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Article ON THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEMASONRY. ← Page 9 of 10 →
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On The Antiquity Of Freemasonry.
ON THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEMASONRY .
WERE the beautiful science of Masonry even but of yesterday , it would be equally entitled to the consideration and esteem of all good men ; as being a system ol morality , so pure and appropriate to the wants and weaknesses of man , as to be productive of a greater amount of happiness than would otherwise fall to the lot of creatures so blinded , by unruly will , to the true enjoyment of their nature . But laying claim ,
as it does , to the most remote antiquity , it thus becomes , supposing that claim allowed , clothed in that mysterious veil of awe and veneration , with which man loves to invest those things upon which the sun shone when strong in the youth and freshness of his glory . Having had an existence when history is lost in surmise , and still flourishing in our own times , they become marked , as it were , with the seal of immortality , and claim a homage , which the strongest and most sceptical minds
cannot altogether withhold . I am disposed to allow to Masonry an existence coeval with the first created man : not onl y from the light of its own tradition , but also from what appears to me the corroborative testimony o ( history . It is not consistent with all the known attributes of the Deity , to suppose He would leave man—the creature of his hand —entirely ignorant of his nature , and the mode of worship which would be acceptable to his divine will . This being admitted—as I suppose it
readily will—it then only remains to discover the form prescribed . To presume , after the lapse of five thousand years of ceaseless change , to map out a detailed form of devotion , and affirm it to be the precise code as delivered from the Creator to the creature , would be little short of
madness . In this short essay , I merely state my opinion of the claims of Masonry to be the primeval religion ; and my reasons—making allowances for the innovations which time would make in the institution—for supposing it to be so . God ' s first care would be to guard against Adam ' s for ming an incorrect idea of his attributes and will ; and the most effectual means of preventing such an occurrence , was to reveal so much of bis nature as would be necessary , and prescribe a certain form of worship .
This Adam would carefully hand down to his children ; and Noah as zealousl y promulgate , after his merciful preservation from the ruin which overtook the apostate world . By the dispersion of his descendants over the face of the globe , were formed the different nations of antiquity ; they all springing from one common original . By a careful examination ofthe theology ofthe ancients , we discover that , although disguised by the mass of fable in which it is enveloped relative to the Deluge , and
the origin of the different nations , the great doctrinal points of each system of theology bear the plain marks of having been built upon the same foundation , and of having sprung from one and the same root ; though perverted from their original reference , in proportion as man retrograded from the knowledge of the only true God—wilfully perverted , in many instances , it may fairly be presumed , by ambitious , unprincipled men , to further their own ends . To these ancient mysteries Masonry bears so striking a resemblance , as to induce some to imagine it to be formed from the ceremonies of chose depraved systems of theology . The disagreement of those systems , however , in certain points , although
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Antiquity Of Freemasonry.
ON THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEMASONRY .
WERE the beautiful science of Masonry even but of yesterday , it would be equally entitled to the consideration and esteem of all good men ; as being a system ol morality , so pure and appropriate to the wants and weaknesses of man , as to be productive of a greater amount of happiness than would otherwise fall to the lot of creatures so blinded , by unruly will , to the true enjoyment of their nature . But laying claim ,
as it does , to the most remote antiquity , it thus becomes , supposing that claim allowed , clothed in that mysterious veil of awe and veneration , with which man loves to invest those things upon which the sun shone when strong in the youth and freshness of his glory . Having had an existence when history is lost in surmise , and still flourishing in our own times , they become marked , as it were , with the seal of immortality , and claim a homage , which the strongest and most sceptical minds
cannot altogether withhold . I am disposed to allow to Masonry an existence coeval with the first created man : not onl y from the light of its own tradition , but also from what appears to me the corroborative testimony o ( history . It is not consistent with all the known attributes of the Deity , to suppose He would leave man—the creature of his hand —entirely ignorant of his nature , and the mode of worship which would be acceptable to his divine will . This being admitted—as I suppose it
readily will—it then only remains to discover the form prescribed . To presume , after the lapse of five thousand years of ceaseless change , to map out a detailed form of devotion , and affirm it to be the precise code as delivered from the Creator to the creature , would be little short of
madness . In this short essay , I merely state my opinion of the claims of Masonry to be the primeval religion ; and my reasons—making allowances for the innovations which time would make in the institution—for supposing it to be so . God ' s first care would be to guard against Adam ' s for ming an incorrect idea of his attributes and will ; and the most effectual means of preventing such an occurrence , was to reveal so much of bis nature as would be necessary , and prescribe a certain form of worship .
This Adam would carefully hand down to his children ; and Noah as zealousl y promulgate , after his merciful preservation from the ruin which overtook the apostate world . By the dispersion of his descendants over the face of the globe , were formed the different nations of antiquity ; they all springing from one common original . By a careful examination ofthe theology ofthe ancients , we discover that , although disguised by the mass of fable in which it is enveloped relative to the Deluge , and
the origin of the different nations , the great doctrinal points of each system of theology bear the plain marks of having been built upon the same foundation , and of having sprung from one and the same root ; though perverted from their original reference , in proportion as man retrograded from the knowledge of the only true God—wilfully perverted , in many instances , it may fairly be presumed , by ambitious , unprincipled men , to further their own ends . To these ancient mysteries Masonry bears so striking a resemblance , as to induce some to imagine it to be formed from the ceremonies of chose depraved systems of theology . The disagreement of those systems , however , in certain points , although