Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

ANCIENT FREE MASONRY IS DEISM. 249
enter upon this investigation with dark forebodings to Free.
Masonry, yet we will strive to conduct it without prejudice
or partiality. Let justice decide.
He} favourite biographers in the English tongue, may be
divided into two classes; those who make her spring up with
time, or come from -the Almighty hand at the beginning;
and those who trace her origin in the odious mysteries of
the ancient heathen. Anderson, Preston, and Webb, are
leaders of,the former class; and Lawrie, Greenleaf, and
Cole, are of the latter. Hutchinson ought to be passed by,,
for he clearly supports both.
Let us see if her origin forbid the imputation upon her
character made by Esprit. Heaven is a place of truth;
and the established reputation of Free Masonry for falsehood,
compels us to believe that, if she came from heaven
to earth, it was because she was driven out, or had lost all
power to deceive there; and, therefore, she would be capable
of the profanity attributed to her by Esprit. If she
sprung up in the beginning, not coming from tteaven; then
she would be capable of the blasphemy which,her pupil,
Esprit, has laid at her door. And her origin, as given either
way by the former class, will not deliver her from a
righteous condemnation.
If she came, with Lawrie and others, from the Eleusinia,
the Bacchanalia, and the- degrading rites of heathen
Rome and Greece, Britain and Gaul, then she may^well be
thought capable of the deeds credited to her by her own
son, Esprit du Dogme. And she cannot be rescued, by the
purity of her origin, from the reproach of mocking the King
of Kings, in the interpretation of the legend of Hiram*
We will see if her well established character forbids our belief
of the charge; the known maxims of her life, and rule
of her conduct.
Her system of morality is founded upon temporal expediency
; which is no better foundation than that of the
royal arch. Her own example is proof. She is of the
highest cast, and therefore a Brahmin in Asia; a great
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