Blanchard J (anti-masonic) - Scotch Rite Masonry Illustrated Part I

380 INFIDELITY iTS MOTHER, REDELLION ITS ORh3IZ. CONJURING AND LEGERDEMAIN. 381gan, were the destinies of society in the hands of men socompletely abandoned of God and goodness as the personsnamed above and their followers and associates.Voltaire’s writings guided, and his spirit animated them.And his commoli reference to Christ, was in the words:“Crush the wretch I” And these minds controlled theideas which controlled the public mind and thoughtwhen and where The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Ritewas born and named, “Rite of Perfection;” and suchmen were its god-fathers. Its mother was infidelity,and its cradle rebellion. And whether the pretence ofMitchell and Daleho that the Charleston Supreme Councii,and its “Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,” werechartered by the infidel monarch, Frederick, in 1786, befact or fiction, the double-headed eagle, which wasthe banner of both Frederick and the Charleston Counci!,proves the identity of their spirit, nature and intent.But what is this degree in itself? Its legend saysthat the real name of God was lost, till it was found byMasons, engraved on a three-cornered gold plate, in“the ruins of Enoch.” Whether the Mormon, Jo. Smith,who was a Mason, took his story of gold plates from thisone, or invented a like legend of his own, the two aresimilar in origin, nature, and effect. They both utterlydestroy Christianity, while pretending to favor aniexpand it.If we turn to the Ritual (page 320,) we see in this degreemen kneeling, and repeating the Hebrew names ofthe consonants which spell Jehovah, which consonantsthey say they found on that three cornered gold plate, ina cave dug before the deluge. They hear no name pro.nounced. The letters were never lost. The pronunciationof the name was lost, by the silence of superstitiousJews, who, in reading, paused and passed it. That isnot recovered. Our word Jehovah was formed, as weand Freemasons now pronounce it, by uniting its ownconsonants with the vowel sounds of A donai. That triangularplate, had there been one, could not speak.They pretended to find letters on it, and shout that theyhave found the true name of God; and some of themhint that our Savior stole the name out of the latterTemple, to conjure and work his miracles by! whiletheir whole trick is the conjuring and legerdemain ofwhich they accuse Christ IBut what do they mean to accomplish by it? We answer,what they mean is, obviously, what they get, viz:money and power over mind. And what the devil, whoinspires them, means, is equally plain. He knows that“This is life eternal, to know the living and true Godand Jesus Christ whom he hath sent.” He knows, too,that the Holy Ghost is ready to lead penitent, believingmen to God through the one only and Eternal Mediator—“The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,”and so He is the Eternal Soul of the Old Testament andthe Subetance of the New. And Satan. wishes to keepmen from coming to Christ to be saved. And if he canso stultify and besot men that they will believe thatRamsay “fabricated” this degree, and yet that it tellstruth and “elevates men” !—That the story is manufactured,made up, and yet the name is real, and Masonrya good thing! Then he has accomplished the ruin ofevery such deluded man! He has taken away God, andthe only Mediator by whom finite creatures can come toHim; and set his dupes to gazing on imaginary letters,on an imaginary gold plate! And this is as good asworshipping the moon, or praying to spirits (devils,)