Table Of Contents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS .

PAGES F REEMASONRY AND ISRAELITISM ... 499 , 500 , & 501 ABERDEEN RECORDS ... ... ... 50 I P ROV . GRAND LODGE OF DEVON ... 501 , 502 , & 503

P ROV . GRAND LODGE OF HERTFORDSHIRE ... 503 C ONSECRATION OF THE HARTINGTON R . A . CHAPTER , NO . 916 503 S

COTLANDDundee 503 B IRTHS , MARRIAGES , AND DEATHS 504 A NSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS 504 THE PRINCE OF AVALES IN IRELAND 504 MtJLTUM IN PARVO 505

O RIGINAL CORRESPONDENCEBoys' School Fete 505 Caution 505 General Grant is not a Mason ... ... ¦ ... 505 AA LANCASHIRE MASONIC RELIEF COMMITTEE 505

I NSTALLATION OF THE PRINCE OF A \ ALES AS PATRON OF FREEMASONS IN IRELAND ... 506 & 507 THE ROSICRUCIAN SOCIETY IN ANGLIA 507 ROYAL MASONIC BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION ... 507 PROPOSED TESTIMONIAL TO BRO . BINCKES ... 507 THE C

RAFTMetropolitan 507 Provincial 507 & 50 S ROVAL ARCHMetropolitan 508 Provincial 508 MARK MASONRY 50 S ORDERS OF

CHIVALRYRed Cross of Constantine 508 ROVAL ARK MASONRY 50 S & 509 THE FREEMASONS'LIFE BOAT 409 ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE BOAT INSTITUTION ... 409 FOREIGN MASONIC INTELLIGENCE

New Zealand 509 MASONIC FESTIVITIESPicnic of the Humber Lodge , No . 57 , Hull ... 509

POETRYBeautiful Summer 510 Think of the Dead with Affection , 510 MASONIC MEETINGS FOR NEXT WEEK 510 ADVERTISEMENTS 497 , 498 , 510 , 511 , & 512

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

FREEMASONRY & ISRAELITISM .

BY BRO . AVILLIAM CARPENTER , P . M . & P . Z . 177 , [ The reader will be good enough to bear in mind , that the paper which was printed in THE FREE - MASON of July 29 th , on thc peopling of the Islands

by the Anglo-Saxons , and which , by a mistake , came out of its place , should be taken as immediately preceding this one . That was on the localisation of Israel , as this is on its Christianisation . l

XII . Abraham and his seed were chosen of God to be the recipients , preservers , and promulgators ofthe great truth—the centre

of all truth—the Divine Unity , and His attributes of holiness , justice , and mercy , and of His moral government of the world ; so that , in the midst of universal idolatry ,

they should worship one self-existent , Almighty , holy , just , and merciful Being , obey new laws , and sustain new institutions in harmony with this knowledge and

worship . This same seed appears , in the order of Divine Providence , to have been employed for the accomplishment of the same purpose , when , in subsequent times

the whole race of mankind had so far apostatised and gone astray from God , that idolatry , everywhere , not excepting the most advanced and civilised nations , was again

» i the ascendant . They were again to become as a light shining in a dark worlda beacon set upon a hill . "For thus saith

the Lord God , ' Behold , I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles , and set up my standard to the people : and they shall bring

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

thy [ Israel ] sons in their arms , and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders ; and kings shall be . thy nursing fathers , and queens thy nursing mothers : they shall bow down to thee with their

face towards the earth , and lick up the dust of thy feet ; and thou shalt know that I am the . Lord " ( Isa . xlix . 22-3 ) . " Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated . . . I will make thee an eternal excellency , a

joy of many generations" ( chap . lx . 15 ) . " And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness , and all kings thy glory : and thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name" ( chap ,

lxii . 2 ) . " Prepare the way of the . people , cast up , cast up the highway ; gather out the stones , lift up a standard for the people " ( ver . 10 ) . Such was the mission given to this wonderfully preserved people ,

not on account of their own righteousness , but as the chosen of the Lord , for their Father ' s sake , and for thc accomplishment of God ' s own gracious purposes . Israel had cast off its allegiance , and had joined

itself to idols , as its forefathers had done and were doing when Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldecs , to go through the land of the Canaanites , as a preacher of righteousness ; and when they

had , by the valour of their arms , often against fearful odds , made their way westward , and settled down in the Islands , they gave their idols to the moles and to the bats , and themselves to the God of their

fathers , who had chosen Abraham and his seed for ever . But it was under another covenant , as it was ordained of old that it should be . In a word , they were to be , and were , Christianised . But what arc the intimations that this should be ?

I . The Israelites were not to continue under the law . Not only were they themselves to abandon the law , but the Lord was to divorce them from it . Judah , or the Tews , remain under the law ; not so thc

Israelites . They are freed from the Mosaic covenant , with all its rites , and worship , and sacrifices . They have been divorced from it , for , as the Lord said to Jeremiah ( iii . 8 ) , " And I saw when for all the causes

whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away , and given her a bill of divorce ; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not , but went and played the harlot also . " Nevertheless ,

Judah was not divorced but was still held bound to the law . Israel , however , was divorced ; and the Lord , upon one occasion , called for the bill of her divorcement ( Isa . 1 . i ) , As a divorced woman , she

became desolate and forsaken ; as she was , to all appearance , for several ages . But the Lord had declared , that however unfaithful she might be , Pie would never leave her nor forsake her , but would remain

faithful to the promises He had given to the fathers . A great work was still before her , and she so multiplied , that , as the prophet says , "More arc the children of the desolate than the children of the

married wife ( Isa . liv . 1 ) . It was to this same people ( Israel ) that it was said , ' * For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit . " And He adds , " For a small moment have I

forsaken thee , but with great mercies will I gather thee . " Nevertheless , she was divorced—dead to the law—for , as Paul illustratively and logically reasons , "If a

woman , while her husband livcth , be married to another man , she shall be called an adulteress ; but if her husband be dead , she is free from that law . . . where-

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

fore , my brethren , ye also are become dead to the law , by the body of Christ , that ye should be married to another , even to Him who is raised from the dead , that we should bring forth fruit unto God . "

II . The Law , or the Mosaic Covenant , or dispensation , was not to be perpetual ; that is , not to extend through all the times pointed to in the prophecies . That this dispensation was one of only a temporary

character , and introductory to that of the Messiah , must be obvious , I think , to all who study the Old Testament , and have a perception of the exigencies which led to a Divine interposition in the introduction of

the various dispensations . As the education of man for moral freedom is the chief end of his creation , as a rational being ; and as reason requires instruction for its development , it follov / s from God ' s wisdom

and goodness that the Divine enlightenment began with the beginning of the human kind ; and as reason follows the law of development , not only must this instruction have had a commencement ,

but it must gradually progress , being only completed when the doctrines of God , of moral freedom , of Divine law , and of morality shall be fully developed ; because then only will every condition of moral freedom be realised . That God wishes to

enlighten the human mind , is an assumption we are compelled to make , since thetraining of man to moral freedom is in close connection with His holiness , and in accordance with His goodness and wisdom ,

also . The history of the world shews , however , that this subjective enlightenment has not realised the Divine purpose . Whereever man has been found , whether wandering in the wilds of savage independence , or

living in the better regulated _ and more favourable circumstances of civilised life , he has exhibited himself as departing far from what his reason perceives and assents to , as the Divine requirement . Hence the

necessity for an objective revelation , with its apparatus of miracles and prophecy , as attestations of its verity ; and the necessity , also , of its being adapted to the gradually improving condition of man . Hence we

find successive revelations—systems—covenants—laws , given to different individuals , families , and nations : containing gradually progessive , but partial , developments of truth and intimations of the Divine will ,

for the guidance of those to whom they were given , combined with peculiar positive institutions , adapted to the ideas and condition of the age for which they were vouchsafed . Thus , peculiar revelations , and

required obligations—that is , laws—were made to Noah , to Job , to Abraham , to Isaac , to Jacob , to the Israelites , first by Moses , and afterwards by a succession of prophets . And when we see thc imperfect

intimations , often mere hints and allusions , given in the Hebrew records—the only intelligible records \ vc have of primitive history—to the early religious revelations

and institutions , as well as to the obvious and wide difference in the circumstances of those peoples and the peoples of later times , the discerning reader at once sees how little those institutions can have been

intended to be understood as containing any elements of an evcr-during and universal religion . In the plain terms of the several narratives , we discover nothing cf the kind , and in comments on them , which

the New Testament supplies , we have direct assurances to the contrary . In general , we find only that the servants of God , in the early ages , were accepted in acting , each according to the light vouch' -