Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 263
Rose Croix degree. 1 Here the Rosicrucians, therefore, seem to
part from them, and to continue to mount. Whereas with the
Freemasons Christ and his church are practically ignored, with
the Rosicrucians Christianity is tbe life and soul of all that
they have done, and are doing. Whereas the words " Christ,
" Church, "" Religion," are almost banished from Freemason
books, the mighty literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and all that is good, great, and enduring in the
present age, will probably be traced to the agency of this universal
church literary society.
4. There seems to be no evidence that Freemasonry, in the
present acceptation of the term, or as a mutual benefit society,
existed before the middle of the sixteenth century. Church
architects and builders, who had secrets of their own, and to
whom, probably, we owe the magnificent structures which continue
to be models to our own time, were a trade guild and a
church guild too. Their secrets were of the nature of the
printer's secrets of the present day, not only for mutual use and
protection, but also enclosing certain information to their craft,
and, perhaps, to a select few, beyond that enchanted circle.
But in no way can we say that these old builders filled the places
of the ubiquitous, many-headed Freemasons. Moreover, if we
mix them up with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, we
still
find ourselves linked with " the Holy Catholic Church " of
our forefathers, to which the Rosicrucians were inseparably
bound, but from which the Freemason writers seem most anxious
to separate themselves.
Hepworth Dixon 2 tells us that the scheme which Sir Nicholas
Bacon presented to Henry VIII. for the endowment of a school
of law, policy, and languages, in London, was, perhaps, the
1 In connection with the Rose Croix decree, it may be observed, says the
same authority, that the initials of the Latin inscription placed on the cross,
I. N. K. I., representing Jesus Nazarenus, Re.c Jadceorum, were used by the Rosicrucians
as the initials of their Hermetic Secrets — Igne Natura Renovator
Integra — " By fire, Nature is perfectly renewed." They also adopted thern to
express the names of their three elementary principles, "Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury,
by making the initials of the sentence, Igne Nitrum Moris Invenitw-
2 Story of Hacon's Life, p. 17.