Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

THB TENANCY OF SECRST ASSOCIATIONS. 343
designs, all Us toils, solely tend to inspire men with a zeal
for the perfection of their moral characters, to impregnate
them with humane and sociable sentiments, to counteract
the plans of the wicked, to succour oppressed and suffering
virtue, to favour the advancement of men of merit, and
to render those sciences universal, which are as yet hidden
from the generality of men. Such is not the coloured prer
text, but the real object of the order. 1 '
To attain this " real object," the sect were instructed
fearlessly " to employ the same means for a good purpose,
which impostors use for an evil purpose." If bad men
will he to gain their ends, it is hard, according to Weishaupt,
if good men may not have the same privilege, employ
a lie to defeat a lie. Good men, and yet liar* ! This
is worthy of the Illuminees; a doctrine fit for the night,
proper to be inculcated in a secret society.
He carries it, in the following maxim, one step further:
" The end sanctifies the means." To this precept of their
moral code they commonly referred in their writings, and
its value they amply proved in their wretched lives, making
it their apology for every species of wickedness not fit to
be named The sect, in a summary made by BarrueL,
apeak as follows: " If, to overturn Christianity and every religion,
we have pretended solely to possess true .Christianity,
the true religion, remember, the pnd sanctifies the means;
the sage must make use of all those means for good purposes^
which the wicked do for eviL The means we employed
to rid you, and which we continue, to rid mankind
of all religion, are but a pious fraud, which we always
meant to reveal to you, when capable of understanding it"
O, how deceived! They become imps, the better to oppose
the Prince of the power of the air! They use the
weapoos of blackness and of despair, to maintain the
throne of heaven! They would become gods, by foul transgression.
How plainly this manifests " the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience." (Eph. ii. 2.)
Their lessons profess to treat of morality, and morality