the Deity cannot make it that there should be effects without a cause,
or phenomena without substance. As little could He make it to be sinful
and evil to respect our pledged word, to love truth, to moderate our
passions. The principles of Morality are axioms, like the principles of
Geometry. The moral laws are the necessary relations that flow from the
nature of things, and they are not created by, but have existed
eternally in God. Their continued existence does not depend upon the
exercise of His WILL. Truth and Justice are of His ESSENCE. Not because
we are feeble and God omnipotent, is it our duty to obey His law. We may
be forced, but are not under obligation, to obey the stronger. God is
the principle of Morality, but not by His mere will, which, abstracted
from all other of His attributes, would be neither just nor unjust. Good
is the expression of His will, in so far as that will is itself the
expression of eternal, absolute, uncreated justice, which is _in_ God,
which His will did not create; but which it executes and promulgates, as
_our_ will proclaims and promulgates and executes the idea of the good
which is in us. He has given us the law of Truth and Justice; but He has
not arbitrarily instituted that law. Justice is inherent in His will,
because it is contained in His intelligence and wisdom, in His very
nature and most intimate essence.
_Qu_ What is the fifth great Truth in Masonry?
_Ans_ There is an essential distinction between Good and Evil, what is
just and what is unjust; and to this distinction is attached, for every
intelligent and free creature, the absolute obligation of conforming to
what is good and just. Man is an intelligent and free being,--free,
because he is conscious that it is his duty, and because it is _made_
his duty, to obey the dictates of truth and justice, and therefore he
must necessarily have the power of doing so, which involves the power of
_not_ doing so;--capable of comprehending the distinction between good
and evil, justice and injustice, and the obligation which accompanies
it, and of naturally adhering to that obligation, independently of any
contract or positive law; capable also of resisting the temptations
which urge him toward evil and injustice, and of complying with the
sacred law of eternal justice.
That man is not governed by a resistless Fate or inexorable Destiny; but
is free to choose between the evil and the good: that Justice and Right,
the Good and Beautiful, are of the essence of the Divinity, like His
Infinitude; and therefore they are laws to man: that we are conscious of
our freedom to act, as we are conscious of our identity, and the
continuance and connectedness of our existence; and have the same
evidence of one as of the other; and if we can put _one_ in doubt, we
have no certainty of _either_, and everything is unreal: that we can
deny our free will and free agency, only upon the ground that they are
in the nature of things impossible; which would be to deny the
Omnipotence of God.
_Qu_ What is the sixth great Truth of Masonry?
_Ans_ The necessity of practising the moral truths, is _obligation_.
The moral truths, necessary in the eye of reason, are obligatory on the
will. The moral obligation, like the moral truth that is its foundation,
is _absolute_. As the necessary truths are not more or less necessary,
so the obligation is not more or less obligatory. There are degrees of
importance among different obligations; but none in the obligation
itself. We are not _nearly_ obliged, _almost_ obliged. We are _wholly_
so, or not at all. If there be any place of refuge to which we can
escape from the obligation, it ceases to exist. If the obligation is
absolute, it is immutable and universal. For if that of to-day may not
be that of to-morrow, if what is obligatory on _me_ may not be
obligatory on _you_, the obligation would differ from itself, and be
variable and contingent. This fact is the principle of all morality.
That every act contrary to right and justice, deserves to be repressed
by force, and punished when committed, equally in the absence of any law
or contract: that man naturally recognizes the distinction between the
merit and demerit of actions, as he does that between justice and
injustice, honesty and dishonesty; and feels, without being taught, and
in the absence of law or contract, that it is wrong for vice to be
rewarded or go unpunished, and for virtue to be punished or left
unrewarded: and that, the Deity being infinitely just and good, it must
follow as a necessary and inflexible law that punishment shall be the
result of Sin, its inevitable and natural effect and corollary, and not
a mere arbitrary vengeance.
_Qu_ What is the seventh great Truth in Masonry?
_Ans_ The immutable law of God requires, that besides respecting the
absolute rights of others, and being merely just, we should do good, be
charitable, and obey the dictates of the generous and noble sentiments
of the soul. Charity is a law, because our conscience is not satisfied
nor at ease if we have not relieved the suffering, the distressed, and
the destitute. It is to _give_ that which he to whom you give has no
right to _take_ or _demand_. To be charitable is obligatory on us. We
are the Almoners of God's bounties. But the obligation is not so precise
and inflexible as the obligation to be _just_. Charity knows neither
rule nor limit. It goes beyond all obligation. Its beauty consists in
its liberty. "He that loveth not, knoweth not God; FOR GOD IS LOVE. If
we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in
us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God
in him." To be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; to
relieve the necessities of the needy, and be generous, liberal, and
hospitable; to return to no man evil for evil; to rejoice at the good
fortune of others, and sympathize with them in their sorrows and
reverses; to live peaceably with all men, and repay injuries with
benefits and kindness; these are the sublime dictates of the Moral Law,
taught from the infancy of the world, by Masonry.
_Qu_ What is the eighth great Truth in Masonry?
_Ans_ That the laws which control and regulate the Universe of God, are
those of motion and harmony. We see only the isolated incidents of
things, and with our feeble and limited capacity and vision cannot
discern their connection, nor the mighty chords that make the apparent
discord perfect harmony. Evil is merely apparent, and all is in reality
good and perfect. For pain and sorrow, persecution and hardships,
affliction and destitution, sickness and death are but the means, by
which alone the noblest virtues could be developed. Without them, and
without sin and error, and wrong and outrage, as there can be no effect
without an adequate cause, there could be neither patience under
suffering and distress; nor prudence in difficulty; nor temperance to
avoid excess; nor courage to meet danger; nor truth, when to speak the
truth is hazardous; nor love, when it is met with ingratitude; nor
charity for the needy and destitute; nor forbearance and forgiveness of
injuries; nor toleration of erroneous opinions; nor charitable judgment
and construction of men's motives and actions; nor patriotism, nor
heroism, nor honor, nor self-denial, nor generosity. These and most
other virtues and excellencies would have no existence, and even their
names be unknown; and the poor virtues that still existed, would scarce
deserve the name; for life would be one flat, dead, low level, above
which none of the lofty elements of human nature would emerge; and man
would lie lapped in contented indolence and idleness, a mere worthless
negative, instead of the brave, strong soldier against the grim legions
of Evil and rude Difficulty.
_Qu_ What is the ninth great Truth in Masonry?
_Ans_ The great leading doctrine of this Degree;--that the JUSTICE, the
WISDOM, and the MERCY of God are alike infinite, alike perfect, and yet
do not in the least jar nor conflict one with the other; but form a
Great Perfect Trinity of Attributes, three and yet one: that, the
principle of merit and demerit being absolute, and every good action
deserving to be rewarded, and every bad one to be punished, and God
being as just as He is good; and yet the cases constantly recurring in
this world, in which crime and cruelty, oppression, tyranny, and
injustice are prosperous, happy, fortunate, and self-contented, and rule
and reign, and enjoy all the blessings of God's beneficence, while the
virtuous and good are unfortunate, miserable, destitute, pining away in
dungeons, perishing with cold, and famishing with hunger, slaves of
oppression, and instruments and victims of the miscreants that govern;
so that this world, if there were no existence beyond it, would be one
great theatre of wrong and injustice, proving God wholly disregardful of
His own necessary law of merit and demerit;--it follows that there must
be another life in which these apparent wrongs shall be repaired; That
all the powers of man's soul tend to infinity; and his indomitable
instinct of immortality, and the universal hope of another life,
testified by all creeds, all poetry, all traditions, establish its
certainty; for man is not an orphan; but hath a Father near at hand: and
the day must come when Light and Truth, and the Just and Good shall be
victorious, and Darkness, Error, Wrong, and Evil be annihilated, and
known no more forever: That the Universe is one great Harmony, in which,
according to the faith of all nations, deep-rooted in all hearts in the
primitive ages, Light will ultimately prevail over Darkness, and the
Good Principle over the Evil: and the myriad souls that have emanated
from the Divinity, purified and ennobled by the struggle here below,
will again return to perfect bliss in the bosom of God to offend against
Whose laws will then be no longer possible.
_Qu_ What, then, is the one great lesson taught to us, as Masons, in
this Degree?
_Ans_ That to that state and realm of Light and Truth and Perfection,
which is absolutely certain, all the good men on earth are tending; and
if there is a law from whose operation none are exempt, which inevitably
conveys their bodies to darkness and to dust, there is another not less
certain nor less powerful, which conducts their spirits to that state of
Happiness and Splendor and Perfection, the bosom of their Father and
their God. The wheels of Nature are not made to roll backward.
Everything presses on to Eternity. From the birth of Time an impetuous
current has set in, which bears all the sons of men toward that
interminable ocean. Meanwhile, Heaven is attracting to itself whatever
is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of the
Earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure,
permanent, and divine, leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but
the gross matter that creates concupiscence; while everything fit for
that good fortune shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the
world, to adorn that Eternal City.
Let every Mason then obey the voice that calls him thither. Let us seek
the things that are above, and be not content with a world that must
shortly perish, and which we must speedily quit, while we neglect to
prepare for that in which we are invited to dwell forever. While
everything within us and around us reminds us of the approach of death,
and concurs to teach us that this is not our rest, let us hasten our
preparations for another world, and earnestly implore that help and
strength from our Father, which alone can put an end to that fatal war
which our desires have too long waged with our destiny. When these move
in the same direction, and that which God's will renders unavoidable
shall become our choice, all things will be ours; life will be divested
of its vanity, and death disarmed of its terrors.
_Qu_ What are the symbols of the purification necessary to make us
perfect Masons?
_Ans_ Lavation with pure water, or baptism; because to cleanse the body
is emblematical of purifying the soul; and because it conduces to the
bodily health, and virtue is the health of the soul, as sin and vice are
its malady and sickness:--unction, or anointing with oil; because
thereby we are set apart and dedicated to the service and priesthood of
the Beautiful, the True, and the Good:--and robes of white, emblems of
candor, purity, and truth.
_Qu_ What is to us the chief symbol of man's ultimate redemption and
regeneration?
_Ans_ The fraternal supper, of bread which nourishes, and of wine which
refreshes and exhilarates, symbolical of the time which is to come, when
all mankind shall be one great harmonious brotherhood; and teaching us
these great lessons: that as matter changes ever, but no single atom is
annihilated, it is not rational to suppose that the far nobler soul does
not continue to exist beyond the grave: that many thousands who have
died before us might claim to be joint owners with ourselves of the
particles that compose our mortal bodies; for matter ever forms, new
combinations; and the bodies of the ancient dead, the patriarchs before
and since the flood, the kings and common people of all ages, resolved
into their constituent elements, are carried upon the wind over all
continents, and continually enter into and form part of the habitations
of new souls, creating new bonds of sympathy and brotherhood between
each man that lives and all his race. And thus, in the bread we eat, and
in the wine we drink to-night _may_ enter into and form part of us the
identical particles of matter that once formed parts of the material
bodies called Moses, Confucius, Plato, Socrates, or Jesus of Nazareth.
In the truest sense, we eat and drink the bodies of the dead; and cannot
say that there is a single atom of our blood or body, the ownership of
which some other soul might not dispute with us. It teaches us also the
infinite beneficence of God who sends us seed-time and harvest, each in
its season, and makes His showers to fall and His sun to shine alike
upon the evil and the good: bestowing upon us unsolicited His
innumerable blessings, and asking no return. For there are no angels
stationed upon the watch-towers of creation to call the world to prayer
and sacrifice; but He bestows His benefits in silence, like a kind
friend who comes at night, and, leaving his gifts at the door, to be
found by us in the morning, goes quietly away and asks no thanks, nor
ceases his kind offices for our ingratitude. And thus the bread and wine
teach us that our Mortal Body is no more WE than the house in which we
live, or the garments that we wear; but the Soul is I, the ONE,
identical, unchangeable, immortal emanation from the Deity, to return
to God and be forever happy, in His good time; as our mortal bodies,
dissolving, return to the elements from which they came, their particles
coming and going ever in perpetual genesis. To our Jewish Brethren, this
supper is symbolical of the Passover: to the Christian Mason, of that
eaten by Christ and His Disciples when, celebrating the Passover, He
broke bread and gave it to them, saying, "Take! eat! this is My body;"
and giving them the cup, He said, "Drink ye all of it! for this is My
blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of
sins;" thus symbolizing the perfect harmony and union between Himself
and the faithful; and His death upon the cross for the salvation of man.
The history of Masonry is the history of Philosophy. Masons do not
pretend to set themselves up for instructors of the human race: but,
though Asia produced and preserved the Mysteries, Masonry has, in Europe
and America, given regularity to their doctrines, spirit, and action,
and developed the moral advantages which mankind may reap from them.
More consistent, and more simple in its mode of procedure, it has put an
end to the vast allegorical pantheon of ancient mythologies, and itself
become a science.
None can deny that Christ taught a lofty morality. "Love one another:
forgive those that despitefully use you and persecute you: be pure of
heart, meek, humble, contented: lay not up riches on earth, but in
Heaven: submit to the powers lawfully over you: become like these little
children, or ye cannot be saved, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven:
forgive the repentant; and cast no stone at the sinner, if you too have
sinned: do unto others as ye would have others do unto you:" such, and
not abstruse questions of theology, were His simple and sublime
teachings.
The early Christians followed in His footsteps. The first preachers of
the faith had no thought of domination. Entirely animated by His saying,
that he among them should be first, who should serve with the greatest
devotion, they were humble, modest, and charitable, and they knew how to
communicate this spirit of the inner man to the churches under their
direction. These churches were at first but spontaneous meetings of all
Christians inhabiting the same locality. A pure and severe morality,
mingled with religious enthusiasm, was the characteristic of each, and
excited the admiration even of their persecutors. Everything was in
common among them; their property, their joys, and their sorrows. In the
silence of night they met for instruction and to pray together. Their
love-feasts, or fraternal repasts, ended these reunions, in which all
differences in social position and rank were effaced in the presence of
a paternal Divinity. Their sole object was to make men better, by
bringing them back to a simple worship, of which universal morality was
the basis; and to end those numerous and cruel sacrifices which
everywhere inundated with blood the altars of the gods. Thus did
Christianity reform the world, and obey the teachings of its founder. It
gave to woman her proper rank and influence; it regulated domestic life;
and by admitting the slaves to the love-feasts, it by degrees raised
them above that oppression under which half of mankind had groaned for
ages.
This, in its purity, as taught by Christ Himself, was the true primitive
religion, as communicated by God to the Patriarchs. It was no new
religion, but the reproduction of the oldest of all; and its true and
perfect morality is the morality of Masonry, as is the morality of every
creed of antiquity.
In the early days of Christianity, there was an initiation like those of
the pagans. Persons were admitted on special conditions only. To arrive
at a complete knowledge of the doctrine, they had to pass three degrees
of instruction. The initiates were consequently divided into three
classes; the first, _Auditors_, the second, _Catechumens_, and the
third, _the Faithful_. The Auditors were a sort of novices, who were
prepared by certain ceremonies and certain instruction to receive the
dogmas of Christianity. A portion of these dogmas was made known to the
Catechumens; who, after particular purifications, received baptism, or
the initiation of the _theogenesis (divine generation)_; but in the
grand mysteries of that religion, the incarnation, nativity, passion,
and resurrection of Christ, none were initiated but _the Faithful_.
These doctrines, and the celebration of the Holy Sacraments,
particularly the Eucharist, were kept with profound secrecy. These
Mysteries were divided into two parts; the first styled the Mass of the
Catechumens; the second, the Mass of the Faithful. The celebration of
the Mysteries of Mithras was also styled _a mass_; and the ceremonies
used were the same. There were found all the sacraments of the Catholic
Church, even the breath of confirmation. The Priest of Mithras promised
the Initiates deliverance from sin, by means of confession and baptism,
and a future life of happiness or misery. He celebrated the oblation of
bread, image of the resurrection. The baptism of newly-born children,
extreme unction, confession of sins,--all belonged to the Mithriac
rites. The candidate was purified by a species of baptism, a mark was
impressed upon his forehead, he offered bread and water, pronouncing
certain mysterious words.
During the persecutions in the early ages of Christianity, the
Christians took refuge in the vast catacombs which stretched for miles
in every direction under the city of Rome, and are supposed to have been
of Etruscan origin. There, amid labyrinthine windings, deep caverns,
hidden chambers, chapels, and tombs, the persecuted fugitives found
refuge, and there they performed the ceremonies of the Mysteries.
The Basilideans, a sect of Christians that arose soon after the time of
the Apostles, practised the Mysteries, with the old Egyptian legend.
They symbolized Osiris by the Sun, Isis by the Moon, and Typhon by
Scorpio; and wore crystals bearing these emblems, as amulets or
talismans to protect them from danger; upon which were also a brilliant
star and the serpent. They were copied from the talismans of Persia and
Arabia, and given to every candidate at his initiation.
Irenæus tells us that the Simonians, one of the earliest sects of the
Gnostics, had a Priesthood of the Mysteries.
Tertullian tells us that the Valentinians, the most celebrated of all
the Gnostic schools, imitated, or rather perverted, the Mysteries of
Eleusis. Irenæus informs us, in several curious chapters, of the
Mysteries practised by the Marcosians; and Origen gives much information
as to the Mysteries of the Ophites; and there is no doubt that all the
Gnostic sects had Mysteries and an initiation. They all claimed to
possess a secret doctrine, coming to them directly from Jesus Christ,
different from that of the Gospels and Epistles, and superior to those
communications, which in their eyes, were merely exoteric. This secret
doctrine they did not communicate to every one; and among the extensive
sect of the Basilideans hardly one in a thousand knew it, as we learn
from Irenæus. We know the name of only the highest class of their
Initiates. They were styled _Elect_ or _Elus_ [[Greek: Έκλεκτοί]], and
Strangers to the World [[Greek: ξένοι έν κόσμώ]]. They had at least
three Degrees--the _Material_, the _Intellectual_, and the _Spiritual_,
and the lesser and greater Mysteries; and the number of those who
attained the highest Degree was quite small.
Baptism was one of their most important ceremonies; and the Basilideans
celebrated the 10th of January, as the anniversary of the day on which
Christ was baptized in Jordan.
They had the ceremony of laying on of hands, by way of purification; and
that of the mystic banquet, emblem of that to which they believed the
Heavenly Wisdom would one day admit them, in the fullness of things
[[Greek: Πλήρωμα]].
Their ceremonies were much more like those of the Christians than those
of Greece; but they mingled with them much that was borrowed from the
Orient and Egypt: and taught the primitive truths, mixed with a
multitude of fantastic errors and fictions.
The discipline of the secret was the concealment (_occultatio_) of
certain tenets and ceremonies. So says Clemens of Alexandria.
To avoid persecution, the early Christians were compelled to use great
precaution, and to hold meetings of the Faithful [_of the Household of
Faith_] in private places, under concealment by darkness. They assembled
in the night, and they guarded against the intrusion of false brethren
and profane persons, spies who might cause their arrest. They conversed
together figuratively, and by the use of symbols, lest cowans and
eavesdroppers might overhear: and there existed among them a favored
class, or Order, who were initiated into certain Mysteries which they
were bound by solemn promise not to disclose, or even converse about,
except with such as had received them under the same sanction. They were
called _Brethren, the Faithful, Stewards of the Mysteries,
Superintendents, Devotees of the Secret_, and ARCHITECTS.
In the _Hierarchiœ_, attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, the
first Bishop of Athens, the tradition of the sacrament is said to have
been divided into three Degrees, or grades, _purification, initiation_,
and _accomplishment_ or _perfection_; and it mentions also, as part of
the ceremony, _the bringing to sight_.