Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

OF FUSE MASONRY. 987
The fear of light dates with them from the first days of
the creation. This, again, is what no Mason will deny.
Bat this custom clearly demonstrates that their Ughts, their
morality, and their religious doctrines, are anterior to the
Evangelical Revelation, or even to Moses and the pro*
phets; they will, in short, be, whatever incredulity may
please to style the Religion of Nature.
" 3d. In the masonic language, all their lodges are but one
temple representing the whole universe; the temple which
extends from the east to the west, from the south to the
north. They admit into this temple, with equal indifference,
the Christian or the Jew, the Turk or the idolator;
in fine, without distinction of sect or religion. All equally
behold the light, all learn the science of virtue, of real happiness,
and all may remain members of the craft, and rise
m its degrees up to that where they are taught, that all
religious tenets are but errors and prejudices. Though
many Masons may view this re-union in no other light than
that of universal charity and benevolence, which ought to
extend to all mankind, whether Jew, Gentile, Idolator, or
Christian, it is, nevertheless, much to be feared, that this reunion
of error and falsehood, only tends to infuse an indifference
for all religious tenets into the mind of the adepts,
as a preparatory step to the denial of all, in the higher degrees.
" 4th. It is always under the most dreadful oaths of secrecy,
that the Free Masons communicate their pretended
lights, or their art of building temples to virtue, and dungeons
for vice. When both truth and virtue had every
thing to fear from the reigning tyrants, it may be conceived
that they taught their lessons in private; but, so far from
exacting an oath of ftecrecy, they condemned silence as criminal,
when their lessons could be made public, and commanded
that what had been learned under the shadow of the
night, should be preached openly at noon day. Either the
doctrines of the craft are conformable to the laws of Chris-