans­gres­sion of di­vine law is sooner or later fol­lowed by the har­vest of pun­ish­ment, while men cer­tainly even­tu­ally do reap what they sow, still you should know that hu­man suf­fer­ing is not al­ways a pun­ish­ment for an­te­ced­ent sin. Both Job and his friends failed to find the true an­swer for their per­plex­i­ties. And with the light you now en­joy you would hardly as­sign to ei­ther Sa­tan or God the parts they play in this unique para­ble. While Job did not, through suf­fer­ing, find the res­o­lu­tion of his in­tel­lec­tual trou­bles or the so­lu­tion of his phil­o­soph­i­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, he did achieve great vic­to­ries; even in the very face of the break­down of his the­o­log­i­cal de­fenses he as­cended to those spir­i­tual heights where he could sin­cerely say, ‘I ab­hor my­self’; then was there granted him the sal­va­tion of a vi­sion of God. So even through mis­un­der­stood suf­fer­ing, Job as­cended to the super­hu­man plane of moral un­der­stand­ing and spir­i­tual in­sight. When the suf­fer­ing ser­vant ob­tains a vi­sion of God, there fol­lows a soul peace which passes all hu­man un­der­stand­ing.

• none for the wicked

149:5.3“Much of man’s sor­row is born of the dis­ap­point­ment of his am­bi­tions and the wound­ing of his pride. Al­though men owe a duty to them­selves to make the best of their lives on earth, hav­ing thus sin­cerely ex­erted them­selves, they should cheer­fully ac­cept their lot and ex­er­cise in­ge­nu­ity in mak­ing the most of that which has fallen to their hands. All too many of man’s trou­bles take ori­gin in the fear soil of his own nat­u­ral heart. ‘The wicked flee when no man pur­sues.’ ‘The wicked are like the trou­bled sea, for it can­not rest, but its wa­ters cast up mire and dirt; there is no peace, says God, for the wicked.’

• seek not for false peace

149:5.4“Seek not, then, for false peace and tran­sient joy but rather for the as­sur­ance of faith and the sureties of di­vine son­ship which yield com­po­sure, con­tent­ment, and su­preme joy in the spirit.”

• attained › by keeping mind stayed on God

155:6.6Shame on those false re­li­gious teach­ers who would drag hun­gry souls back into the dim and dis­tant past and there leave them! And so are these un­for­tu­nate per­sons doomed to be­come fright­ened by ev­ery new dis­cov­ery, while they are dis­com­fited by ev­ery new rev­e­la­tion of truth. The prophet who said, “He will be kept in per­fect peace whose mind is stayed on God,” was not a mere in­tel­lec­tual be­liever in au­thor­i­ta­tive the­ol­ogy. This truth-know­ing hu­man had dis­cov­ered God; he was not merely talk­ing about God.

• attained › by falling in love with truth

157:2.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he with­drew and pre­pared for the evening con­fer­ence with his fol­low­ers. At this con­fer­ence it was de­cided to un­der­take a united mis­sion through­out all the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis as soon as Je­sus and the twelve should re­turn from their pro­posed visit to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi. The Mas­ter par­tic­i­pated in plan­ning for the De­capo­lis mis­sion and, in dis­miss­ing the com­pany, said: “I say to you, be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees and the Sad­ducees. Be not de­ceived by their show of much learn­ing and by their pro­found loy­alty to the forms of re­li­gion. Be only con­cerned with the spirit of liv­ing truth and the power of true re­li­gion. It is not the fear of a dead re­li­gion that will save you but rather your faith in a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom. Do not al­low your­selves to be­come blinded by prej­u­dice and par­a­lyzed by fear. Nei­ther per­mit rev­er­ence for the tra­di­tions so to per­vert your un­der­stand­ing that your eyes see not and your ears hear not. It is not the pur­pose of true re­li­gion merely to bring peace but rather to in­sure prog­ress. And there can be no peace in the heart or prog­ress in the mind un­less you fall whole­heart­edly in love with truth, the ide­als of eter­nal re­al­i­ties. The is­sues of life and death are be­ing set be­fore you—the sin­ful plea­sures of time against the righ­teous re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Even now you should be­gin to find de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of fear and doubt as you en­ter upon the liv­ing of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feel­ings of ser­vice for your fel­low men arise within your soul, do not sti­fle them; when the emo­tions of love for your neigh­bor well up within your heart, give ex­pres­sion to such urges of af­fec­tion in in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the real needs of your fel­lows.”

• attained › only in consecrated living

160:5.10I see in the teach­ings of Je­sus, re­li­gion at its best. This gospel en­ables us to seek for the true God and to find him. But are we will­ing to pay the price of this en­trance into the king­dom of heaven? Are we will­ing to be born again? to be re­made? Are we will­ing to be sub­ject to this ter­ri­ble and test­ing pro­cess of self-de­struc­tion and soul re­con­struc­tion? Has not the Mas­ter said: “Whoso would save his life must lose it. Think not that I have come to bring peace but rather a soul strug­gle”? True, af­ter we pay the price of ded­i­ca­tion to the Fa­ther’s will, we do ex­pe­ri­ence great peace pro­vided we con­tinue to walk in these spir­i­tual paths of con­se­crated liv­ing.

• Jesus gives to each all he will receive

181:1.5“And now, as I am about to leave you, I would speak words of com­fort. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I make these gifts not as the world gives—by mea­sure—I give each of you all you will re­ceive. Let not your heart be trou­bled, nei­ther let it be fear­ful. I have over­come the world, and in me you shall all tri­umph through faith. I have warned you that the Son of Man will be killed, but I as­sure you I will come back be­fore I go to the Fa­ther, even though it be for only a lit­tle while. And af­ter I have as­cended to the Fa­ther, I will surely send the new teacher to be with you and to abide in your very hearts. And when you see all this come to pass, be not dis­mayed, but rather be­lieve, inas­much as you knew it all be­fore­hand. I have loved you with a great af­fec­tion, and I would not leave you, but it is the Fa­ther’s will. My hour has come.

• not founded on fatalism or optimism

181:1.7Je­sus gives peace to his fel­low do­ers of the will of God but not on the or­der of the joys and sat­is­fac­tions of this ma­te­rial world. Un­be­liev­ing ma­te­ri­al­ists and fa­tal­ists can hope to en­joy only two kinds of peace and soul com­fort: Ei­ther they must be sto­ics, with stead­fast res­o­lu­tion de­ter­mined to face the in­ev­i­ta­ble and to en­dure the worst; or they must be op­ti­mists, ever in­dulging that hope which springs eter­nal in the hu­man breast, vainly long­ing for a peace which never re­ally comes.

• attained › by absolute faith in Father’s overcare
• filled Jesus’ soul on earth

181:1.8A cer­tain amount of both sto­icism and op­ti­mism are ser­vice­able in liv­ing a life on earth, but nei­ther has aught to do with that su­perb peace which the Son of God be­stows upon his breth­ren in the flesh. The peace which Mi­chael gives his chil­dren on earth is that very peace which filled his own soul when he him­self lived the mor­tal life in the flesh and on this very world. The peace of Je­sus is the joy and sat­is­fac­tion of a God-know­ing in­di­vid­ual who has achieved the tri­umph of learn­ing fully how to do the will of God while liv­ing the mor­tal life in the flesh. The peace of Je­sus’ mind was founded on an ab­so­lute hu­man faith in the ac­tu­al­ity of the di­vine Fa­ther’s wise and sym­pa­thetic over­care. Je­sus had trou­ble on earth, he has even been falsely called the “man of sor­rows,” but in and through all of these ex­pe­ri­ences he en­joyed the com­fort of that con­fi­dence which ever em­pow­ered him to pro­ceed with his life pur­pose in the full as­sur­ance that he was achiev­ing the Fa­ther’s will.

181:1.9Je­sus was de­ter­mined, per­sis­tent, and thor­oughly de­voted to the ac­com­plish­ment of his mis­sion, but he was not an un­feel­ing and cal­loused stoic; he ever sought for the cheer­ful as­pects of his life ex­pe­ri­ences, but he was not a blind and self-de­ceived op­ti­mist. The Mas­ter knew all that was to be­fall him, and he was un­afraid. Af­ter he had be­stowed this peace upon each of his fol­low­ers, he could con­sis­tently say, “Let not your heart be trou­bled, nei­ther let it be afraid.”

181:1.10The peace of Je­sus is, then, the peace and as­sur­ance of a son who fully be­lieves that his ca­reer for time and eter­nity is safely and wholly in the care and keep­ing of an all-wise, all-lov­ing, and all-pow­er­ful spirit Fa­ther. And this is, in­deed, a peace which passes the un­der­stand­ing of mor­tal mind, but which can be en­joyed to the full by the be­liev­ing hu­man heart.

• attained › as fruit of the Spirit

193:2.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead be­cause you thereby know that you and your breth­ren shall also sur­vive mor­tal death. But such sur­vival is de­pen­dent on your hav­ing been pre­vi­ously born of the spirit of truth-seek­ing and God-find­ing. The bread of life and the wa­ter thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the king­dom. These great truths and these uni­verse facts are all re­lated to this gospel in that they are a part of the re­sult of be­liev­ing the good news and are em­braced in the sub­se­quent ex­pe­ri­ence of those who, by faith, be­come, in deed and in truth, the ev­er­last­ing sons of the eter­nal God. My Fa­ther sent me into the world to pro­claim this sal­va­tion of son­ship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this sal­va­tion of son­ship. Sal­va­tion is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will im­me­di­ately be­gin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in lov­ing ser­vice to their fel­low crea­tures. And the fruits of the di­vine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-know­ing mor­tals are: lov­ing ser­vice, un­selfish de­vo­tion, coura­geous loy­alty, sin­cere fair­ness, en­light­ened hon­esty, undy­ing hope, con­fid­ing trust, mer­ci­ful min­istry, un­fail­ing good­ness, for­giv­ing tol­er­ance, and en­dur­ing peace. If pro­fessed be­liev­ers bear not these fruits of the di­vine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are use­less branches on the liv­ing vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Fa­ther re­quires of the chil­dren of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, there­fore, you are not fruit­ful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your un­fruit­ful branches. In­creas­ingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you pro­gress heav­en­ward in the king­dom of God. You may en­ter the king­dom as a child, but the Fa­ther re­quires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spir­i­tual adult­hood. And when you go abroad to tell all na­tions the good news of this gospel, I will go be­fore you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”

• seldom attained until races are blended and speak common language

52:3.10The post-Adamic epoch is the dis­pen­sa­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al­ism. With the near com­ple­tion of the task of race blend­ing, na­tion­al­ism wanes, and the broth­er­hood of man re­ally be­gins to ma­te­ri­al­ize. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment be­gins to take the place of the monar­chial or pa­ter­nal form of ruler­ship. The ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem be­comes world-wide, and grad­u­ally the lan­guages of the races give way to the tongue of the vi­o­let peo­ple. Uni­ver­sal peace and co-op­er­a­tion are sel­dom at­tained un­til the races are fairly well blended, and un­til they speak a com­mon lan­guage.

52:6.1The be­stowal Son is the Prince of Peace. He ar­rives with the mes­sage, “Peace on earth and good will among men.” On nor­mal worlds this is a dis­pen­sa­tion of world-wide peace; the na­tions no more learn war. But such salu­tary in­flu­ences did not at­tend the com­ing of your be­stowal Son, Christ Mi­chael. Uran­tia is not pro­ceed­ing in the nor­mal or­der. Your world is out of step in the plan­e­tary pro­ces­sion. Your Mas­ter, when on earth, warned his dis­ci­ples that his ad­vent would not bring the usual reign of peace on Uran­tia. He dis­tinctly told them that there would be “wars and ru­mors of wars,” and that na­tion would rise against na­tion. At an­other time he said, “Think not that I have come to bring peace upon earth.”

52:6.2Even on nor­mal evo­lu­tion­ary worlds the re­al­iza­tion of the world-wide broth­er­hood of man is not an easy ac­com­plish­ment. On a con­fused and dis­or­dered planet like Uran­tia such an achieve­ment re­quires a much longer time and ne­ces­si­tates far greater ef­fort. Un­aided so­cial evo­lu­tion can hardly achieve such happy re­sults on a spir­i­tu­ally iso­lated sphere. Re­li­gious rev­e­la­tion is es­sen­tial to the re­al­iza­tion of broth­er­hood on Uran­tia. While Je­sus has shown the way to the im­me­di­ate at­tain­ment of spir­i­tual broth­er­hood, the re­al­iza­tion of so­cial broth­er­hood on your world de­pends much on the achieve­ment of the fol­low­ing per­sonal trans­for­ma­tions and plan­e­tary ad­just­ments:

• lack of common language impedes
• promoted by international trade

52:6.31. So­cial fra­ter­nity. Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of in­ter­na­tional and in­ter­ra­cial so­cial con­tacts and fra­ter­nal as­so­ci­a­tions through travel, com­merce, and com­pet­i­tive play. De­vel­op­ment of a com­mon lan­guage and the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of mul­ti­lin­guists. The racial and na­tional in­ter­change of stu­dents, teach­ers, in­dus­tri­al­ists, and re­li­gious philoso­phers.

52:6.42. In­tel­lec­tual cross-fer­til­iza­tion. Broth­er­hood is im­pos­si­ble on a world whose in­hab­i­tants are so prim­i­tive that they fail to rec­og­nize the folly of un­mit­i­gated self­ish­ness. There must oc­cur an ex­change of na­tional and racial lit­er­a­ture. Each race must be­come fa­mil­iar with the thought of all races; each na­tion must know the feel­ings of all na­tions. Ig­no­rance breeds sus­pi­cion, and sus­pi­cion is in­com­pat­i­ble with the es­sen­tial at­ti­tude of sym­pa­thy and love.

52:6.53. Eth­i­cal awak­en­ing. Only eth­i­cal con­scious­ness can un­mask the im­moral­ity of hu­man in­tol­er­ance and the sin­ful­ness of frat­ri­ci­dal strife. Only a moral con­science can con­demn the evils of na­tional envy and racial jeal­ousy. Only moral be­ings will ever seek for that spir­i­tual in­sight which is es­sen­tial to liv­ing the golden rule.

52:6.64. Po­lit­i­cal wis­dom. Emo­tional ma­tu­rity is es­sen­tial to self-con­trol. Only emo­tional ma­tu­rity will in­sure the sub­sti­tu­tion of in­ter­na­tional tech­niques of civ­i­lized ad­ju­di­ca­tion for the bar­barous ar­bitra­ment of war. Wise states­men will some­time work for the wel­fare of hu­man­ity even while they strive to pro­mote the in­ter­est of their na­tional or racial groups. Self­ish po­lit­i­cal sagac­ity is ul­ti­mately sui­ci­dal—de­struc­tive of all those en­dur­ing qual­i­ties which in­sure plan­e­tary group sur­vival.

52:6.75. Spir­i­tual in­sight. The broth­er­hood of man is, af­ter all, pred­i­cated on the rec­og­ni­tion of the fa­ther­hood of God. The quick­est way to re­al­ize the broth­er­hood of man on Uran­tia is to ef­fect the spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion of pres­ent-day hu­man­ity. The only tech­nique for ac­cel­er­at­ing the nat­u­ral trend of so­cial evo­lu­tion is that of ap­ply­ing spir­i­tual pres­sure from above, thus aug­ment­ing moral in­sight while en­hanc­ing the soul ca­pac­ity of ev­ery mor­tal to un­der­stand and love ev­ery other mor­tal. Mu­tual un­der­stand­ing and fra­ter­nal love are tran­scen­dent civ­i­liz­ers and mighty fac­tors in the world-wide re­al­iza­tion of the broth­er­hood of man.

52:6.8If you could be trans­planted from your back­ward and con­fused world to some nor­mal planet now in the postbestowal Son age, you would think you had been trans­lated to the heaven of your tra­di­tions. You would hardly be­lieve that you were ob­serv­ing the nor­mal evo­lu­tion­ary work­ings of a mor­tal sphere of hu­man habi­ta­tion. These worlds are in the spir­i­tual cir­cuits of their realm, and they en­joy all the ad­van­tages of the uni­verse broad­casts and the re­flec­tiv­ity ser­vices of the super­uni­verse.

• promoted by international trade
• sentimental sophistry of visionary peace planning

70:3.4The peace of Uran­tia will be pro­moted far more by in­ter­na­tional trade or­ga­ni­za­tions than by all the sen­ti­men­tal soph­istry of vi­sion­ary peace plan­ning. Trade re­la­tions have been fa­cil­i­tated by de­vel­op­ment of lan­guage and by im­proved meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion as well as by bet­ter trans­porta­tion.

• cannot be run by debating society

70:5.5It has been hard for man­kind to learn that nei­ther peace nor war can be run by a de­bat­ing so­ci­ety. The prim­i­tive “palavers” were sel­dom use­ful. The race early learned that an army com­manded by a group of clan heads had no chance against a strong one-man army. War has al­ways been a king­maker.

• when nations surrender power to make war to representative government of mankind

72:12.5The pour­ing out of the Spirit of Truth pro­vides the spir­i­tual foun­da­tion for the re­al­iza­tion of great achieve­ments in the in­ter­ests of the hu­man race of the be­stowal world. Uran­tia is there­fore far bet­ter pre­pared for the more im­me­di­ate re­al­iza­tion of a plan­e­tary gov­ern­ment with its laws, mech­a­nisms, sym­bols, con­ven­tions, and lan­guage—all of which could con­tribute so might­ily to the es­tab­lish­ment of world-wide peace un­der law and could lead to the some­time dawn­ing of a real age of spir­i­tual striv­ing; and such an age is the plan­e­tary thresh­old to the utopian ages of light and life.

• lack of common language impedes

81:6.18Lan­guage dif­fer­ences have ever been the great bar­rier to the ex­ten­sion of peace. The con­quest of di­alects must pre­cede the spread of a cul­ture through­out a race, over a con­ti­nent, or to a whole world. A uni­ver­sal lan­guage pro­motes peace, in­sures cul­ture, and aug­ments hap­pi­ness. Even when the tongues of a world are re­duced to a few, the mas­tery of these by the lead­ing cul­tural peo­ples might­ily in­flu­ences the achieve­ment of world-wide peace and pros­per­ity.

• cannot be maintained by treaties, diplomacy, or balances of power
• when nations surrender power to make war to representative government of mankind

134:5.10Uran­tia will not en­joy last­ing peace un­til the so-called sov­er­eign na­tions in­tel­li­gently and fully sur­ren­der their sov­er­eign pow­ers into the hands of the broth­er­hood of men—man­kind gov­ern­ment. In­ter­na­tion­al­ism—Leagues of Na­tions—can never bring per­ma­nent peace to man­kind. World-wide con­fed­er­a­tions of na­tions will ef­fec­tively pre­vent mi­nor wars and ac­cept­ably con­trol the smaller na­tions, but they will not pre­vent world wars nor con­trol the three, four, or five most pow­er­ful gov­ern­ments. In the face of real con­flicts, one of these world pow­ers will with­draw from the League and de­clare war. You can­not pre­vent na­tions go­ing to war as long as they re­main in­fected with the delu­sional virus of na­tional sov­er­eignty. In­ter­na­tion­al­ism is a step in the right di­rec­tion. An in­ter­na­tional po­lice force will pre­vent many mi­nor wars, but it will not be ef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing ma­jor wars, con­flicts be­tween the great mil­i­tary gov­ern­ments of earth.

134:5.11As the num­ber of truly sov­er­eign na­tions (great pow­ers) de­creases, so do both op­por­tu­nity and need for man­kind gov­ern­ment in­crease. When there are only a few re­ally sov­er­eign (great) pow­ers, ei­ther they must em­bark on the life and death strug­gle for na­tional (im­pe­rial) su­prem­acy, or else, by vol­un­tary sur­ren­der of cer­tain pre­rog­a­tives of sov­er­eignty, they must cre­ate the es­sen­tial nu­cleus of super­na­tional power which will serve as the be­gin­ning of the real sov­er­eignty of all man­kind.

134:5.12Peace will not come to Uran­tia un­til ev­ery so-called sov­er­eign na­tion sur­ren­ders its power to make war into the hands of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment of all man­kind. Po­lit­i­cal sov­er­eignty is in­nate with the peo­ples of the world. When all the peo­ples of Uran­tia cre­ate a world gov­ern­ment, they have the right and the power to make such a gov­ern­ment SOV­ER­EIGN; and when such a rep­re­sen­ta­tive or demo­cratic world power con­trols the world’s land, air, and naval forces, peace on earth and good will among men can pre­vail—but not un­til then.

• cannot be maintained by treaties, diplomacy, or balances of power

134:6.9World peace can­not be main­tained by treaties, diplo­macy, for­eign poli­cies, al­liances, bal­ances of power, or any other type of make­shift jug­gling with the sovereign­ties of na­tion­al­ism. World law must come into be­ing and must be en­forced by world gov­ern­ment—the sov­er­eignty of all man­kind.

• nationalism chief barrier to

195:8.10With­out God, with­out re­li­gion, sci­en­tific sec­u­lar­ism can never co-or­di­nate its forces, har­mo­nize its di­ver­gent and ri­val­rous in­ter­ests, races, and na­tion­alisms. This sec­u­lar­is­tic hu­man so­ci­ety, not­with­stand­ing its un­par­al­leled ma­te­ri­al­is­tic achieve­ment, is slowly dis­in­te­grat­ing. The chief co­he­sive force re­sist­ing this dis­in­te­gra­tion of an­tag­o­nism is na­tion­al­ism. And na­tion­al­ism is the chief bar­rier to world peace.