The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

SUPPLEMENTAL ENCYCLOPAEDIAhas maintained itself among the Arabs, who calland affirm that she became the wife of Solomon.her Balkis,Rabbah (Rehoboth)of Carshemish.A city on the Euphrates, southRamses See LAND OF GOSHEN.Religion of Masonry Webster has given two distinctdefinitions of religion:1.Recognition of God as an object of worship, love andobedience.2.Any system of faith and worship.It is plain that in the first sense in which we may takeclaim to be calledthe word religion, Masonry may rightfullya religious institution. No disbeliever in the existence ofa God can be made a Mason. All practical piety and performanceof the duties we owe to God and to our fellow-menarise from and are founded on a principle of obedience tothe divine will. It is idle to say that the Mason does goodsimply in obedience to the statutes of the Order. Thesevery statutes owe their sanction to the Masonic idea of thenature and perfections of God, which idea has come downto us from earliest history of the institution, and the promulgationof which idea was the very object and design ofits origin.The second definition does not appear to be strictly applicableto Masonry. Masonry has no pretension to assumea place among the religions of the world as a sectarian"system of faith and worship" in the sense in which wedistinguish Christianity from Judaism, or Judaism fromMohammedanism. In this meaning of the word we do notand can not speak of the Masonic religion, nor say of aman that he is not a Christian, but a Mason. The tendencvof all true Masonry is towards religion. Its ancient landmarks,its sublime ceremonies, its profound symbols andallegories all inculcate religious doctrine, command religiousobservance and teachreligious truth.194