Scottish Rite Masonry Illustrated - The Masonic Trowel

456 DEISM IS PR4CTIcAL ATHEISM. ADOPTS TUE MOTTO OF THE JESU[TS. 457
soul; tenets, which by its peculiar symbolic languagvs,
it has preserved from its foundation, and still continues
in the same beautiful way to teach. Beyond this for
its religious faith, we niu~t not and cannot go.”—
Ma key’s .1Iaso~iic JurisprudenCe, page 95.
“The religion then, of Ma~onrv, is pure theism, ~n
which its different members engraft their own peculiar
opinions, hut they are not permitted to introduce them
into the lodge, or to connect their truth or falsehood
with the truth of Masonry.~’—Mackey’s Lexicon, An.
Rebg ion.
“All the ceremonies of our order are prefaced and
terflhinate(l with praxer, because Masonry is a religious
in~titutsoru and beeaii~e we thereby show our dependence
on, and our faith and trust in (Jod.”—Mackey’s
Lezu,on, A rI. Prayer.
“Thui~ is the scope and airil of its ritual. The Master
Mason represents man when youth, manhood, old age,
and life itself have passed away as fleeting shado~~s,
yet raised from the grave of iniquity, and quick~’ned
info another and better e\istence. By its legend and all
I k ritual it is implied that we have been redeemed froiii
the death of ~iii and sepi~chr&of pollution !“—Mackey’s
h’sfualist, p. 109.
These and the I ik’c quotations might be continued to
any extent and from different authors. But these will
suffice to settle the question with all rational and intelligent
readers. And if once the ministry and churches
of this country can be possessed of these facts, there
will be raised to God one general cry; as when Pre~ident
Lincoln called the American people to unite in prayer
for deliverance frGm the curse of the slavery war. Deism
is praetieal atheism. For Ihe infinite God cannot be
reached by finite minds, but only through a merciful
Mediator.
But the key to the importance of this 32nd degree, is
its MOTTO: “Ad majorem Dei gloria.m.” Note 370.
This is the motto of the Jesuits; who, with the apostate
Ramsay, made these French degrees, falsely called Scottish.
This, motto was adopted by their founder, Ignatiu.s
Loyola; and is still the motto of the order which he
founded, in an underground chapel of the Holy Martyrs
in 1534, seventeen years after Luther nailed his Theses
to the church door at Wittenberg, in 1517. The reformation
had only fairly begun, and this underground,
sceret order of Jesuits met the Reformation, and has
turned it back. Some principalities in Germany, once
Protestant, are now undcr Popish princes! That order
now rules Popedom, though once prohibited by it, as
Masonry is now. The reader will find the above motto
on page 14, of the introduction, and the founding of the
order on page 9 of the “I!i.story of the Society of Jesus.”
Baltimore, 1878. And on pages 12 and 13 he says, that
in the village of Lasorta, near Rome, while praying, he
was ‘dazzled by a brilliant light ;“ and “the entire
history of the order,” says the historian, “is but a development
of that vision.”
Now, if that light had been from God, as was that
which shone around Paul, at his conversion, Loyola’s
life would have borne the same fruit which Paul’s did,
instead of the ignorance, superstition, and persecution
which has tracked Papacy ever since; and now furnishes
saloon-keepers for our cities, and carries their
votes to license pauperism, crime, blasphemy, and woe.
But if that light was from Satan, who is Christ~s rival
and counterfeit, then we should expect the fruits, which
we see follow the Papacy everywhere. Then that supernatural
light was Masonic light, whose fruits are the