Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

215."These two doctrines, then, the unity of God and the immortality of the soul, constitute the philosophy of Freemasonry. When we wish to define it succinctly, we say that it is an ancient system of philosophy which teaches these two dogmas."*

216."The fundamental law of Masonry requires only a belief in the Supreme Architect of the universe, and in a future life, while it says, with peculiar tolerance, that in all other matters of religious belief, Masons are only expected to be of that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves. Under the shelter of this wise provision, the Christian and the Jew, the Mohammedan and the Brahmin, are permitted to unite around our common altar, and Masonry becomes, in practice as well as in theory, universal. The truth is, that Masonry is undoubtedly a religious institution — its religion being of that universal kind in which all men agree, and which, handed down through a long succession of ages, from that ancient priesthood who first taught it, embraces the great tenets of the existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul — tenets which, by its peculiar symbolic language, it has preserved from its foundation, and still continues, in the same beautiful way, to teach. Beyond this, for its religious faith, we must not and cannot go. ',# *

^[121] 217. "Freemasonry does not profess to interfere with the religious opinions of its members. It asks only for a declaration of that simple and universal faith, in which men of all nations and all sects agree — the belief in a God and in his superintending providence. Beyond this, it does not venture, but leaves the minds of its disciples, on other and sectarian points, perfectly untrammelled. This is the only religious qualification required by a candidate, but this is most strictly demanded. The religion, then, of Masonry, is pure theism, on which its different members engraft their own peculiar opinions; but they are not permitted to introduce them into the lodge, or to connect their truths or falsehood with the truth of Masonry. "*

218."Every Mason," says the old Charges of 1722, "is obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law." Now, this moral law is not to be considered as confined to the decalogue of Moses, within which narrow limits these ecclesiastical writers technically restrain it, but rather as alluding to what is called Lex Naturae, or the law of nature. This law of nature has been defined by an able, but not recent writer on this subject, to be "The will of God, relating to human actions, grounded on the moral differences of things; and because discoverable by natural light, obligatory upon all mankind.''** This is the "Moral law," to which the old Charge already cited refers, and which it ^[122] deelares to be the law of Masonry. And this was wisely done, for it is evident that no law less universal could have been appropriately selected for the government of an institution whose prominent characteristic is its universality.

219."The precepts of Jesus could not have been made obligatory on a Jew; a Christian would have denied the sanctions of the Koran; a Mohammedan must have rejected the laws of Moses; and a disciple of Zoroaster would have turned from all to the teachings of his Zeud Avesta. The universal law of nature, which the authors of the old Charges have properly called the moral law, because it is, as Conybeare remarks, ' a perfect collection of all those moral doctrines and precepts which have a foundation in the nature and reason of things, ' is therefore the only law suited, in every respect, to be adopted as the Masonic code. "*

220."So broad is the religion of Masonry, and so carefully are all sectarian tenets excluded from the system, that the Christian, the Jew, and the Mohammedan, in all their numberless sects and divisions, may, and do harmoniously combine in its moral and intellectual work with the Buddhist, the Parsee, the Confucian, and the worshiper of Deity under every form."**