Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

DEISM. 231
quent funeral service, He is not named, who brought life
and immortality to light, taking up the life which he had
both power to lay down and take again, for the redemption
of sinners ? Is it not trampled upon and despised in open
day, when the senseless mummery of mystical Free Masonry,
under the most solemn sanctions of the fraternity, is
palmed upon the public, as summarily comprizing the doctrines
of the cross ? u the same system of faith, and the same
practical duties taught by revelation ?" (Town's Spec.Mas.
p. 52.)
Indeed, it is despised by Free Masonry: deny it none can:
men may shut their eyes upon the meridian sun, but the
light of the universe shines still. They may refuse to see
that the worship which strikes out the name of the Lord
Jesus from its ritual, is hostile to the name of Jesus: but that
is Free Masonry; and is hostile to the name of Jesus. I say
not this begging, " in consideration of the pious men who
belong to the fraternity;" "in consideration of a master's
inferiority to the Sovereign Inspectors General of Free
Masonry;" but as one who have studied Free Masonry in
her own elementary books, who have observed her in her
varied forms, and who speak the truth in the fear of the
Highest
Did not Joab put his arm around the neck of Abner, and
kiss him, while he planted a dagger in his heart ? So does
Free Masonry to the Christian, when she says, " the Word
in the first verse of St. John, in all its relatoins to man, time,
and eternity, constitutes the very spirit and essence of Speculative
Free Masonry ;" (Town, p. 155.) while, at the instant,
she banishes the name of the Lord Jesus from her ritual,
teaching to approach the throne of grace in another way.*
I do not say, that all masters of lodges feel bound so
* 1 make no exception in farour of the Knights Templars and others;
for if Free Masonry hare a fair claim to these, I have a separate account
open with her there.