THE BUILDER APRIL 1929

Masonic Fundamentals

By BRO. C.H. BRIGGS, P. G. M., Missouri

EACH petitioner for the Mysteries of Freemasonry must declare that
he is "a firm believer in the one living and true God." He is told
that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. He is
taught the importance of prayer. He is told that "the Holy Bible is
given us as the rule and guide of our faith and practice." He is
taught man's immortality.

High Twelve 
Lo! Judah's Lion stoops to save 
His strong right hand 
Is reading downward to the grave 
The dead shall stand. 
A grip, a word, he springs upright 
The shadows fly 
He basks in heaven's eternal light 
No more to die.
High Twelve

The Freemason who rejects these great principles outlaws himself.
Forty years ago a "progressive" Freemason who had outgrown his
belief in these verities was expelled from a Missouri Lodge. The
Grand Lodge by a unanimous vote sustained the action of the Lodge
in expelling him and said in the report as adopted: "The 'Book of
the Law' is that volume which by the religion of the country is
believed to contain the revealed will of the Grand Architect of the
Universe." The Jew and the Christian meet in the lodge. Each finds
in the "Book of the Law" the revealed will of God, but each is left
free to find his own interpretation of it.

The efforts which many critics and some preachers are making to
discredit the Old Testament need not disturb intelligent
Freemasons. Fifty years ago they told us the art of writing was not
sufficiently advanced in the time of Moses to warrant us in
believing he could have written the Pentateuch. Since the Code of
Hammurabi was discovered such critics are dumb. They told us Luke
was an ignoramus because in the seventeenth chapter of Acts he used
the word "Politarchs" in writing of the rulers of Thessalonica. The
critics said the word was not found in Greek literature. Thirty
years ago I saw in the British Museum a marble slab dug up at
Thessalonica which uses that very word. It is an unusual word and
Luke uses it nowhere else.

Those who wish to read a sane book on the Old Testament can find it
in Professor James Orr's "Problem of the Old Testament." Robert
Dick Wilson of Princeton, who knows twenty-six languages and is
probably the best American authority on Oriental literature, says:
"There is no book in the world which has been handed down as the
Bible. There are twenty-nine Kings of Egypt: Israel, Judah, Moab,
Damascus, Tyre, Babylon, Assyria, Persia; ten different countries
mentioned among these twenty-nine, both in the Bible and on the
monuments, so far as we can trace them. Every one of these is
mentioned in the Bible as King of the right country. Every one of
the twenty-nine is mentioned in the correct chronological and
synchronous order. Remember, some of these kings reigned like
Rameses II for sixty-two years, some for two months.


If you were going to write the history of this century, and had to
get those little kings in the Balkans and Germany and Austria and
Italy down right in the synchronism and in their relativity, you
would find a big problem. But the Bible has its kings right."

It is the best Ancient History the world has. Dr. John Lord
commences his "Beacon Lights of History" with Moses of whom he
says: "I begin my review of the great actors in the world's history
with the man who gave the first recorded impulse to civilization,
and who is the most august character of all antiquity." He stands
out in clear historic light and we know the names of Amram, his
father; Jochebed, his mother; Miriam, his sister, and his brother
Aaron. That he wrote the Pentateuch is far more probable than any
of the guesses with which the critics have sought to discrown him.
Those common sense considerations are all we need to urge as
reasons for believing that the Hebrews did not blunder in regarding
him as their Lawgiver.

1. Jerusalem is not named in the Pentateuch.

2. Music, instrumental or vocal, formed no part of the Mosaic
Ritual.

3. The term "Lord of Hosts" is not in the Pentateuch.

David captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the capital
of his kingdom. From his day dates its glory among the cities of
the world. From his day music became prominent in Hebrew worship.

The critics ask us to believe that centuries after David's day,
when Jerusalem had become the center of their national life, when
music, both instrumental and vocal, was so prominent in their
worship and when their literature named the Lord of Hosts, the most
skillful literary forgers the world ever knew fabricated the
Pentateuch, ascribed it to Moses, and to give it an antique cast,
kept out of it the name of Jerusalem, any reference to music in
worship, and the term "Lord of Hosts." My answer is, "Tell that to
the marines."

The first chapter of Genesis gives the order of the creation of
earth as geology unfolds it. How came Moses to be a geologist
thousands of years in advance of his day? Had the tallest archangel
who flames before the throne and who saw fire mist-taking form
until man stood in Eden the climax of the creative work undertaken
to reveal the story of what he saw he could not have put in the
same space a better account than Moses has given us.

Take his statement concerning marriage: "Therefore shall a man
leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and
they shall be one flesh." Jesus of Nazareth had nothing to add to
that. Shallow critics have sneered at the account of the first
human sin. It may be poetic in its form, but no theologian or
philosopher has ever been able to give a better explanation. It
shows that sin is the assertion of self-will against God. In
passing we may say that there are only three perfect pictures of
the Devil in the world's literature. One is in the third chapter of
Genesis, one in the second chapter of Job and the third in the
Gospel narrative of Christ's temptation. The essential difference
between human life and all other forms of terrestrial life is not
only clearly marked in the account of the Creation which Genesis
gives, but is emphasized in God's words to Noah recorded in the
ninth chapter. Flesh is given man for food. This gives him the
right to take animal life to meet his needs. But human life is
sacred. God gives it and God can take it away. "Whoso sheddeth
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of
God made he man." Here is the Divine warrant for Capital
Punishment, for murder. What does the Evolutionist do when he comes
to this? What did the old bell cow do when she came to the fence?
Went right over it. Joseph's answer to his tempters "How then can
I do this great wickedness, and sin against God ?" shows as clear
a conception of the double nature of sin as the New Testament
unfolds. He shrank from its impurity and feared to sin against God.

The Ten Commandments given on Sinai and deposited in the Ark of the
Covenant constitute the one and only moral code given to man. Jesus
was not a Lawgiver. Grace and Truth came by him but the Law had
already been given by Moses. Jesus interpreted it and applied it,
but did not re-enact it for it had not run out and is the basis of
the jurisprudence of civilized lands today. Where did Moses get
that law?

The Hebrew people did not give Monotheism to the world. Their
mission was to preserve a faith which had been man's heritage from
the beginning, but was dying out. Abraham had as friends and
associates Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God, and
Abimelech, King of Gerar to whom God appeared. But when Moses has
led the Children of Israel through the wilderness and they are
about ready to enter the Land of Promise no successors of
Melchizedek or Abimelech are found who shared their faith in God.
All we see is a torch going out in the darkness Balaam, a back-
sliding prophet, who loved the wages of unrighteousness and who was
slain in the war against Midian.

Your theories of Evolution break down when you come to deal with
the world's Religions. Every great religion the world has known was
loftier intellectually and nobler morally in its earlier stages
than in its later history. The suggestion of a recent Masonic
writer that the bones of Joseph were in the Ark of the Covenant and
he became their god, is absurd. Joseph's body was embalmed and an
ark three feet nine inches long was not its coffin. There are many
mummies in the British Museum, but I saw none stuffed into boxes
three feet and nine inches long.

