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

ANTI-MASONIC
ANTI-MASONIC 63
many persecutions, must needs have had its
enemies in the press. It was too good an
Institution not to be abused . Accordingly,
Freemasonry had no sooner taken its commanding
position as one of the teachers` :of
the world; than a host of adversaries sprang up
to malign its character and to misrepresent its
objects. Hence, in the catalogue of a Masonic
library, the anti-Masonic books will form no
small part of the collection.
Anti-Masonic works may very properly be
divided into two classes . 1 . Those written
simply for the purposes of abuse, in which the
character and objects of the Institution are
misrepresented . 2 . Those written for the
avowed purpose of revealing its ritual and
esoteric doctrines . The former of these
classes is always instigated by malignity, the
latter by mean cupidity . The former class
alone comes strictly within the category of
" anti-Masonic books," although the two
classes are often confounded ; the attack on
the principles of Masonry being sometimes
accompanied with a pretended revelation
of its mysteries, and, on the other hand,
the pseudo-revelations are not unfrequently
enriched by the most liberal abuse of the Institution
.
The earliest authentic work which contains
anything in opposition to Freemasonry is
The Natural History of Staffordshire, by Robert
Plot, which was printed at Oxford in the
year 1686. It is only in one particular part
of the work that Dr . Plot makes any invidious
remarks against the Institution ; and we
should freely forgive him for what he has said
against it, when we know that his recognition
of the existence, in the seventeenth century, of
a society which was already of so much importance
that he was compelled to acknowledge
that he had " found persons of the most
eminent quality that did not disdain to be of
this fellowship," gives the most ample refutation
of those writers who assert that no
traces of the Masonic Institution are to be
found before the beginning of the eighteenth
century. A- triumphant reply to the attack
of Dr. Plot is to be found in the third volume
of Oliver's Golden Remains of the Early Masonic
Writers.
A still more virulent attack on the Order
was made in 1730, by Samuel Prichard, which
he entitled Masonry dissected, being an universal
and genuine description of all its branches
from the original to the present time . Toward
the end of the year a reply was issued entitled
A Defence of Masonry, occasioned by a pamphlet
called Masonry Dissected . It was published
anonymously, but it has recently been
established that its author was Martin Clare
A .M ., F.R.S ., a schoolmaster of London, who
was a prominent Freemasonfrom 1734 to 1749 .
(Ars Qualuor Coronatorum, iv ., 33-41 .) No
copy of this Defence is known to exist, but it
was reproduced in the Free Masons' Pocket
Companion for 1738, and in the second edition
of the Book of Constitutions, which was published
in the same year . [E . L . IT .]
It is a learned production, well worth peru- i
sal for the information that it gives in reference
to the sacred rites of the ancients, independent
of its polemic character . About this
time the English press was inundated by pretended
revelations of the Masonic mysteries,
published under the queerest titles, such as
Jachin and Boaz ; or, An authentic key to the
door of Freemasonry, both Ancient and Modern,
published in 1762 ; Hiram, or the Grand Master
Key to both Ancient and Modern Freemasonry,
which appeared in 1764 ; The Three
Distinct Knocks, published in 1760, and a
host of others of a similar character, which
were, however, rather intended, by ministering
to a morbid and unlawful curiosity, to
put money into the purses of their compilers,
than to gratify any vindictive feelings against
the Institution .
Some, however, of these works were amiable
neither in their inception nor in their
execution, and appear to have been dictated
by a spirit that may be characterized as being
anything else except Christian . Thus, in the
year 1768, a sermon was preached, we may
suppose, but certainly published, at London,
with the following ominous title : Masonry
the Way to Hell ; a Sermon wherein is clearly
proved, both from Reason and Scripture, that
all who profess the Mysteries are in a State of
Damnation . This sermon appears to have
been a favorite with the ascetics, for in less
than two years it was translated into French
and German . But, on the other hand, it gave
offense to the liberal-minded, and many replies
to it were written and published, among
which was one entitled Masonry the Turnpike-
Road to Happiness in this Life, and Eternal
Happiness Hereafter, which also found its
translation into German .
In 1797 appeared the notorious work of
John Robison, entitled Proofs of a Conspiracy
against all the Religions and Governments
of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings
of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies
. Robison was a gentleman and a
scholar of some repute, a professor of natural
philosophy, and Secretary of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh. Hence, although his
theory is based on false premises and his reasoning
fallacious and illogical, his language is
more decorous and his sentiments less malignant
than generally characterize the writers
of anti-Masonic books . A contemporary
critic in the Monthly Review (vol . xxv ., p . 315)
thus correctly estimates the value of his work :
" On the present occasion," says the reviewer,
" we acknowledge that we have felt something
like regret that a lecturer in natural philosophy,
of whom his country is so justly proud,
should produce any work of literature by
which his high character for knowledge and
for judgment is liable to be at all depreciated
." Robison's book owes its preservation
at this day from the destruction of time only
to the permanency and importance of the Institution
which it sought to destroy, Masonry,
which it vilified, has alone saved it from the
tomb of the Capulets .
This work closed the labors of the anti-