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spirit, and was passing through a transition or, rather, a transfiguration! For, when
we compare the Masonry of, say, 1688 with that of 1723, we discover that much more
than a revival had come to pass. Set the instructions of the Old Charges not all of
them, however, for even in earliest times some of them escaped the stamp of the
Church* - in respect of religion alongside the game article in the Constitutions of
1723, and the contrast is amazing. The old charge read: "The first charge is this, that
you be true to God and Holy Church and use no error or heresy." Hear now the charge
in 1723:
(* For instance the Cooke MS, next to the oldest of all, as well as the W. Wstson and
York No. 4 MSS. It is rather surprising, in view of the supremacy of the Church in
those times, to find such evidence of what Dr. Mackey called the chief mission of
primitive Masonry the preservation of belief in the unity of God. These MSS did not
succumb to the theology of the Church, and their invocations remind us more of the
God of Isaiah than of the decrees of the Council of Nicaea.)
A Mason is obliged by his Tenure, to obey the moral law; and if he rightly
understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist nor an irreligious Libertine. But
though in ancient times Masons were charged in every Country to be of the religion of
that Country or nation, whatever it was, yet it is now thought more expedient only to
oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular Opinions
to themselves: that is, to be Good men and True, or Men of Honor and Honesty, by
whatever Denomination or Persuasion they may be distinguished; whereby Masonry
becomes the Centre of Union and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among
persons that must have remained at a perpetual distance.
If that statement had been written yesterday, it would be remarkable enough. But
when we consider that it was set forth in 1723, amidst bitter sectarian rancor and
intolerance unimaginable, it rises up as forever memorable in the history of men! The
man who wrote that document, did we know his name, is entitled to be held till the
end of time in the grateful and venerative memory of his race. The temper of the times
was all for relentless partisanship, both in religion and in politics. The alternative
offered in religion was an ecclesiastical tyranny, allowing a certain liberty of belief, or
a doctrinal tyranny, allowing a slight liberty of worship; a sad choice in truth.. It is,
then, to the everlasting honor of the century, that, in the midst of its clashing
extremes, the Masons appeared with heads unbowed, abjuring both tyrannies and
championing both liberties.* Ecclesiastically and doctrinally they stood in the open,
while Romanist and Protestant, Anglican and Puritan, Calvinist and Arminian waged
bitter war, filling the air with angry maledictions. These men of latitude in a cramped
age felt pent up alike by narrowness of ritual and by narrowness of creed, and they
cried out for room and air, for liberty and charity!
(* It was, perhaps, a picture of the Masonic Lodges of that era that Toland drew in his
Socratic Society, published in 1720, which however, he clothed in a vesture quite un-
Grecian. At least, the symposia or brotherly feasts of his society, their give-and-take
of questions and answers, their aversion to the rule of mere physical force, to
compulsory religious belief, and to creed hatred, as well as their mild and tolerant
disposition and their brotherly regard for one another, remind one of the spirit and
habits of the Masons of that day.)
Though differences of creed played no part in Masonry, nevertheless it held religion
in high esteem, and was then, as now, the steadfast upholder of the only two articles
of faith that never were invented by man the existence of God and the immortality
of the soul! Accordingly, every Lodge was opened and closed with prayer to the
"Almighty Architect of the universe;" and when a Lodge of mourning met in memory
of a brother fallen asleep, the formula was: "He has passed over into the eternal East,"
to that region whence cometh light and hope. Unsectarian in religion, the Masons
were also non-partisan in politics: one principle being common to them all love of
country, respect for law and order, and the desire for human welfare.* Upon that basis
the first Grand Lodge was founded, and upon that basis Masonry rests today holding
that a unity of spirit is better than a uniformity of opinion, and that beyond the great
and simple "religion in which all men agree" no dogma is worth a breach of charity.
(* Now is as good a time as another to name certain curious theories which have been
put forth to account for the origin of Masonry in general, and of the Organization of
the Grand Lodge in particular. They are as follows: First, that it was all due to an
imaginary Temple of Solomon described by Lord Bacon in a utopian romance called
the New Atlantis; and this despite the fact that the temple in the Bacon story was not a
house at all, but the name of an ideal state. Second, that the object of Freemasonry
and the origin of the Third Degree was the restoration of Charles II to the throne of
England; the idea being that the Masons, who called themselves "Sons of the
Widow," meant thereby to express their allegiance to the Queen. Third, that
Freemasonry was founded by Oliver Cromwell he of all men! to defeat the
royalists. Fourth, that Free-masons were derived from the order of the Knights
Templars. Even Leasing once held this theory, but seems later to have given it up.
Which one of these theories surpasses the others in absurdity, it would be hard to say.
De Quincey explodes lodes them one by one with some detail in his "Inquiry into the
Origin of the Free-masons," to which he might also have added his own pet notion of
the Rosicrucian origin of the order it being only a little less fantastic than the rest
(De Quincey's Works, vol. xvi).)
II
With honorable pride in this tradition of spiritual faith and intellectual freedom, we
are all the more eager to recite such facts as are known about the organization of the
first Grand Lodge. How many Lodges of Masons existed in London at that time is a
matter of conjecture, but there must have been a number. What bond, if any, united
them, other than their esoteric secrets and customs, is equally unknown. Nor is there
any record to tell us whether all the Lodges in and about London were invited to join
in the movement. Unfortunately the minutes of the Grand Lodge only commence on
June 24, 1723, and our only history of the events is that found in The New Book of
Constitutions, by Dr. James Anderson, in 1738. However, if not an actor in the scene,
he was in a position to know the facts from eye-witnesses, and his book was approved
by the Grand Lodge itself. His account is so brief that it may be given as it stands:
King George I enter'd London most magnificently on 20 Sept. 1714. And after the
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