Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

ANCIENT FREE MASONRY IS DEISM. 237
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Ancient Free Masonry is Deism.
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What is Deism ? " The acknowlilng a God, without the reception of
revealed religion."~Welher.
IT is not a little difficult, satisfactorily to prove any thing
in relation to a topic which is sometimes operative, sometimes
speculative, a mechanic art, or. a liberal science;
which is sometimes the very essence of Christianity, and
sometimes the way of winning the faculty of magic ; a religion
in whieh all men agree, and the art of foresaying
things to come; which, in fine, bows the knee sometimes
in solemn invocation to the Deity, and teaches its pupils to
become good and perfect without the help of fear or hope.
Such a farrago of absurdities is ancient Free Masonry;
and yet, if it have any distinguishing and uniform characteristic,
this is it, viz. it acknowledges a God without the reception
of divine revelation.
The quotations already made from standard treatises on
Masonry, establish this trait in her character. But such is
the importance of the subject, when viewed in connexion
with the two thousand lodges of our country, and with the
glorious and fearful truths of the gospel rejected by Free
Masonry, that I shall not fear to tire the reader's patience
by summoning before him further witnesses. .
I do not attempt, even by the slightest implication, to
prove that the Free Masons of our country are Deists ; no
such thing; but that our dark mistress teaches them the