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its antiquity, though used by philosophical paganism to direct the inquiries of its disciples to human learning. Philosophy," says Shuckford, "was not disputative until it came into Greece; the ancient professors had no controversies about it; they received what was handed down to them, and out of the treasure of their traditions imparted to others; and the principles they went upon to teach or to learn by were not to search into the nature of things, or to consider what they could find by philosophical examination, but ASK, and it shall be told you; SEARCH the records of antiquity, and you shall find what you inquire after.' These were the maxims and directions of their studies." 28

Hence something more than the mere forms of initiation is required to constitute a good Mason; for every one is not acquainted with the true secrets of Masonry who has been initiated into the order. What ability has denied to one, another loses by indolence. Honour and probity, diligence and assiduity, truth and fidelity, years, learning and experience, are unitedly necessary to constitute "a good and virtuous Mason;" for Masonry is the perfection of all the arts and sciences. As a knowledge of medicine, astronomy, morality, and legislation formed the great essentials of the ancient mysteries, so faith, hope, and charity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice, united with grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, form constituent parts of the ONE science of Masonry, which has been held

28 Connect. Pref. vol. 1.

in the greatest estimation in every age of the world; has been honoured with the approbation and public patronage of kings, peers, and prelates, and still shines with unabated lustre,-the perfection of human nature, supported by the high and unequivocal sanction of revealed truth.

CHAPTER II.

CONTAINING SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS.

View of Masonry, as it existed from the Creation of the World to the time of Enoch.

"FROM the commencement of the world," says the celebrated Preston, "we may trace the foundation of Masonry. Ever since symmetry began, and harmony displayed her charms, our Order has had a being." But ancient Masonic traditions say, and I think justly, that our science existed before the creation of this globe, and was diffused amidst the numerous systems with which the grand empyreum of universal space is furnished. The great Architect of the universe was the founder of Masonry; and it would be the province of bigotry alone to confine His beneficent revelations to so small a portion of created things as the limited dimensions of our earth contains. But there existed in infinite space numberless worlds, before our earth was formed out of chaos; for it would derogate from the attributes of an eternal and self-existent God, to conceive that this great and glorious Being had remained inanimate, and in an useless and

1 Preston's Illustrations, book i. sec. 3. In the fifteenth edition of this excellent publication, with the history of the Craft appended, by the author of this work, the details of Free-Masonry are brought down to the year 1841.

dormant state, until the commencement of our history, about 5,800 years ago. Now though we cannot comprehend the nature of that eternity which existed prior to the creation of this globe, yet we are certain that our system does not comprehend the whole of God's created works. With him a thousand years are but as one day; what then is the short and contracted period which forms the bound of our insignificant ball? If we open our capacities, and take an enlarged view of space, beyond the reach of our actual investigation, can we be so blind and faithless as to conceive that it is all vacant and unemployed, when almost every optical improvement demonstrates, by new discoveries, the existence of worlds piled on worlds, too far remote for human art to measure?

These orbs were surely not made for ornament alone, but for use; and as they possess every requisite for the support of animal life, there can be no doubt but they have been created for the residence of intelligent beings, of the same capacities perhaps as ourselves; probably of the same nature, and certainly intended for the same immortal destination. On these, or some of them, the Creator has bestowed his blessings from all eternity. They have been possessed of all the privileges we enjoy, millions of ages before this globe which we inhabit was reduced from nothing into its solid form: privileges perhaps superior to any we can boast, for who can limit the power of God to confer gifts upon his creatures? Amongst

2 2 Peter, iii. 8.

the most valuable of these was speculative Masonry for where there exist created beings, there must exist some knowledge of a Creator, and some principle of reverence to Him who can save and who can destroy. And speculative Masonry is nothing else but a system of ethics, founded on the belief of a God, the creator, preserver, and redeemer; which inculcates a strict observance of the duties we owe to each other, inspires in the soul a veneration for the author of its being, and incites to the pure worship of the Creator.

It may indeed be replied, "If this be true, why is it not recorded in the Holy Scriptures?" These Books were written, after the apostacy of man, with no other view than to promote his salvation, by explaining the nature of that transgression which introduced death into the world, and made all the posterity of Adam obnoxious to divine wrath; and pointing out the remedy for sin in the person of Jesus Christ. This being the chief end of Revelation, it would have added little to the furtherance of that grand object to have entered into metaphysical disquisitions on the nature and extent of God's works before the creation of The Scriptures, however, are not wholly silent on this head. They proclaim the existence of God before the worlds were made; and that Great Being himself declares, that "when the foundations of this globe were laid, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The stars referred to in this passage are

man.

'Hebrews i. 2; Psalm xciii. 2, &c.

1 Job xxxviii. 7.