Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

the minds of his hearers were not fitted for receiving these doctrines. I told you, fays he, but you could not bear' it. Many therefore were called, but few were chofen. To his Elect were intrufted the most im

portant fecrets; and and even among them there were degrees of information. There was a feventy, and a twelve. All this was in the natural order of things, and, according to the habits of the Jews, and indeed of all antiquity, the Jewish Theofophy was a mystery, like the Eleufinian, or the Pythagorean, unfit for the vulgar. And thus the doctrines of Christianity were committed to the Adepti, in a Difciplina Arcani. By these they were maintained like the Vestal fire. They were kept up only in hidden focieties, who handed them down to pofterity; and they are now in the poffeffion of the genuine Free-Mafons." -“ And now it will appear that we are the only true Christians. We fhall now be in a condition to fay a few words to priefts and princes. I have fo contrived things, that I would admit even popes and kings, after the trial I have prefixed."

Let us now return to the difcourfe of the Prefident. Jefus Chrift, our Grand

66

and

and ever-celebrated Mafter, appeared in an age when corruption was univerfal; in the midst of a people who from time immemorial had been subjected to, and feverely felt the yoke of flavery; and who eagerly expected their deliverer, announced by the Prophets. Jefus appeared and taught the doctrine of Reason; to give greater efficacy to these doctrines, he formed them into a religion, and, adopted the received traditions of the Jews. He prudently grafted his new school on their religion and their customs, which he made the vehicle of the effence and fecrets of his new doctrines. He did not felect fages for his new difciples, but ignorant men, chofen from the lowest class of the people, to show that his doctrine was made for all, and fuitable to every one's understanding; to fhow too, that the knowledge of the grand truths of reafon was not a privilege peculiar to the great. He does not teach the Jews alone, but all mankind, the means of acquiring their liberty by the obfervation of his precepts. He supported his doctrines by an innocent life, and fealed them with his blood. His precepts for the Salvation of the world are, fimply, the love of God and the love of our neighbour; he asks no more.—-No

body

[ocr errors]

body ever reduced and confolidated the bands of human fociety within their real limits as he did. No one was ever more intelligible to his hearers, or more prudently covered the fublime fignifications of his doctrine. No one indeed ever laid a furer foundation for liberty, than our Grand Mafter, Jefus of Nazareth. It is true, that on all occafions he carefully concealed the fublime meaning, and natural confequences of his doctrine; for he had a fecret doctrine, as is evident from more than one paffage of the Gofpel; To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to them that are without all things are done in parables. And their princes have power over them; but it is not fo among you, but whoever will be greater fhall be your minifter.' If therefore the object of the fecret of Jefus which has been preferved by the inftitution of the mysteries, and clearly demonftrated both by the conduct and the discourses of this Divine Mafter, was to reinftate mankind in their original liberty and equality, and to prepare the means; how many things immediately appear clear and natural, which hitherto feemed to be contradictory and unintelligible! This explains in what fenfe Chrift

Was

was the Saviour and the Liberator of the world. How the doctrine of original fin, of the fall of man, and of his regeneration, can be understood. The fate of pure nature, of fallen or corrupt nature, and the state of grace, will no longer be a problem. Mankind, in quitting their state of nature, loft their dignity. In their civil fociety, and under their governments, they no longer live in the state of pure nature, but in that of fallen and corrupt nature. If the moderating of their paffions and the diminution of their wants, reinstate them in their primitive dignity, that will really conftitute their redemption, and their state of grace. It is to this point that morality, and the most perfect of all morality, that of Jefus, leads mankind. When at length this doctrine Shall be generalized throughout the world, the reign of the good and of the elect fhall be eftablished."- -This difcourfe requires no comment; but fuffer me to ask, whether it be poffible to imagine a more exact fulfilment of the Prophecy, as far as relates to the defcription of the fecond Beaft?

The extreme importance of the fubject must be my apology for multiplying proofs. In one of their rituals, the Mafter's degree

is

66

is made typical of the death of Jesus Christ, "the Preacher of Brotherly Love." But in the next step it is fhewn to have been Reason that has been deftroyed and entombed; and the Mafter in this degree, "the fublime Philofophe, occafions this dif covery of the place where the body is hid. Reafon rifes again, Superftition and Tyranny disappear, and man becomes free and happy." "We must gradually," fays Weishaupt, explain away all our preparatory pious frauds; and when perfons of difcernment find fault, we must defire them to confider the end of our labours ; we must unfold from history and other writings, the origin and fabrication of all religious lies whatever and then give a critical history of our order. But I cannot but laugh when I think of the ready reception which all this has met with from the and learned divines of Germany grave and of England and I wonder how their Williams failed, when he attempted to

$

• He read lectures in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, in the years 1776, and 1777, which were afterwards published. The firft point he endeavoured to establish was, that he was not infane !!! See Monthly Review, Jan. 1780.

establish

« EdellinenJatka »