common appearances to the earliest reflection. The ancients perceived a
natural order, a divine legislation, from which human institutions were
supposed to be derived, laws emblazoned in Heaven, and thence revealed
to earth. But the divine law was little more than an analogical
inference from human law, taken in the vulgar sense of arbitrary will or
partial covenant. It was surmised rather than discovered, and remained
unmoral because unintelligible. It mattered little, under the
circumstances, whether the Universe were said to be governed by chance
or by reason, since the latter, if misunderstood, was virtually one with
the former. "Better far," said Epicurus, "acquiesce in the fables of
tradition, than acknowledge the oppressive necessity of the physicists";
and Menander speaks of God, Chance, and Intelligence as
undistinguishable. Law unacknowledged goes under the name of _Chance_:
perceived, but not understood, it becomes _Necessity_. The wisdom of the
Stoic was a dogged submission to the arbitrary behests of one; that of
the Epicurean an advantage snatched by more or less dexterous management
from the equal tyranny of the other.
Ignorance sees nothing necessary, and is self abandoned to a power
tyrannical because defined by no rule, and paradoxical because
permitting evil, while itself assumed to be unlimited, all-powerful, and
perfectly good. A little knowledge, presuming the identification of the
Supreme Cause with the inevitable certainty of perfect reason, but
omitting the analysis or interpretation of it, leaves the mind
chain-bound in the ascetic fatalism of the Stoic. Free-will, coupled
with the universal rule of Chance; or Fatalism and Necessity, coupled
with Omniscience and fixed and unalterable Law,--these are the
alternatives, between which the human mind has eternally vacillated.
The Supernaturalists, contemplating a Being acting through impulse,
though with superhuman wisdom, and considering the best courtier to be
the most favored subject, combines contradictory expedients,
inconsistently mixing the assertion of free action with the enervating
service of petition; while he admits, in the words of a learned
archbishop, that "if the production of the things we ask for depend on
antecedent, natural, and necessary causes, our desires will be answered
no less by the omission than the offering of prayers, which, therefore,
are a vain thing."
The last stage is that in which the religion of action is made
legitimate through comprehension of its proper objects and conditions.
Man becomes morally free only when both notions, that of Chance and that
of incomprehensible Necessity, are displaced by that of Law. Law, as
applied to the Universe, means that universal, providential
pre-arrangement, whose conditions can be discerned and discretionally
acted on by human intelligence. The sense of freedom arises when the
individual independence develops itself according to its own laws,
without external collisions or hindrance; that of constraint, where it
is thwarted or confined by other Natures, or where, by combination of
external forces, the individual force is compelled into a new direction.
Moral choice would not exist safely, or even at all, unless it were
bounded by conditions determining its preferences. Duty supposes a rule
both intelligible and certain, since an uncertain rule would be
unintelligible, and if unintelligible, there could be no responsibility.
No law that is unknown can be obligatory; and that Roman Emperor was
justly execrated, who pretended to promulgate his penal laws, by putting
them up at such a height that none could read them.
Man commands results, only by selecting among the contingent the
pre-ordained results most suited to his purposes. In regard to absolute
or divine morality, meaning the final cause or purpose of those
comprehensive laws which often seem harsh to the individual, because
inflexibly just and impartial to the universal, speculation must take
refuge in faith; the immediate and obvious purpose often bearing so
small a proportion to a wider and unknown one as to be relatively
absorbed or lost. The rain that, unseasonable to me, ruins my hopes of
an abundant crop, does so because it could not otherwise have blessed
and prospered the crops of another kind of a whole neighboring district
of country. The obvious purpose of a sudden storm of snow, or an
unexpected change of wind, exposed to which I lose my life, bears small
proportion to the great results which are to flow from that storm or
wind over a whole continent. So always, of the good and ill which at
first seemed irreconcilable and capriciously distributed, the one holds
its ground, the other diminishes by being explained. In a world of a
multitude of individuals, a world of action and exertion, a world
affording, by the conflict of interests and the clashing of passions,
any scope for the exercise of the manly and generous virtues, even
Omnipotence cannot make it, that the comfort and convenience of one man
alone shall always be consulted.
Thus the educated mind soon begins to appreciate the moral superiority
of a system of law over one of capricious interference; and as the
jumble of means and ends is brought into more intelligible perspective,
partial or seeming good is cheerfully resigned for the disinterested and
universal. Self-restraint is found not to imply self-sacrifice. The true
meaning of what appeared to be Necessity is found to be, not arbitrary
Power, but Strength and Force enlisted in the service of Intelligence.
God having made us men, and placed us in a world of change and eternal
renovation, with ample capacity and abundant means for rational
enjoyment, we learn that it is folly to repine because we are not
angels, inhabiting a world in which change and the clashing of interests
and the conflicts of passion are unknown.
The mystery of the world remains, but is sufficiently cleared up to
inspire confidence. We are constrained to admit that if every man would
but do the best in his power to do, and that which he knows he ought to
do, we should need no better world than this. Man, surrounded by
necessity, is free, not in a dogged determination of isolated will,
because, though inevitably complying with nature's laws, he is able,
proportionately to his knowledge, to modify, in regard to himself, the
conditions of their action, and so to preserve an average uniformity
between their forces and his own.
Such are some of the conflicting opinions of antiquity; and we have to
some extent presented to you a picture of the Ancient Thought. Faithful,
as far as it goes, it exhibits to us Man's Intellect ever struggling to
pass beyond the narrow bounds of the circle in which its limited powers
and its short vision confine it; and ever we find it travelling round
the circle, like one lost in a wood, to meet the same unavoidable and
insoluble difficulties. Science with her many instruments, Astronomy,
particularly, with her telescope, Physics with the microscope, and
Chemistry with its analyses and combinations, have greatly enlarged our
ideas of the Deity, by discovering to us the vast extent of the Universe
in both directions, its star-systems and its invisible swarms of
minutest animal life; by acquainting us with the new and wonderful Force
or Substance we call Electricity, apparently a link between Matter and
Spirit: and still the Deity only becomes more incomprehensible to us
than ever, and we find that in our speculations we but reproduce over
and over again the Ancient Thought.
Where, then, amid all these conflicting opinions, is the True Word of a
Mason?
My Brother, most of the questions which have thus tortured men's minds,
it is not within the reach and grasp of the Human Intellect to
understand; but without understanding, as we have explained to you
heretofore, we may and must _believe_.
The True Word of a Mason is to be found in the concealed and profound
meaning of the Ineffable Name of Deity, communicated by God to Moses;
and which meaning was long lost by the very precautions taken to conceal
it. The true pronunciation of that name was in truth a secret, in which,
however, was involved the far more profound secret of its meaning. In
that meaning is included all the truth than can be known by us, in
regard to the nature of God.
Long known as AL, AL SCHADAI, ALOHAYIM, and ADONAI; as the Chief or
Commander of the Heavenly Armies; as the aggregate of the Forces
[ALOHAYIM] of Nature; as the Mighty, the Victorious, the Rival of Bal
and Osiris; as the Soul of Nature, Nature itself, a God that was but Man
personified, a God with human passions, the God of the Heathen with but
a mere change of name, He assumes, in His communications to Moses, the
name יהוה [IHUH], and says to Him, אהיה אשר אהיה [AHIH ASHR AHIH], I AM
WHAT I AM. Let us examine the esoteric or inner meaning of this
Ineffable Name.
היה [HIH] is the imperfect tense of the verb To BE, of which יהיה [HIHI]
is the present; אהי [AHI--א being the personal pronoun "I" affixed] the
first person, by apocope; and יהי [IHI] the third. The verb has the
following forms: ... Preterite, 3d person, masculine singular, היה
[HIH], did exist, was; 3d person com. plural, היו [HIU] ... Present, 3d
pers. masc. sing. יהיה [IHIH], once יהוא [IHUA], by apocope יהי,אהי
[AHI, IHI].. Infinitive, היה, היו [HIH, HIU] ... Imperative, 2d pers.
masc. sing., היה [HIH], fem. הוי [HUI] ... Participle, masc. sing., הוה
[HUH], ENS--EXISTING .. EXISTENCE.
The verb is never used, as the mere logical copula or connecting word,
_is, was_, etc., is used with the Greeks, Latins, and ourselves. It
always implies _existence, actuality_. The _present_ form also includes
the _future_ sense,... _shall_ or _may_ be or exist. And הוה and הוא [HUH
and HUA] Chaldaic forms of the imperfect tense of the verb, are the same
as the Hebrew היה and הוה [HUH and HIH], and mean _was, existed,
became_.
Now הוא and היא [HUA and HIA] are the Personal Pronoun [Masculine and
Feminine], HE, SHE. Thus in Gen. iv. 20 we have the phrase, הוא היה [HUA
HIH], HE WAS: and in Lev. xxi. 9, אה אביה היא [ATH ABIH HIA], HER
Father. This feminine pronoun, however, is often written הוא [HUA], and
היא [HiA] occurs only eleven times in the Pentateuch. Sometimes the
feminine form means IT; but _that_ pronoun is generally in the masculine
form.
When either ה,ו,י, or א [Yod, Vav, He, or Aleph] terminates a word, and
has no vowel either immediately preceding or following it, it is often
rejected; as in ני [GI], for ניא [GIA], a valley.
So הוא-היא [HUA-HIA], He-She, could properly be written הו-הי [Hu-HI];
or by transposition of the letters, common with the Talmudists, יה-וה
[IH-UH], which is the Tetragrammaton or Ineffable Name.
In Gen. i. 27, it is said, "So the ALHIM created man in His image: _in
the image_ of ALHIM created He him: MALE and FEMALE created He them."
Sometimes the word was thus expressed; triangularly:
ה ו ה ה י ה י ה ו ה
And we learn that this designation of the Ineffable Name was, among the
Hebrews, a symbol of Creation. The mysterious union _of God with His
creatures_ was in the letter ה, which they considered to be the Agent of
Almighty Power; and to enable the possessor of the Name to work
miracles.
The Personal Pronoun הוא [HuA], HE, is often used _by itself_, to
express the Deity, Lee says that in such cases, IHUH, IH, or ALHIM, or
some other name of God, is _understood_; but there is no necessity for
that. It means in such cases the Male, Generative, or Creative Principle
or Power.
It was a common practice with the Talmudists to conceal secret meanings
and sounds of words by transposing the letters.
The reversal of the letters of words was, indeed, anciently common
everywhere. Thus from _Neitha_, the name of an Egyptian Goddess, the
Greeks, writing backward, formed _Athenè_, the name of Minerva. In
Arabic we have _Nahid_, a name of the planet Venus, which, reversed,
gives _Dihan_, Greek, in Persian, _Nihad_, Nature; which Sir William
Jones writes also Nahid. Strabo informs us that the Armenian name of
Venus was _Anaitis_.
_Tien_, Heaven, in Chinese, reversed, is _Neit_, or _Neith_, worshipped
at _Sais_ in Egypt. Reverse Neitha, drop the _i_, and add an _e_, and
we, as before said, _Athenè. Mitra_ was the name of Venus among the
ancient Persians. Herodotus, who tells us this, also informs us that her
name, among the Scythians, was _Artim pasa. Artim_ is _Mitra_, reversed.
So, by reversing it, the Greeks formed Artemis, Diana.
One of the meanings of _Rama_, in Sanscrit, is _Kama_, the Deity of
_Love_. Reverse this, and we have _Amar_, and by changing _a_ into _o,
Amor_, the Latin word for _Love_. Probably, as the verb is _Amare_, the
oldest reading was _Amar_ and not _Amor_. So _Dipaka_, in Sanscrit, one
of the meanings whereof is _love_, is often written _Dipuc_. Reverse
this, and we have, adding _o_, the Latin word _Cupido_.
In Arabic, the radical letters _rhm_, pronounced _rahm_, signify the
_trunk, compassion, mercy_; this reversed, we have _mhr_, in Persic,
_love_ and the _Sun_. In Hebrew we have _Lab_, the _heart_; and in
Chaldee, _Bal_, the _heart_; the radical letters of both being _b_ and
_l_.
The Persic word for _head_ is _Sar_. Reversed, this becomes _Ras_ in
Arabic and Hebrew, Raish in Chaldee, Rash in Samaritan, and Ryas in
Ethiopic; all meaning _head, chief_, etc. In Arabic we have _Kid_, in
the sense of _rule_, regulation, article of agreement, obligation;
which, reversed, becomes, adding _e_, the Greek _dikè_ justice. In
Coptic we have _Chlom_, a crown. Reversed, we have in Hebrew, _Moloch_
or _Malec_, a King, or he who wears a crown.
In the Kou-onen, or oldest Chinese writing, by Hieroglyphics, [Glyph]
_Ge_ [_Hi_ or _Khi_, with the initial letter modified], was the Sun: in
Persic. _Gaw:_ and in Turkish _Giun. Yue_, was the Moon; in
Sanscrit _Uh_, and in Turkish _Ai_. It will be remembered that, in Egypt
and elsewhere, the Sun was originally feminine, and the Moon masculine.
In Egypt, _Ioh_ was the moon; and in the feasts of Bacchus they cried
incessantly, _Euoï Sabvi! Euoï Bakhè! Io Bakhe! lo Bakhe!_
Bunsen gives the following personal pronouns for _he_ and _she_;
_He She_
Christian Aramtic Hû Hî
Jewish Aramaic Hû Hî
Hebrew Hû᾿ Hî᾿
Arabic Huwa Hiya
Thus the Ineffable Name not only embodies the Great Philosophical Idea,
that the Deity is the ENS, the TO ON, the Absolute Existence, that of
which the Essence is To Exist, the only Substance of Spinoza, the BEING,
that never could _not_ have existed, as contradistinguished from that
which only _becomes_, not Nature or the Soul of Nature, but that which
created Nature; but also the idea of the Male and Female Principles, in
its highest and most profound sense; to wit, that God originally
comprehended in Himself all that is: that matter was not co-existent
with Him, or independent of Him; that He did not merely fashion and
shape a pre-existing chaos into a Universe; but that His Thought
manifested itself outwardly in that Universe, which so _became_, and
before _was not_, except as comprehended in Him: that the Generative
Power or Spirit, and Productive Matter, ever among the ancients deemed
the Female, originally were in God; and that He Was and Is all that Was,
that Is, and that Shall be: _in_ Whom all else lives, moves, and has its
being.
This was the great Mystery of the Ineffable Name; and this true
arrangement of its letters, and of course its true pronunciation and its
meaning, soon became lost to all except the select few to whom it was
confided; it being concealed from the common people, because the Deity
thus metaphysically named was not that personal and capricious, and as
it were tangible God in whom they believed, and who alone was within the
reach of their rude capacities.
Diodorus says that the name given by Moses to God was ΙΑΩ. Theodoras
says that the Samaritans termed God _IABE_, but the Jews ΙΑΩ. Philo
Byblius gives the form ΙΕΥΩ; and Clemens of Alexandria ΙΑΟΥ. Macrobius
says that it was an admitted axiom among the Heathen, that the
triliteral ΙΑΩ was the sacred name of the Supreme God. And the Clarian
oracle said: "Learn thou that ΙΑΩ is the great God Supreme, that ruleth
over all." The letter Ι signified Unity. Α and Ω are the first and last
letters of the Greek Alphabet.
Hence the frequent expression: "I am the First, and I am the Last; and
besides Me there is no other God. I am A and Ω, the First and the Last.
I am A and Ω, the Beginning and the Ending, which Is, and Was, and Is to
come: the Omnipotent." For in this we see shadowed forth the same great
truth; that God is all in all--the Cause and the Effect--the beginning,
or Impulse, or Generative Power: and the Ending, or Result, or that
which is produced: that He is in reality all that is, all that ever was,
and all that ever will be; in this sense, that nothing besides Himself
has existed eternally, and co-eternally with Him, independent of Him,
and self-existent, or self-originated.
And thus the meaning of the expression, ALOHAYIM, a _plural_ noun, used,
in the account of the Creation with which Genesis commences, with a
singular verb, and of the name or title IHUH-ALHIM, used for the first
time in the 4th verse of the 2d chapter of the same book, becomes clear.
The ALHIM is the aggregate unity of the manifested Creative Forces or
Powers of Deity, His Emanations; and IHUH-ALHIM is the ABSOLUTE
Existence, or Essence of these Powers and Forces, of which they are
Active Manifestations and Emanations.
This was the profound truth hidden in the ancient allegory and covered
from the general view with a double veil. This was the esoteric meaning
of the generation and production of the Indian, Chaldean, and Phœnician
cosmogonies; and the Active and Passive Powers, of the Male and Female
Principles; of Heaven and its Luminaries generating, and the Earth
producing; all hiding from vulgar view, as above its comprehension, the
doctrine that matter is not eternal, but that God was the only original
Existence, the ABSOLUTE, from Whom everything has proceeded, and to Whom
all returns: and that all moral law springs not from the relation of
things, but from His Wisdom and Essential Justice, as the Omnipotent
Legislator. And this TRUE WORD is with entire accuracy said to have been
_lost_; because its _meaning_ was lost, even among the Hebrews, although
we still find the name (its real meaning unsuspected), in the Hu of the
Druids and the Fo-Hi of the Chinese.
When we conceive of the Absolute Truth, Beauty, or Good, we cannot stop
short at the abstraction of either. We are forced to refer each to some
living and substantial Being, in which they have their foundations, some
being that is the first and last principle of each.
Moral Truth, like every other universal and necessary truth, cannot
remain a mere abstraction. Abstractions are unrealities. In ourselves,
moral truth is merely conceived of. There must be _somewhere_ a Being
that not only _conceives_ of, but _constitutes_ it. It has this
characteristic; that it is not only, to the eyes of our intelligence, an
universal and necessary truth, but one obligatory on our will. It is A
LAW. _We_ do not establish that law _ourselves_. It is imposed on us
_despite_ ourselves: its principle must be _without_ us. It supposes a
legislator. He cannot be the being to whom the law applies; but must be
one that possesses in the highest degree all the characteristics of
moral truth. The moral law, universal and necessary, necessarily has as
its author a necessary being--composed of justice and charity, its
author must be a being possessing the plenitude of both.
As all _beautiful_ and all _true_ things refer themselves, _these_ to a
Unity which is absolute TRUTH, and those to a Unity which is absolute
BEAUTY, so all the _moral_ principles centre in a single principle,
which is THE GOOD. Thus we arrive at the conception of THE GOOD _in
itself_, the ABSOLUTE Good, superior to all _particular_ duties, and
determinate in those duties. This Absolute _Good_ must necessarily be an
attribute of the Absolute BEING. There cannot be _several_ Absolute
Beings; the one in whom are realized Absolute Truth and Absolute Beauty
being different from the one in whom is realized Absolute Good. The
Absolute necessarily implies absolute Unity. The True, the Beautiful,
and the Good are not three distinct essences: but they are one and the
same essence, considered in its fundamental attributes: the different
phases which, in our eyes, the Absolute and Infinite Perfection assumes.
Manifested in the World of the Finite and Relative, these three
attributes separate from each other, and are distinguished by our minds,
which can comprehend nothing except by division. But in the Being from
Whom they emanate, they are indivisibly united; and this Being, at once
triple and one, Who sums up in Himself perfect _Beauty_, perfect
_Truth_, and the perfect _Good_, is GOD.
God is necessarily the principle of Moral Truth, and of personal
morality. Man is a moral person, that is to say, one endowed with reason
and liberty. He is capable of Virtue: and Virtue has with him two
principal forms, respect for others and love of others,--_justice_ and
_charity_.
The _creature_ can possess no real and essential attribute which the
_Creator_ does not possess. The _effect_ can draw its reality and
existence only from its _cause_. The _cause_ contains in itself, at
least, what is essential in the _effect_. The characteristic of the
effect is inferiority, short-coming, imperfection. Dependent and
derivate, it bears in itself the marks and conditions of dependence; and
its imperfection proves the perfection of the cause; or else there would
be in the effect something immanent, without a cause.
God is not a logical Being, whose Nature may be explained by deduction,
and by means of algebraic equations. When, setting out with a primary
attribute, the attributes of God are deduced one from the other, after
the manner of the Geometricians and Scholastics, we have nothing but
abstractions. We must emerge from this empty dialetic, to arrive at a
true and living God. The first notion which we have of God, that of an
_Infinite_ Being, is not given us _à priori_, independently of all
experience. It is our consciousness of ourself, as at once a Being and a
limited Being, that immediately raises us to the conception of a Being,
the principle of _our_ being, and Himself without limits. If the
existence that we possess forces us to recur to a cause possessing the
same existence in an infinite degree, all the substantial attributes of
existence that we possess equally require each an infinite cause. God,
then, is no longer the Infinite, Abstract, Indeterminate Being, of which
reason and the heart cannot lay hold, but a real Being, determinate like
ourselves, a moral person like ourself; and the study of our own souls
will conduct us, without resort to hypothesis, to a conception of God,
both sublime and having a connection with ourselves.
If man be free, God must be so. It would be strange if, while the
creature has that marvellous power of disposing of himself, of choosing
and willing freely, the Being that has made him should be subject to a
necessary development, the cause of which, though in Himself, is a sort
of abstract, mechanical, or metaphysical power, inferior to the
personal, voluntary cause which we are, and of which we have the
clearest consciousness. God is free _because_ we are: but he is not free
as we are. He is at once _everything_ that we are, and _nothing_ that we
are. He possesses the same attributes as we, but extended to infinity.
He possesses, then, an infinite liberty, united to an infinite
intelligence; and as His intelligence is infallible, exempt from the
uncertainty of deliberation, and perceiving at a glance where the Good
is, so His liberty accomplishes it spontaneously and without effort.