1817 A Defence of Freemasonry

By Bro. the Reverend H. Horsley, A.M., Dean of Brechin. Prov. Grand Chap., Forfarshire; Prebendary of St. Asaph, and Minister of the Scottish Episcopal Chapel, Dundee.

[A Sermon preached in the Scottish Episcopal Chapel before the six Lodges of Free and Accepted Masons in Dundee, on the Festival of St. John, 1817, in behalf of Orphan Institution.]

"Let love be without dissimulation."—Romans, xii. 9.

The force of the original would, perhaps, have been more faithfully expressed, had the precept in the text been translated according to the literal meaning of the Greek words - "Let love be without hypocrisy." To an English ear, " dissimulation " conveys simply the idea of the bare concealment of the mind; and this may in some instances be done without any infringement of the laws either of morality or religion. "Hypocrisy," on the other hand, is dissimulation with the previous fixed intention to dissemble for some unworthy and sinister purpose; and this is the sense in which the apostle makes use of the word in the passage before us. "Let love," he says "be without hypocrisy." By "love," he means that benevolence of the heart which the Gospel terms love and charity; and which, in another passage in another epistle, he represents to be not only the fulfilling of the first law given by God to man, but also the very bond of peace and of all virtue. Of this there was so little in the Heathen world, and indeed among the Jews, "without hypocrisy," that it may be doubted whether, in our sense of the word, it existed before the publication of the Gospel. We know, that among the Jews, not only was the love of man a principle of conduct neglected in their practice, and a topic of doctrine omitted in the sermons of their teachers, but that they carried their dissimulation on this point to the length of contriving an evasion of the fifth commandment, under the pretence of devotion, by an hypocritical consecration of property to pious uses.

Among the Heathens, we find scarcely any habit, sentiment, or precept, which bears even a distant analogy to Christian benevolence. Public-spirit, munificence, fortitude, and magnanimity, shine with their utmost splendour in the annals of Greece and Rome ; but that benevolence of the heart which regards the lower orders of society as inferior only in rank, but equal in a religious view, was a virtue unknown to the most refined philosophy of an ancient world. The cause of this is to be searched for in the different constitution of society at that time. The truth is, that the class of slaves was an essential part of the community, and where slavery exists, the exercise of benevolence, in our sense of the word, is in a great measure precluded. The miseries of life which in the present age arise from poverty, were in those days all thrust down into that class which was deprived of the common privileges of nature; and although, in every different form of society, from Persia to Britain, this class constituted perhaps three-fourths of the community, it was so perfectly disunited from the superior orders, by law, custom, habit, and prejudice, that their sufferings as a body raised no emotion of compassion in the breast of those above them.

By the two leading sects of antiquity, the love of man was formally disclaimed and reprobated. By the Stoic, it was despised as a weakness; by the Epicurean, discarded as an interruption. Could he who presumed to call himself a mortal god, complete and consummate in himself, gifted with every perfection, victor over every calamity, who denied either pain, disease, captivity, or death, to be evils, could he have the humility to descend into the sorrow of another ? Could he " weep with those that weep ? " Could he be forward in relieving that anguish which he asserted the powers of the sufferers were sufficient not only to combat and overcome, but to annihilate and despise ? On the other hand, the voluptuous Epicurean, relaxed by indolence, dissipated by gaiety, and surfeited by sensuality, could he enter into the house of mourning ? Could he attend to the "sorrowful crying of the prisoner?" Could he take the "gage of human woe ?" No.

The importance of that love to which the Apostle alludes in the passage before us, in the order of moral truths, was therefore, in the ancient world, never discerned or acknowledged. Whenever it came under consideration, it was never held as the end of human action, but as means to an end; and that generally mean and selfish, and the very creature of hypocrisy. Beneficent exertion was recommended merely as a road to political importance, the acquisition of friends, or the attainment of more extended reputation in life; or, what the great luminaries of the Gentile world peculiarly panted for, a fame surviving death.

Without presumption or paradox, therefore, we may assert, that benevolence as understood and inculcated by the author of the text, and by his Great Master before him, is the genuine produce of the Gospel. With Christianity, this virtue appeared free from guile and divested of hypocrisy. Its object was the general good of the species, apart from all selfish considerations; and in every country where it has taken root, is has been found to increase with the increase of God. For the wider diffusion of this beneficent spirit, various establishments have at different periods been formed in every part of Christendom; but in our own country, I verily believe, none have more effectually contributed to its propagation, than the institution of the order to which you and I, Brother Masons, belong. I am well aware, that our high pretensions on this head have of late years been called in question, by writers of considerable public talent and private worth; that by these, our "brotherly love" has been said to be not "without dissimulation"; and that while universal philanthrophy and Christian beneficence are the object of all our discourses before the public, our private meetings are the haunts of every projector in science, religion, and politics; who avail themselves of the secrecy and freedom of speech maintained in these meetings, to broach opinions subversive of religion, government, and the public peace.

With what truth and justice these accusations may have been brought against the Lodges of the Continent, it is not to our present purpose to inquire. The dissensions and innovations that crept into the foreign Lodges, seem to have had their origin about the time that the Order of Loyola was suppressed; when those intriguing brethren the Jesuits interfered with the Craft, and attempted to maintain their political influence by the help of Freemasonry. But, whatever may have been the conduct of the Lodges abroad, sure I am that the charges of infidelity and disloyalty, when directed against British Freemasons, are void of all foundation. From its first establishment in Britain, to this day, we defy the deriders of our Order to produce, among our wide and extended fraternity, the instance of a single Lodge that ever lent itself to any religious or political party in the state; that ever afforded support to the promoters of infidelity, of civil discord or popular commotion; or that ever inculcated on its members any other principles than those of an early Apostle— "Honour all men: Love the brotherhood: Fear God: Honour the King." These indeed are the principles on which our Order is erected. Piety towards God, submission to duly-constituted authority, and love of mankind, are the immovable pillars which support the fabric of Masonry. In proof of this, suffer me, in our defence, my Masonic Brethren, to bring to the ears of the uninitiated a part of the solemn charge which is delivered in the following words, or in words equivalent to them in sense, on his first admission, to every Brother (See Webb on Freemasonry. I suspect this charge to be taken from a Treatise on Freemasonry, by William Preston, Master of the Lodge of Antiquity, published in 1792 : And, if so, it is totidem vefbis the charge used in every Lodge of respectability throughout England, from the time of Inigo Jones being appointed Grand Master of England, in the reign of James the First, to the present period.)
"There are three great duties which, as a Mason, you are charged to inculcate,—to God, your neighbour, and yourself. To God—in never mentioning his name but with that reverential awe which is due from a creature to his Creator; to implore His aid in all your laudable undertakings, and to esteem Him as the chief good. To your neighbour—in acting upon the square, and doing unto him as you wish he should do unto you ; and to yourself—in avoiding all irregularity and intemperance which may impair your faculties or debase the dignity of your profession. Moreover, in the state, you are to be a quiet and peaceful subject, true to your Government and just to your country. You are not to countenance disloyalty or rebellion, but patiently submit to legal authority, and conform with cheerfulness to the Government of the country in which you live."

With these peaceable admonitions on your tongues, will it still be said, my Brethren, that we carry the fury of discord in our hearts; that we are insincere in these professions; and that they are not really the sentiments of the speakers? How comes it, then, let me ask, that, from the earliest period of our existence, through every age, we have had the protection and patronage of the virtuous, the honourable, and the wise? How comes it that we have numbered potentates, princes, and prelates in our train ? Let it be remembered, that the first martyr who dyed British ground with his blood in defence of the Christian faith, was a Free and Accepted Mason, the celebrated St. Alban; (Albanus came into Britain with Carausias, one of the Roman Generals; and was by him appointed Principal Superintendent over the assemblies of Freemasons. It was now that lodges for the Fraternity were formed, and the business of Masonry regularly carried on.) that after him, the pious St. Austin appeared at the head of our fraternity; that the great Alfred, and his successor Edward were the zealous protectors of our Order; that in every succeeding reign, many a royal and many an eminent name in Church and State has been conspicuous in the list of our Brotherhood; and that, at this very hour, the Heir-Apparent of the British Throne is Grand Master of the Lodges throughout the Empire. Let it not then be said, that in our associations cabals may be formed against the peace of States; that Governments may be destroyed by them, and revolutions effected. Founded, as our institution originally was, on the basis of pure religion and sound loyalty, we cannot be faithless either to our God or King, without renouncing at once the essential characteristics of our profession, and abjuring an appellation which in that case we should prove to the world that we have falsely and unworthily borne.

Another point has been urged to prove that our "love is not without dissimulation," the secrecy of our Order. It has been said, "If your institution had nothing in it disgraceful to yourselves, or injurious to the peace of mankind, if it really were that system of wisdom and virtue which you so loudly declare it to be', why do you confine the knowledge of it to a few? Why do you not rather, like the real friends of mankind, make it universally known; that its benefits may be universal? "
"The Grand Architect of the Universe locks up gold in the earth and pearls in the ocean, not to conceal them from human use, but to reward human industry for its search after them." (Webb’s ‘Freemason’s Monitor’)It seems to be His fixed decree, that the improvement of the material world should depend on the combined efforts of human genius and labour, and that philosophy should be invoked for the melioration of the blessings of nature. "And why do men lock up precious things, but to keep them from unhallowed hands?" That secrecy is an important virtue, recommended to all ages by the wisest and best of men, cannot be contradicted. Nor can it be denied, but that in all ages there have been societies who have had secrets which they have not indiscriminately revealed; but have disclosed to those only whom they thought worthy to be associated with them. Do we not daily see corporations, secret committees, privy councils, bind themselves to secrecy, without censure or reproach? Why, then, should not Freemasons enjoy the same liberty, without incurring the most illiberal reflections? But the truth is, that this objection against us is not founded in fact. We deny that we have any secret that we wish to keep from the wise, the virtuous, and the good. Every man of fair and irreproachable character may, if he thinks fit, be admitted into our Order. The doors of Masonry are shut against the unworthy alone. He who "does justly, loves mercy, and walks humbly with his God," will, by proper application, find them open, will be received into the arms of fraternal affection.

The "hypocrisy" of our boasted virtues is again alleged, in the immorality of the lives of some of our professors. But they who urge this objection are not aware how much they expose their own misunderstandings. It cannot be an argument against the Order, that all its members have not profited by its instructions. The abuse of a thing is no valid objection to its inherent goodness. How many break their baptismal vows? How many call themselves Christians, who are a disgrace to Christianity, yet ultimately hurt not the gospel, but themselves? In the best institutions on earth, worthless characters may occasionally be found. In the Holy Family itself, consisting but of twelve, one was a devil. Did that injure or impair the integrity of the eleven? Very far from it. That there may be some amongst us who disgrace the purity of their profession by the impurity of their lives, we are ready to admit. However, such may have come amongst us, "they are not of us: For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." (St John I, 2, 19) No: Whatever external marks of our Order they may bear about them, we acknowledge them not. They come not within " the lot of our inheritance: They are not of our family; " for they have broken their initiating vows as Christians and as Brothers.

But it is further said, that men who, before they were Freemasons, were lovers of sobriety and domestic life, have afterwards been intemperate, and fond of resorting to houses of public entertainment. My Brethren, no one is more ready than myself to confess, that "every creature of God is good, if it be received with thanksgiving." No one is more delighted with the unbending hour, when cold and forbidding forms are laid aside, when thought meets thought without reserve; when the tongue freely utters whatever the mind conceives; and the hospitable board exhiliarates the spirits, opens the inmost recesses of the bosom, and calls forth the warmest affections of the heart. But I should disgrace the character which I bear, and the place in which I stand, if I were not to remind you, that social pleasure is never truly enjoyed when any religious obligation is broken; that the gifts of God never can become blessings to those who abuse them and contemn His laws ; and that, if any real foundation were ever given to this objection against Freemasonry, it must be by men who have shut their ears to the earnest and repeated admonitions of their Order, which, although it indulges rational festivity, forbids in the strongest manner irregularity and intemperance.

But we will not waste time in waging war with every trifling objection invented against our Order, but leave it to our conduct to repel the coarse shafts of malice. That we are separated from the rest of mankind by some significant signs and tokens which are known only to ourselves, and which we are not allowed to divulge, we do not deny. But we are confident that our general deportment in the private and public offices of life will entitle us to credit, when we strenuously maintain, that they are only the bonds of a union which has no other tendency than to elevate our character, and to make us more useful in the world. In addition to the common relations which are natural to men, we acknowledge a special connexion with all the individuals that have enrolled themselves in our number. A Brother Mason has a sacred claim to our regard, whatever be his rank in civil society. Is he merely a stranger whom chance has thrown in our way, he is admitted to our festive rites: Is he in want, he receives from us prompt relief: Is he far from his own domestic hearth, he meets with cordial friends, where another man must be satisfied with cold civility and interested aid. "The accidental distinctions of religion, or country, or colour, are all obliterated in the expansive reflection, that the world is our country, and man our brother. We advert not to the circumstance that a man was born in Asia, Africa, Europe or America. Whatever be his country, or colour, or creed, he is welcome to the little pittance our funds afford him; and when these are inadequate to his wants and necessities, a strenuous endeavour to sweeten the hour of adversity by the gentle offices of friendship and humanity, will in all probability make up the deficiency." (Defence of Freemasonry, by Brother James Maconochie: extracted from Jones's "Masonic Essayist."). And who will have the effrontery even to insinuate, that amidst the wants and calamities to which every human being is liable, such a society, so framed, and so directed, is not entitled to praise? Who will assert that it should not be ranked among the best and most efficacious expedients that can possibly be devised to keep our general benevolence in full activity?

No, says the objector; your benevolence is not Christian benevolence, (See Professor Robinson) It is dissimulation to call it universal. For it is limited, it is narrow, it is confined to members of your own Order; to the cry of distress without your mysterious pale, you shut the ear and close the heart.

For the refutation of this calumnious assertion, we will only ask you to look to the various charitable establishments that adorn our land, and see if they are not all under the immediate protection and patronage of Freemasonry. It is not, indeed, necessary that we should travel farther than the precincts of our own town for the proof of this. Is there a charitable institution in the place that does not receive from us support in our corporate capacity, or is not partaker of our individual bounty? Nay, why have you called upon me to address you from the pulpit to-night? Not merely for your own benefit and edification; but more especially for the relief of those whose cry of wretchedness never reached the Mason's ear in vain. Yes, my brethren, your liberality on the present occasion will better refute the vile charge brought against us, than any cunning or laboured arguments of mine. You know whose badge and livery we publicly profess to wear: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." You know for whom I plead, that the objects to whom I would turn your charitable attention are in the condition of poverty, in the state of orphan childhood. You know that the condition of poverty ever had your Grand Master's pity; the state of childhood ever had His love. Is there need that I should mention what conduct towards these poor and friendless children the authority of His example now demands of you?—that I should come with artfully devised speech to persuade you to follow in the pleasing paths of mercy of our Redeemer's steps? No; your own recollections of His unparalleled love, and of the obligations which you voluntarily took upon yourselves when you bound yourselves in the bonds of Masonic love and brotherhood, will more persuade you than any words of mine.

You will not, I am convinced, rate your treasures at a higher value than the blood of Christ; than the souls of those for whom His sacred blood was shed. Reflect, that the orphans for whom I am now the advocate, must, to public charity, owe that education which alone may qualify them to live comfortably in the present world. Without this, they will be destitute of the means of being trained in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord." Reflect on the magnitude of the evils—evils to the individual, evils to the state, evils to the church—which arise from a neglect of the education of the poor. The generous exertions of your benevolence upon the present occasion may preserve the innocence of the needy objects now before you. To you, with their future families, they may be indebted for much temporal enjoyment. Through you, they may be conducted to a blessed immortality. But if, through an ill-timed parsimony of which, I trust, you are incapable, these children should be excluded from the benefits of a sober and religious education, if in consequence of the prime misfortune of their infancy, the loss of paternal guidance and support, any of them hereafter should go astray, betake them to courses of dishonesty, violence, and lewdness,—die, perchance, the early and unpitied victims of their country's justice; and after a life of wickedness and a death of shame, be finally lost from the Great Shepherd's fold, if by your neglect of them these dreadful things should be, —think ye that, in the eye of an all-seeing and all-righteous Judge, you will yourselves stand clear of the enormous guilt of "offending these little ones? " What though their birth be mean, and their condition in this world obscure and humble? they have no less than the children of the great and opulent their guardian angels among the spirits of that high pre-eminence whose constant station is allotted to them in the presence of your Heavenly Father. By these is registered every charitable and ungracious deed, in those unperishing records by which we must all be judged, in that great day when riches, honours, titles, ancestry, shall nought avail,—when the rich and poor shall meet together before the Lord the Maker of them both. Think upon the reward which the merciful Judge shall then bestow upon them that have clothed the naked, fed the hungry, instructed the ignorant, converted the sinner, preserved the innocent! Oh think upon that vast reward ! And if any of you have come here with the cold determination of contributing to a certain amount, oh pause awhile! Be not thus masters of your feelings. Has not sensibility its sallies and excesses? and are there not calls so imperious, miseries so touching, that to be directed by a given rule in their relief would seem beyond the power of the least impressible natures? Think, oh think upon your own children! and as you wish them to prosper, be bountiful to these fatherless and motherless little ones. Oh be bountiful according to the measure of the occasion! Then will you rescue us from the charge of "dissimulation in our love." Then will you evince that Christian charity is not only the Mason's creed but the Mason's practice. And when your earthly Lodge shall be dissolved, your jewels will be safe; for you will have laid them up "where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal."