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On Freemasonry. The Spurious Freemasonry Of Ancient Times.
says , " Nee tamen interim abstinebant ab iclolatria . " Bishop Horsley affirms , that , " in E gypt , idolatry was in its infancy , if it had at all gotten ground , in the days of Joseph , for when he was brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dream , the hol y Patriarch and the Egyptian King speak of Gocl
in much the same language , and with the same acknowledgment of his overruling providence . " This assertion must be received with the above allowance . The base alloy was alread y visible in their superstitious rites and ceremonies ; for the mysteries were certainl y practised iu Egypt long before this period . Indeedidolatry must have
, made considerable progress in all the nations of the East before the Exodus , or the directions to avoid it in the Mosaic law would not have been so abundant , nor the denunciations ngainst it so appalling . The Sun , by its name of Luc or Lux , * appears to have been the first object of idolatrous ivorship ; but fire was its
acknowledged emblem ; and hence that element soon came in for its share ofthe devotion in Persia and Peru ; while , iu the Delta , the symbol was a scai-abseiis or beetle , ivhich hence was ranked amongst the Egyptian deities . In Gaul and Britain , it was an unhewn stone placed erect . The person represented was soon obliged in all these cases to
succumb to the substitute , and thus objects of worshi p were multi p lied , till a present deity was seen in every work of nature . Thus by the influence of spurious Freemasonry , the human race , in successive ages , sank from one extravagance to another , till they worshipped as mediators not only the stars and p lanets , but also their various symbols and
representatives , animals and reptiles , trees and vegetables , stocksand stones , and even the most loathsome insect was not without its devotees . The serpent became one of the greatest deities ; and the besotted people fell down by thousands in devout adoration of a filth y beetle or an insignificant fly . To such an extent of degradation had even the wise and
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. The Spurious Freemasonry Of Ancient Times.
says , " Nee tamen interim abstinebant ab iclolatria . " Bishop Horsley affirms , that , " in E gypt , idolatry was in its infancy , if it had at all gotten ground , in the days of Joseph , for when he was brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dream , the hol y Patriarch and the Egyptian King speak of Gocl
in much the same language , and with the same acknowledgment of his overruling providence . " This assertion must be received with the above allowance . The base alloy was alread y visible in their superstitious rites and ceremonies ; for the mysteries were certainl y practised iu Egypt long before this period . Indeedidolatry must have
, made considerable progress in all the nations of the East before the Exodus , or the directions to avoid it in the Mosaic law would not have been so abundant , nor the denunciations ngainst it so appalling . The Sun , by its name of Luc or Lux , * appears to have been the first object of idolatrous ivorship ; but fire was its
acknowledged emblem ; and hence that element soon came in for its share ofthe devotion in Persia and Peru ; while , iu the Delta , the symbol was a scai-abseiis or beetle , ivhich hence was ranked amongst the Egyptian deities . In Gaul and Britain , it was an unhewn stone placed erect . The person represented was soon obliged in all these cases to
succumb to the substitute , and thus objects of worshi p were multi p lied , till a present deity was seen in every work of nature . Thus by the influence of spurious Freemasonry , the human race , in successive ages , sank from one extravagance to another , till they worshipped as mediators not only the stars and p lanets , but also their various symbols and
representatives , animals and reptiles , trees and vegetables , stocksand stones , and even the most loathsome insect was not without its devotees . The serpent became one of the greatest deities ; and the besotted people fell down by thousands in devout adoration of a filth y beetle or an insignificant fly . To such an extent of degradation had even the wise and