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Article MASINIC ANTIQUITIES. Page 1 of 4 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masinic Antiquities.
M
Our readers have doi ^ tless often hear d of a work called "Masok ^ which was the occasion of 3 Dr , ^ M ffieewawnryy' in 1730 ; After a long search in the library of the British Museum ( itself Paris , hy I'ieolas de
Bonneville . Itis introduced as ^ of a , work entitled , " Ees Mstdtez Qfiassesv Me laM ^ ei lettr MigftarMrW ^^ p ^ niasonry , aiid their poigna ^^ take the opportunity , on som ^ reader ^ some extracts te
we propose to quote 0 me passages from Mr > Prichard' s hoot , which we believe to he scarce , and by to resemblarice may fe h ^ the eatechism & c ; hei ^ ^ ^ ^^ q time since in our pages , taken from I ) r . Hawhnson's MS . collection in the Bodleian library ^ Oxford ; we omit much , therefore , in order to avoid repetition , only quoting again such matter as may be necessary to make the quotation readable and intelligible .
The work itself is introduced by a short preface in Trench , of which we subjoin a translation . « NOTES AND PROOFS . " The work entitled to , MaQonnerie JDisseqwe ' e , or Free-Masonry Dissected , is now extremely scarce : it has however gone through twenty Editions , at least if the twenty-first ( which is the one now before me ) , be the last , which is scarcely probable .
"¦ No one of all the writers on Free-Masonry for the last twenty years , has ever quoted it . I have only met with one Author who has in any way alluded to it , and he , as a very extraordinary toorlc : hut this writer is certainly not the slave of unknown Superiors . I can scarcely persuade myself that he is the only writer in Europe who knows of the pretended Catechism of the late Samuel Prichard : on the contrary , I believe that the two or three thousand Jesuits who have written on Free-Masonry in England , Germany , Italy , and France , knew it well , but that they chose to forget it , especially as they had taken all pains to suppress its
sale " . This Masonry Dissected contains the most ancient ritual of the Masonic Lodges in England : the design of the Jesuits is worse concealed in it than in other works . Only it does not prove the alteration of the principles and ritual of the Society of Free-Masons , the integral and inviolable observance of which , so much boasted by Mr . Smith and Company , is a Chimera , not to say a bold assertion .
" I believe I ought to add to my work a faithful copy of the English text ; it has cost me so much labour to procure it , that I am sure that a large number of my Brother Masons will appreciate this edition of the Masonic Ritual , which not only confirms all , the strange assertions which I have made in the former part of
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masinic Antiquities.
M
Our readers have doi ^ tless often hear d of a work called "Masok ^ which was the occasion of 3 Dr , ^ M ffieewawnryy' in 1730 ; After a long search in the library of the British Museum ( itself Paris , hy I'ieolas de
Bonneville . Itis introduced as ^ of a , work entitled , " Ees Mstdtez Qfiassesv Me laM ^ ei lettr MigftarMrW ^^ p ^ niasonry , aiid their poigna ^^ take the opportunity , on som ^ reader ^ some extracts te
we propose to quote 0 me passages from Mr > Prichard' s hoot , which we believe to he scarce , and by to resemblarice may fe h ^ the eatechism & c ; hei ^ ^ ^ ^^ q time since in our pages , taken from I ) r . Hawhnson's MS . collection in the Bodleian library ^ Oxford ; we omit much , therefore , in order to avoid repetition , only quoting again such matter as may be necessary to make the quotation readable and intelligible .
The work itself is introduced by a short preface in Trench , of which we subjoin a translation . « NOTES AND PROOFS . " The work entitled to , MaQonnerie JDisseqwe ' e , or Free-Masonry Dissected , is now extremely scarce : it has however gone through twenty Editions , at least if the twenty-first ( which is the one now before me ) , be the last , which is scarcely probable .
"¦ No one of all the writers on Free-Masonry for the last twenty years , has ever quoted it . I have only met with one Author who has in any way alluded to it , and he , as a very extraordinary toorlc : hut this writer is certainly not the slave of unknown Superiors . I can scarcely persuade myself that he is the only writer in Europe who knows of the pretended Catechism of the late Samuel Prichard : on the contrary , I believe that the two or three thousand Jesuits who have written on Free-Masonry in England , Germany , Italy , and France , knew it well , but that they chose to forget it , especially as they had taken all pains to suppress its
sale " . This Masonry Dissected contains the most ancient ritual of the Masonic Lodges in England : the design of the Jesuits is worse concealed in it than in other works . Only it does not prove the alteration of the principles and ritual of the Society of Free-Masons , the integral and inviolable observance of which , so much boasted by Mr . Smith and Company , is a Chimera , not to say a bold assertion .
" I believe I ought to add to my work a faithful copy of the English text ; it has cost me so much labour to procure it , that I am sure that a large number of my Brother Masons will appreciate this edition of the Masonic Ritual , which not only confirms all , the strange assertions which I have made in the former part of