A Christian should not be a Freemason, for the Scripture command to him is:
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness? and what concord has Christ with Belial? or what part has he that believes with an infidel?” (2 Cor. 6:14-15)
This is a command that all Christians are bound to obey, if they are to be consistent with their Christian profession. The contrast in this verse is sharp and well-defined. Can it be sustained in our present enquiry? “What fellowship has Christ with Belial?”
In answer let us quote Mr. J. S. M. Ward, Secretary-General of The Masonic Study Circle. He has written a number of text-books for the use of candidates preparing for the different degrees in the Masonic body. The introduction to these handbooks is written by Sir John Cockburn, Past Grand Deacon (of England), Past Deputy Grand Master (of South Australia). Surely these are credentials enough to show that he is an authority in Masonic circles, and that what he puts forth is their accepted belief. In one of these books he introduces some lines of his own composition, which run as follows:
“Bacchus died and rose again
On the golden Syrian plain,
Osiris rose from out the grave
And thereby mankind did save,
Adonis likewise shed his blood
By the yellow Syrian flood,
Zoroaster brought to birth
Mithra from his cave of earth.
And we to-day in Christian lands,
We with them can join hands.”
According to these lines on entering the Masonic lodge the Christian must leave his Christianity outside, and associate with a system that places Christianity on a level with heathen religions. Can a Christian join hands with Bacchus, the Roman god of wine? In the Bacchanalian festivals
“the most horrible immoralities were practised; the wildest frenzy indulged in.” (Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 265)
In time the worship of Bacchus was sternly prohibited by the Romans, apparently not without recourse to military force, and finally completely extinguished. If the heathen power of Rome was driven to take action against this disgusting and obscene worship, and stamped it off the face of the earth, how is it that Christians can respond to the invitation to “join hands” with such? Look at the claim made for Bacchus, that he died and rose again. Is this not an attempt to put the death of our adorable Lord on a level with the imaginary and revolting god of the heathen? We may well ask, “What concord has Christ with Belial?”
What shall we say of Osiris, the corn-god of Egypt? He was claimed to be the offspring of an unholy intrigue between the earth-god (Keb or Geb) and the sky-goddess, Nut. The story is so indecent that it would be unseemly to defile our pages with it. His soul was supposed to be continually present among men in the sacred bull, Apis. How degrading are the thoughts of men, who do not glorify God as God, but make images of birds, four-footed beasts and creeping things (see Romans 1:21-23). Yet this god, who never existed save in the minds of the ancient Egyptians, is said to have risen from the dead and thus saved mankind. It may be said that this was symbolic of the germination and growth of wheat, on the harvest of which the nation depended for sustenance; but, in the lines we have just quoted, it is placed as if the rising of Osiris from the grave, thus saving mankind, was on a level with the resurrection of the Saviour of mankind, our Lord Jesus Christ. Can the Christian “join hands” with this, and preserve his loyalty to his Lord? Impossible!
Zoroaster founded a heathen cult, whose writings are set forth in the Zend-Avesta. His followers are the Parsees and Guebres of India. The Parsees worship the sun. The children of Israel were bidden to stone to death any man or woman who worshipped the sun (see Deut. 17:2-7). Yet Freemasons are asked to “join hands” with such. Moses would have given Freemasonry short shrift in his day.
In this bit of doggerel, sensible men in Christian lands are asked to “join hands” with imaginary gods of lustful propensities. They are asked to place Christianity on a level with the obscenities and blasphemies of the heathen, which is indeed the destruction of Christianity. We may well repeat the question, “What concord has Christ with Belial?”
No wonder the late Dwight L. Moody, the great American evangelist, denounced this evil cult in the plainest of language. He said:
“I do not see how any Christian, most of all a Christian Minister, can go into these secret lodges with unbelievers. They say they have more influence for good, but I say they can have more influence for good by staying out of them, and then reproving their evil deeds. Abraham had more influence for good in Sodom, although out of it, than Lot had in it. I would rather have ten Church members, who were separated from the world, than a thousand unseparated members. Come out of the Lodge.”
And then Mr. Moody quoted the continuation of the Scripture, which stands at the beginning of this pamphlet:
“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, said the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor. 6:17-18)
Major Powell, a Masonic author, writes:
“Christian saint, Mohammedan Mystic, Indian Yogi, Buddhist Lama, Greek Gnostic, Egyptian Priest—each in his own way has borne witness to the transcendental vision, where self and personality are obliterated where atonement is established.” (The Magic of Freemasonry, 1924, p. 594)
Evidently this author knows nothing of vital Christianity. How can any Christian man, who believes that
“there is NONE OTHER NAME [than that of the Lord Jesus Christ] under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
“join hands” with this blasphemy? To do so is to be disloyal to his Saviour and Lord.
The entrance of a candidate to the Masonic Lodge is humiliating in the extreme. Half-stripped, blindfolded, on bended knees with a halter round his neck, he must present a debasing spectacle to every right-minded person. It is certainly symbolic of what happens to them spiritually. Half-stripped, the candidate, if he believes all that he is told, will be WHOLLY stripped of Christianity. Blindfolded, if he believes all that he is told, his mind will be complete darkness as to Christ and His atoning work on the Cross. On bended knee the candidate makes on solemn oath a promise to receive teaching of which he does not fully know the nature. He does not know what his oath implies. It binds him to an abject slavery, which submits his mind to a whole system of teaching, regulations and secrets of an anti-christian cult.
The oath indeed puts a halter round the mind of the one who makes it. What do you think of the following specimen?
“I … promise and swear that I will assist a Companion Arch Mason when I see him engaged in any difficulty, and will espouse his cause so far as to extricate him from the same, whether he be right or wrong.” (English and Irish Freemasons and their Foreign Brothers. 1887)
“WHETHER HE BE RIGHT OR WRONG” might include murder or high treason. Is this not putting a halter round the neck, which in the end might be a real hangman’s rope, if murder or treason resulted on taking such a blindfold oath? Where is liberty of conscience?
We remember vividly how a High Court Judge, some years ago, sternly rebuked a murderer in the dock who had the effrontery to give him the Masonic sign. It was good indeed that this Judge was incorruptible, and refused to prostrate justice in favour of Masonic oaths of this nature.
Why should there be this extraordinary secrecy about Freemasonry, if it were really a good movement? John Wesley said:
“What an amazing banter upon all mankind is Freemasonry! And what a secret is it, which so many concur to keep! From what motive? Through fear or shame to keep it.”
The writer has known of Freemasons, becoming Christians after they had joined that body, promptly giving up all intercourse with it in loyalty to Christ. They looked with shame upon the link they had with it.
The writer remembers sitting on the edge of a Nova Scotian lake in the company of an earnest Christian barrister. He had renounced Freemasonry on being converted. Just to see what effect the question would produce, and having no expectation of any secrets revealed, he asked his friend what the secrets of Freemasonry were. A sorrowful look came over his friend’s face, as he replied that it was as much as his life was worth to answer this question. Can any Christian knowingly enter into a secret society of this nature?
Concealed light, closely shaded windows, rigorously guarded doors, terrible oaths of secrecy with threats of the throat being cut from ear to ear, the tongue torn from its roots, the body to be buried in the rough sands of the sea, a cable’s length from the shore at low-water mark, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty four hours, stand in contrast to the Saviour’s words, when He said:
“I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.” (John 18:20)
The glory of Christianity is AN OPEN BIBLE. Freemasonry on the contrary has secret signs, and the ritual in the lodges is written in a secret code. Our Lord tells us that there is nothing secret that shall not be revealed, and instructed His disciples:
“What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.” (Matt. 10:27)
Freemasonry makes self-effort the way of salvation as a substitute for the gospel of God. In the general run of lodges, with scarcely an exception, the Name of Christ is forbidden, save as on a level with Buddha, Zoroaster, Mohammed, Osiris, and the like. Christian, Deist, Jew, Mohammedan, Theosophist, Heathen, the utterly godless—all are welcome. Nothing is to be said to offend any, so the Name of Christ is ruled out. In the reading of the Scriptures the Name of Christ is carefully suppressed.
Hear how Freemasonry substitutes self-effort for salvation in place of the gospel. Man, according to Freemasonry, can be his own Saviour. In that system there is no need for Christ. Major Powell writes:
“Before the soul rises again in its glory, there must be Gethsemane and Calvary. There is a loneliness, a desolation of bitterest intensity ere the soul … can be itself, unaided by anything or any being outside itself, alone, aloof, a King in its own right.” (The Magic of Masonry, p. 105)
“UNAIDED BY ANYTHING,” where is there room for the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ? “UNAIDED BY … ANYTHING OUTSIDE ITSELF,” where is there room for the Saviour Himself? None whatever! According to Masonic teaching, man “ALONE, ALOOF,” is his own Saviour. He is “A KING IN HIS OWN RIGHT.” Surely this is apostasy. Man is deified.
How different is the song of praise to our blessed Redeemer:
“Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (Rev. 1:5-6)
The way of Cain is an ancient way. The Devil is still busy seeking to make it popular. Freemasonry is one of his agencies in this wicked work. Cain sought the favour of Heaven by his own efforts. His was a bloodless religion. He was the first Unitarian the world ever saw. He refused to follow the example of Abel, who brought a sacrifice to be slain, shed its blood and offered it up on the altar; typical surely of the one great efficacious sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross of Calvary. In the words of Scripture, “He being dead yet speaks” (Heb. 11:4). No wonder that Jude, writing of the apostasy that would set in, denounced this way:
“Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain.” (Jude 11)
The Rev. C. Penney Hunt, B.A., who has written a very striking exposure of Freemasonry, says
truly:
“Freemasonry is simply Theosophy. It is the perpetuation of the worship of the old pagan gods of Egypt, Greece, India, etc.” (The Menace of Freemasonry to the Christian Faith, 4th edition, p. 8)
We may well ask in astonishment, Where does the fascination lie in such a compound of heathendom and Unitarianism? The answer is twofold. (1) There is the awful and generally very underrated power of Satan, working with extraordinary subtilty, so that even Christians may come under the power of these subtle workings without being in the least aware of it. (2) There is an outward and external reason. SELF-INTEREST is the appeal. Here is a society of men bound to stand by each other, to advance each other’s interests in commerce and in all the affairs of this life. A letter only today is illuminating. My friend writes:
“The secret bond of Freemasonry is making itself increasingly felt in these days of economical and business and financial famine. I could cite several businessmen, who have lost much trade, and some others who have failed to get situations, not being Masons. Only one question is asked, ‘Are you a Mason?’ and on reply in the negative no further question is put, and the interview politely closed. I myself have suffered losses on this account.”
Another friend, a lawyer, told me recently that he had an undoubted first claim to a remunerative legal appointment, but was passed over in favour of a Mason.
Surely Freemasonry is the foreshadowing of the day that is fast approaching, of the terrible times that are coming, as foretold in Scripture, when a mark shall be branded on right hand or forehead of small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,
“that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Rev. 13:17)
In that day doubtless many saints of God will lay down their lives, rather than apostatize by receiving the mark of the beast.
It reminds one of what happened in Soviet Russia, where a minister was refused rations, when ordinary people got them. He might starve to death. What cared an atheistic, godless Government! Indeed the refusal of the rations was intended to starve him into apostasy or death.
But it may be urged that bishops, clergymen and ministers are Freemasons: surely it must be right if these leaders of religion can join this body.
For instance, within the last few years a Governor-General of a British Possession, a Peer of the Realm, stated in a letter that, whilst Freemasonry as conducted on the continent of Europe was open to much serious criticism, there was nothing in modern Freemasonry in English-speaking countries at all incompatible with Christianity.
He then went on to state that some of the greatest and most spiritually minded ministers are enthusiastic Freemasons.
We may well ask, If this is so, why should the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland (1927) make abstention from membership in the Masonic body a condition of membership in their churches?
And why should the large Methodist body, at their Conference held at Bradford in 1927, pass two resolutions concerning Freemasonry? The following is an extract from the same:
“Freemasonry in its ritual and official language is of a Deistic nature, simply the creative activity of flood as the Great Architect of the Universe, and the moral obligation of honesty and kindliness The Distinctive faith of Christianity and the Christian message of salvation through faith in Christ is wholly incompatible with the claims put forward by Freemasonry in writing and speech.”
The Methodist Conference then recommended their ministers to have nothing to do with Freemasonry.
Surely these bodies had grave and sufficient reasons for the stand they made. And why should the Founder of the Salvation Army, the late General Booth, write to all officers of that body:
“No language of mine could be too strong in condemning any officer’s affiliation with any Society which shuts our Lord outside its Temples; and which in its religious ceremonies gives neither Him nor His name any place. The place where Jesus Christ is not allowed is no place for any Salvation Army Officer!”
And we may finally ask, are not the extracts we have given in this pamphlet from the pens of authoritative Freemason authors? Are they not from text-books circulating in English-speaking lands? Are they not pagan, anti-christian and infidel? Surely, this Governor-General cannot know the true character of Freemasonry. We utterly dissent from his letter.
The truth is no spiritually minded Christian could join Freemasonry if he knew its inner working. To do so would be absolutely inconsistent with his Christian profession; and afford a shameful example to other Christians. He would dishonour the Saviour He professes to follow, and flout the Scriptures he is pledged to uphold.
Even foreign Governments have had to take strong action against this menace.
Freemasonry has been banned by different countries. It was suppressed in Holland (1735); in Austria (1743); in France and Italy (1737); in Switzerland (1778); and lately it has again been banned in Holland (1920); and still more recently in Spain and Italy. Mussolini has not only closed the Masonic Lodges in his country, but exacts from professors, teachers and officials a solemn declaration that they do not belong to the Masonic body, and, if they have abandoned it, that they will not resume links with it.
Much, very much more, could have been written on this subject, proving the anti-christian character of Freemasonry, but enough has been shown to warn any Christian, who owes his salvation to the atoning death of our Lord, from entering a Freemason Lodge, and to give any true Christian, who has become a Freemason, the necessary information to lead him to forsake such an anti-christian and God-dishonouring association.
A.J. Pollock (ca. 1930)