Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

COVENANT
COWAN 183
Covenant of Masonry . As a covenant is
defined to be a contract or agreement between
two or more parties on certain terms, there
can be no doubt that when a man is made a
Mason he enters into a covenant with the Institution.
On his part he promises to fulfil
certain promises, and to discharge certain
duties, for which, on the other part, the Fraternity
bind themselves by an equivalent
covenant of friendship, protection, and support
. This covenant must of course be repeated
and modified with every extension of
the terms of agreement on both sides . The
covenant of an Entered Apprentice is different
from that of a Fellow-Craft, and the
covenant of the latter from that of a Master
Mason . As we advance in Masonry our obligations
increase, but the covenant of each
degree is not the less permanent or binding because
that of a succeeding one has been superadded.
The second covenant does not impair
the sanctity of the first.
This covenant of Masonry is symbolized
and sanctioned by the most important and
essential of all the ceremonies of the Institution
. It is the very foundation-stone which
supports the whole edifice, and, unless it be
properly laid, no superstructure can with any
safety be erected . It is indeed the covenant
that makes the Mason .
A matter so important as this, in establishing
the relationship of a Mason with the
Craft-this baptism, so to speak, by which a
member is inaugurated into the Institutionmust
of course be attended with the most
solemn and binding ceremonies . Such has
been the case in all countries . Covenants have
always been solemnized with certain solemn
forms and religious observances which gave
them a sacred sanction in the minds of the
contracting parties . The Hebrews, especially,
invested their covenants with the most imposing
ceremonies .
The first mention of a covenant in form that
is met with in Scripture is that recorded in the
fifteenth chapter of Genesis, where, to confirm
it, Abraham, in obedience to the Divine command,
took a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram,
"and divided them in the midst, and laid each
piece one against another ." (v . 10 .) This dividing
a victim into two parts, that the covenanting
parties might pass between them,
was a custom not confined to the Hebrews,
but borrowed from them by all the heathen
nations .
In the Book of Jeremiah it is again alluded
to, and the penalty for the violation of the
covenant is also expressed .
"And I will give the men that have transgressed
my covenant, which have not performed
the words of the covenant which they
had made before me, when they cut the calf in
twain, and passed between the parts thereof,
"The princes of Judah, and the princes of
Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and
all the people of the land, which passed between
the parts of the calf ;
"I will even give them into the hand of their
enemies, and into the hand of them that seek
their life : and their dead bodies shall be for
meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the
beasts of the earth ." (Jeremiah xxxiv. 18, 19,
20.)
These ceremonies, thus briefly glluded to
in the passages which have been quoted, were
performed in full, as follows . The attentive
Masonic student will not fail to observe the
analogies to those of his own Order .
The parties entering into a covenant first
selected a proper animal, such as a calf or a
kid among the Jews, a sheep among the
Greeks, or a pig among the Romans . The
throat was then cut across, with a single blow,
so as to completely divide the windpipe and
arteries, without touching the bone. This was
the first ceremony of the covenant . The seeend
was to tear open the breast, to take from
thence the heart and vitals, and if on inspection
the least imperfection was discovered,
the body was considered unclean, and thrown
aside for another . The third ceremony was to
divide the body in twain, and to place the
two parts to the north and south, so that the
parties to the covenant might pass between
them, coming from the east and going to the
west . The carcass was then left as a prey to
the wild beasts of the field and the vultures of
the air, and thus the covenant was ratified .
Covering of the Lodge . As the lectures
tell us that our ancient brethren met on the
highest hills and lowest vales, from this it is
inferred that, as the meetings were thus in the
open air, the only covering must have been
the overarching vault of heaven . Hence, in
the symbolism of Masonry the covering of the
Lodge is said to be "a clouded canopy or starrydecked
heaven ." The terrestrial Lodge of
labor is thus intimately connected with the
celestial Lodge of eternal refreshment . The
symbolism is still further extended to remind
us that the whole world is a Mason's Lodge,
and heaven its sheltering cover.
Cowan . This is a purely Masonic term,
and signifies in its technical meaning an intruder,
whence it is always coupled with the
word eavesdropper. It is not found in any of
the old manuscripts of the English Masons
anterior to the eighteenth century, unless we
suppose that lowen, met with in many of them,
is a clerical error of the copyists . It occurs in
the Schaw manuscript, a Scotch record which
bears the date of 1598, in the following passage
: "That no Master or Fellow of Craft receive
any cowans to work in his society or
company, nor send none of his servants to
work with cowans." In the second edition of
Anderson's Constitutions, published in 1738,
we find the word in use among the English
Masons, thus : "But Free and Accepted
Masons shall not allow cowans to work with
them ; nor shall they be employed by cowans
without an urgent necessity ; and even in that
case .they must not teach cowans, but must
have a separate communication ." (P . 146 .)
There can be but little doubt that the word, as
a Masonic term, comes to us from Scotland,
and it is therefore in the Scotch language that
we must look for its signification .