FREEMASONRY.

Freemasonry, we must remember always, appeared generally and spread

generally, too, in the interests of all that Voltaire aimed at, when it

best suited his purpose. The first lodge established in France under

the English obedience was in 1727. Its founder and first master was

the celebrated Jacobite, Lord Derwentwater. It had almost immediate

acceptance from the degenerate nobility of France, who, partly because

of the influence of English and Scotch Jacobite nobles, and partly

because of its novelty, hard swearing, and mystery, joined the strange

institution. Its lodges were soon in every considerable city of the

realm. The philosophers and various schools of Atheists, however, were

the first to enter into and to extend it. For them it had special

attractions and special uses, which they were not slow to appreciate

and to employ. Now, though it very little concerns us to know much of

the origin of this society, which became then and since so notorious

throughout the world, still, as that origin throws some light on its

subsequent history, it will not be lost time to glance at what is

known, or supposed to be known, about it. Monsignor Segur,[5] Bishop of

Grenoble, who devoted much time to a study of Freemasonry, is persuaded

that it was first elaborated by Faustus Socinus, the nephew of the too

celebrated Lælius Socinus, the heresiarch and founder of the sect of

Unitarians or, as they are generally called after him, Socinians. Both

were of the ancient family of the Sozini of Sienna. Faustus, like many of

his relatives, imbibed the errors of his uncle, and in order to escape

the vigilance of the Inquisition, to which both Italy and Spain owed much

of the tranquillity they enjoyed in these troublesome times, he fled to

France. While in that country at Lyons, and when only twenty years of

age, he heard of the death of his uncle at Zurich, and went at once to

that city to obtain the papers and effects of the deceased. From the

papers he found that Lælius had assisted at a conference of Heretics at

Vicenza, in 1547, in which the destruction of Christianity was resolved

upon, and where resolutions were adopted for the renewal of Arianism—a

system of false doctrine calculated to sap the very foundations of

existing Faith by attacking the Trinity and the Incarnation. Feller, an

authority of considerable weight, in his reference to this conference,

says: “In the assembly of Vicenza, they agreed upon the means of

destroying the religion of Jesus Christ, by forming a society which by

its progressive successes brought on, towards the end of the eighteenth

century, an almost general apostasy. When the Republic of Venice became

informed of this conspiracy, it seized upon Julian Trevisano and Francis

de Rugo, and strangled them. Ochinus and the others saved themselves. The

society thus dispersed became only the more dangerous, and it is that

which is known to-day under the name of Freemasons.” For this information

Feller refers us to a work entitled “The Veil Removed,” _Le Voile Levè_,

by the Abbé Le Franc, a victim of the reign of terror, in 1792. The

latter tells us that the conspirators whom the severity of the Venetian

Republic had scattered, and who were Ochinus, Lælius Socinus, Peruta,

Gentilis, Jacques Chiari, Francis Lenoir, Darius Socinus, Alicas, and

the Abbé Leonard, carried their poison with them, and caused it to bear

fruits of death in all parts of Europe. The success of Faustus Socinus

in spreading his uncle’s theories was enormous. His aim was not only

to destroy the Church, but to raise up another temple into which any

enemy of orthodoxy might freely enter. In this temple every heterodox

belief might be held. It was called Christian but was without Christian

faith, or hope, or love. It was simply an astutely planned system for

propagating the ideas of its founders; for a fundamental part of the

policy of Socinus, and one in which he well instructed his disciples, was

to associate either to Unitarianism or to the confederation formed at

Vicenza, the rich, the learned, the powerful, and the influential of the

world. He feigned an equal esteem for Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians,

for Lutherans and Calvinists. He praised the undertakings of all

against the Church of Rome, and working upon their intense hatred for

Catholicity, caused them to forget their many “isms” in order to unite

them for the destruction of the common enemy. When that should be

effected, it would be time to consider a system agreeable to all. Until

then, unity of action inspired by hatred of the Church should reign

amongst them.

He therefore wished that all his adherents should, whether Lutheran

or Calvinist, treat one another as brothers; and hence his disciples

have been called at various times “United Brethren,” “Polish Brothers,”

“Moravian Brothers,” “Brother Masons,” and finally “Freemasons.” Mgr.

Segur informs us, on the authorities before quoted, as well as upon that

of Bergier, and the learned author of a work entitled, “Les Franc-Maçons

Ecrasés,”—the Abbé Lerudan—printed at Amsterdam, as early as the year

1747, that the real secret of Freemasonry consisted, even then, in

disbelief in the Divinity of Christ, and a determination to replace that

doctrine, which is the very foundation of Christianity, by Naturalism

or Rationalism. Socinus having established his sect in Poland, sent

emissaries to preach his doctrines stealthily in Germany, Holland, and

England. In Germany, Protestants and Catholics united to unmask them. In

Holland, they blended with the Anabaptists, and in England, they found

partisans amongst the Independents and various other sects into which the

people were divided.

The Abbé Lefranc believes (_Le Voile Levè_, Lyons, 1821), that Oliver

Cromwell was a Socinian, and that he introduced Freemasonry into England.

Certainly, Cromwell’s sympathies were not for the Church favoured by the

monarch he supplanted, and were much with the Independents. If he was

a Socinian, we can easily understand how the secret society of Vicenza

could have attractions for one of his anti-Catholic and ambitious

sentiments. He gave its members in England, as Mgr. Segur tells us, the

title of Freemasons, and invented the allegory of the Temple of Solomon,

now so much used by Masonry of every kind, and which meant the original

state of man supposed to be a commonwealth of equality with a vague Deism

as its religion. This temple, destroyed by Christ for the Christian

order, was to be restored by Freemasonry after Christ and the Christian

order should be obliterated by conspiracy and revolution. The state of

Nature was the “Hiram” whose murder Masonry was to avenge; and which,

having previously removed Christ, was to resuscitate Hiram, by rebuilding

the temple of Nature as it had been before.

Mgr. Segur, moreover, connects modern Freemasonry with the Jews and

Templars, as well as with Socinus. There are reasons which lead me to

think that he is right in doing so. The Jews for many centuries previous

to the Reformation, had formed secret societies for their own protection

and for the destruction of the Christianity which persecuted them, and

which they so much hated. The rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon was

the dream of their lives. It is unquestionable that they wished to make

common cause with other bodies of persecuted religionists. They had

special reason to welcome with joy such heretics as were cast off by

Catholicity. It is, therefore, not at all improbable, that they admitted

into their secret conclaves some at least of the discontented Templars,

burning for revenge upon those who dispossessed and suppressed the

Order. That fact would account for the curious combination of Jewish and

conventual allusions to be found in modern Masonry.[6] Then, as to its

British History, we have seen that numbers of the secret brotherhood of

Socinus made their way to England and Scotland, where they found friends,

and, perhaps, confederates. I have, therefore, no doubt but that the

Abbé Lefranc is correct, when he says that Cromwell was connected with

them. At least, before he succeeded in his designs, he had need of some

such secret society, and would, no doubt, be glad to use it for his

purposes. But it is not so clear that Cromwell was the first, as Lefranc

thinks, to blend that brotherhood with the real Freemasons. The ancient

guild of working masons had existed in Great Britain and in Europe for

many centuries previous to his time. They were like every other guild

of craftsmen—a body formed for mutual protection and trade offices.

But they differed from other tradespeople in this, that from their

duties they were more cosmopolitan, and knew more of the ceremonies of

religion at a period when the arts of reading and writing were not very

generally understood. They travelled over every portion of England and

Scotland, and frequently crossed the Channel, to work at the innumerable

religious houses, castles, fortifications, great abbeys, churches and

cathedrals which arose over the face of Christendom in such number and

splendour in the middle and succeeding ages. To keep away interlopers,

to sustain a uniform rate of wages, to be known amongst strangers, and,

above all, amongst foreigners of their craft, signs were necessary; and

these signs could be of value only in proportion to the secrecy with

which they were kept within the craft itself. They had signs for those

whom they accepted as novices, for the companion mason or journeyman,

and for the masters of the craft. In ages when a trade was transmitted

from father to son, and formed a kind of family inheritance, we can very

well imagine that its secrets were guarded with much jealousy, and that

its adepts were enjoined not to communicate them to anyone, not even to

their wives, lest they may become known to outsiders. The masons were,

if we except the clockmakers and jewellers, the most skilled artisans

of Europe. By the cunning of their hands they knew how to make the

rough stone speak out the grand conceptions of the architects of the

middle ages; and often, the delicate foliage and flowers and statuary

of the fanes they built, remind us of the most perfect eras of Greek

and Roman sculpture. So closely connected with religion and religious

architecture as were these “Brothers Masons,” “Friar,” “Fra,” or “Free

Masons,” they shared to a large extent in the favour of the Popes. They

obtained many and valuable charters. But they degenerated. The era of

the so-called Reformation was a sad epoch for them. It was an era of

Church demolition rather than of Church building. Wherever the blight of

Protestantism fell, the beauty and stateliness of Church architecture

became dwarfed, stunted, and degraded, whenever it was not utterly

destroyed. The need of Brothers Masons had passed, and succeeding Masons

began to admit men to their guilds who won a living otherwise than by

the craft. In Germany their confraternity had become a cover for the

reformers, and Socinus seeing in it a means for advancing his sect—a

method for winning adepts and progressing stealthily without attracting

the notice of Catholic governments, would desire no doubt to use it for

his purposes. We have to this day the statutes the genuine Freemasons

of Strasbourg framed in 1462, and the same revised as late as 1563,

but in them there is absolutely nothing of heresy or hostility to the

Church. But there is a curious document called the Charter of Cologne

dated 1535, which, if it be genuine, proves to us that there existed at

that early period a body of Freemasons, having principles identical with

those professed by the Masons of our own day. It is to be found in the

archives of the Mother Lodge of Amsterdam, which also preserves the act

of its own constitution under the date of 1519. It reveals the existence

of lodges of kindred intent in London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Amsterdam,

Paris, Lyons, Frankfort, Hamburg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Madrid, Venice,

Goriz, Koenigsberg, Brussels, Dantzic, Magdeburg, Bremen and Cologne;

and it bears the signatures of well-known enemies of the Church at that

period, namely—Hermanus or Herman de Weir, the immoral and heretical

Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, placed for his misdeeds under the ban

of the Empire; De Coligny, leader of the Huguenots of France; Jacob

d’Anville, Prior of the Augustinians of Cologne, who incurred the same

reproaches as Archbishop Herman; Melancthon, the Reformer; Nicholas

Van Noot; Carlton; Bruce; Upson; Banning; Vireaux; Schroeder; Hofman;

Nobel; De la Torre; Doria; Uttenbow; Falck; Huissen; Wormer. These names

reveal both the country and the celebrity of all the men who signed the

document. It was, possibly, a society like theirs, which the Venetian

Government broke up and scattered in 1547, for we find distinct mention

of a lodge existing at Venice in 1535. However this may be, Freemason

lodges existed in Scotland from the time of the Reformation. One of

them is referred to in the Charter of Cologne, and doubtless had many

affiliations. In Scotland, as in other Catholic countries, the Templars

were suppressed; and there, if nowhere else, that Order had the guilds of

working masons under its special protection. It is therefore possible,

as some say, that the knights coalesced with these Masons, and protected

their own machinations with the aid of the secrets of the craft. But

while this and all else stated regarding the connection of the Templars

with Masonry may be true, there is no real evidence that it is so. Much

is said about the building of the Temple of Solomon; and that the Hiram

killed, and whose death the craft is to avenge, means James Molay, the

Grand Master, executed in the barbarous manner of his age for supposed

complicity in the crimes with which the Templars were everywhere charged.

There is tall talk about such things in modern Masonry, and a great

deal of the absurd and puerile ritual in which the sect indulges when

conferring the higher grades, is supposed to have reference to them.

But the Freemasonry with which we have to deal, however connected in

its origin with the Templars, with Socinus, with the conspirators of

Cologne, or those of Vicenza, or with Cromwell, received its modern

characteristics from Elias Ashmole, the Antiquary, and the provider,

if not the founder, of the Oxford Museum. Ashmole was an alchemist

and an astrologer, and imbued consequently with a love for the jargon

and mysticism of that strange body so busied about the philosopher’s

stone and other utopias. The existing lodges of the Freemasons had an

inexpressible charm for Ashmole, and in 1646 he, together with Colonel

Mainwaring, became members of the craft. He perfected it, added various

mystic symbols to those already in use, and gave partly a scriptural,

partly an Egyptian form to its jargon and ceremonies. The _Rosecroix_,

Rosicrucian degree, a society formed after the ideal of Bacon’s New

Atlantis, appeared; and the various grades of companion, master, secret

master, perfect master, elect, and Irish master, were either remodelled

or newly formed, as we know them now. Charles I. was decapitated in

1649, and Ashmole being a Royalist to the core, soon turned English

Masonry from the purposes of Cromwell and his party, and made the craft,

which was always strong in Scotland, a means to upset the Government

of the Protector and to bring back the Stuarts. Now “Hiram” became the

murdered Charles, who was to be avenged instead of James Molay, and the

reconstruction of the Temple meant the restoration of the exiled House

of Stuart. On the accession of Charles II., the craft was, of course,

not treated with disfavour; and when the misfortunes of James II., drove

him from the throne, the partisans of the House of Stuart had renewed

recourse to it as a means of secret organization against the enemy.

To bring back the Pretender, the Jacobites formed a Scotch and an English

and an Irish constitution. The English constitution embraced the Mother

Lodge of York and that of London, which latter separated from York,

and with a new spring of action started into life as the Grand Lodge

of London in 1717. The Jacobite nobles brought it to France chiefly to

aid their attempts in favour of the Stuarts. They opened a lodge called

the “Amity and Fraternity,” in Dunkirk, in 1721, and in 1725, the Lord

Derwentwater opened the famous Mother Lodge of Paris. Masonry soon spread

to Holland (1730), to Germany in 1736, to Ireland in 1729, and afterwards

to Italy, Spain, and Europe generally. All its lodges were placed under

the Grand Lodge of England, and remained so for many years.

I mention these facts and dates in order to let you see that precisely at

the period when Freemasonry was thus extending abroad, the Infidelity,

which had been introduced by Bayle and openly advocated by Voltaire, was

being disseminated largely amongst the corrupt nobility of France and of

Europe generally. It was, as we have already seen, a period of universal

licence in morals with the great in every country, and the members of the

Grand Lodge in England were generally men of easy virtue whose example

was agreeable to Continental libertines.

Voltaire found, that the Masonry to which he had been affiliated

in London, was a capital means of diffusing his doctrines among the

courtiers, the men of letters, and the public of France. It was like

himself, the incarnation of hypocrisy and lying. It came recommended

by an appearance of philanthropy and of religion. Ashmole gave it the

open Bible, together with the square and compass. It called the world to

witness that it believed in God, “the great Architect of the Universe.”

It had “an open eye,” which may be taken for God’s all-seeing providence,

or for the impossibility of a sworn Mason escaping his fate if he

revealed the secrets of the craft or failed to obey the orders he was

selected to carry out. It made members known to each other, just as did

the ancient craft, in every country, and professed to take charge of the

orphans and widows of deceased brethren who could not provide for them.

But, in its secret conclaves and in its ascending degrees, it had means

to tell the victim whom it could count upon, that the “Architect” meant

a circle, a nothing;[7] that the open Bible was the universe; and that

the square and compass was simply the fitness of things—the means to make

all men “fraternal, equal and free” in some impossible utopia it promised

but never gave. In the recesses of its lodges, the political conspirator

found the men and the means to arrive at his ends in security. Those

who ambitioned office found there the means of advancement. The old

spirit breathed into the fraternity by Socinus, and nourished so well by

the heretical libertines of the England and Germany of the seventeenth

century, and perfected by the Infidels of the eighteenth, was master

in all its lodges. Banquets, ribald songs and jests, revelling in sin,

constituted from the beginning, a leading feature in its life. Lodges

became the secure home for the _roué_, the spendthrift, the man of

broken fortunes, the Infidel, and the depraved of the upper classes.

Such attractive centres of sin, therefore, spread over Europe with great

rapidity. They were encouraged not only by Voltaire, but by his whole

host of Atheistic writers, philosophers, encyclopædists, revolutionists,

and rakes. The scoundrels of Europe found congenial employment in them;

and before twenty years elapsed from their first introduction, the lodges

were a power in Europe, formidable by the union which subsisted between

them all, and by the wealth, social position, and unscrupulousness of

those who formed their brotherhood. The principles fashionable—and indeed

alone tolerated—in them all, before long, were the principles of Voltaire

and of his school. This led in time to—