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Article ON FREEMASONRY. ← Page 11 of 13 →
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On Freemasonry.
honours to a place of punishment , or to any creature which God has provided for the benefit of man ? The places of the three superior officers of the Lodge , are regulated by the Sun in his three most prominent positions ; ancl the Sun , the Moon , and the Master , form a triad of antitypes , which exhibit these luminaries as agents of the
divine Being to work out His beneficent designs , and place one of the Master ' s duties in a striking and unequivocal point of view . As it is by the benign influence of the two former that we , as men , are enabled to perform the duties of social life ; so it is b y the ceaseless activity and intelligence of the Master , that we as Masons are enabled to understand and
discharge those duties which the Craft requires of us . Similar references are found throughout all the lectures of symbolical Masonry , the particular instances of which will occur to every well instructed Brother ; and they all treat the Sun as a creature—though a very useful one , and a symbol of moral and divine truths—without exhibiting the
slightest tendency to create an interest beyond what arises out of its allegorical references . Even the foreign degree of Chevalier du Soleil , or Kni g ht of the Sun , although it leans to deism , and is consequently unworth y to be practised ' by a Christian Mason , affords no evidence of an approach to the solar superstition ; as will appear from a very brief
analysis of the degree , which is seldom practised in this country , and has only a very equivocal connexion with Freemasonry , although it forms a part of the French system of the rite ancien et accepte .
In this degree the presiding officer is seated in the East where the Sun rises , robed in the colours of the sk y at dawn of day , and round his neck a chain of gold , ivhich , as a metal , corresponds with the p lanet Sol , * and both are expressed by a point within a circle , which was ancientl y considered a symbol of perfection . From this chain a figure of the meridian Sun in the same metal is suspended ; f while
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry.
honours to a place of punishment , or to any creature which God has provided for the benefit of man ? The places of the three superior officers of the Lodge , are regulated by the Sun in his three most prominent positions ; ancl the Sun , the Moon , and the Master , form a triad of antitypes , which exhibit these luminaries as agents of the
divine Being to work out His beneficent designs , and place one of the Master ' s duties in a striking and unequivocal point of view . As it is by the benign influence of the two former that we , as men , are enabled to perform the duties of social life ; so it is b y the ceaseless activity and intelligence of the Master , that we as Masons are enabled to understand and
discharge those duties which the Craft requires of us . Similar references are found throughout all the lectures of symbolical Masonry , the particular instances of which will occur to every well instructed Brother ; and they all treat the Sun as a creature—though a very useful one , and a symbol of moral and divine truths—without exhibiting the
slightest tendency to create an interest beyond what arises out of its allegorical references . Even the foreign degree of Chevalier du Soleil , or Kni g ht of the Sun , although it leans to deism , and is consequently unworth y to be practised ' by a Christian Mason , affords no evidence of an approach to the solar superstition ; as will appear from a very brief
analysis of the degree , which is seldom practised in this country , and has only a very equivocal connexion with Freemasonry , although it forms a part of the French system of the rite ancien et accepte .
In this degree the presiding officer is seated in the East where the Sun rises , robed in the colours of the sk y at dawn of day , and round his neck a chain of gold , ivhich , as a metal , corresponds with the p lanet Sol , * and both are expressed by a point within a circle , which was ancientl y considered a symbol of perfection . From this chain a figure of the meridian Sun in the same metal is suspended ; f while