Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of FreemasonryPike, Albert
Religion
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Pike, Albert
Freemasons
Doubt, in presence of Being and its harmonies; skepticism, in the face
of the eternal mathematics and the immutable laws of Life which make the
Divinity present and visible everywhere, as the Human is known and
visible by its utterances of word and act,--is this not the most foolish
of superstitions, and the most inexcusable as well as the most dangerous
of all credulities? Thought, we know, is not a result or consequence of
the organization of matter, of the chemical or other action or reaction
of its particles, like effervescence and gaseous explosions. On the
contrary, the fact that Thought is manifested and realized in act human
or act divine, proves the existence of an Entity, or Unity, that thinks.
And the Universe is the Infinite Utterance of one of an infinite number
of Infinite Thoughts, which cannot but emanate from an Infinite and
Thinking Source. The cause is always equal, at least, to the effect; and
matter cannot think, nor could it cause itself, or exist without cause,
nor could nothing _produce_ either forces or things; for in void
nothingness no Forces can inhere. Admit a self-existent Force, and its
Intelligence, or an Intelligent cause of it is admitted, and at once GOD
Is.
The Hebrew allegory of the Fall of Man, which is but a special variation
of a universal legend, symbolizes one of the grandest and most universal
allegories of science.
Moral Evil is Falsehood in actions; as Falsehood is Crime in words.
Injustice is the essence of Falsehood; and every false word is an
injustice.
Injustice is the death of the Moral Being, as Falsehood is the poison of
the Intelligence.
The perception of the Light is the dawn of the Eternal Life, in Being.
The Word of God, which creates the Light, seems to be uttered by every
Intelligence that can take cognizance of Forms and will look. "Let the
Light BE! The Light", in fact, exists, in its condition of splendor, for
those eyes alone that gaze at it; and the Soul, amorous of the spectacle
of the beauties of the Universe, and applying its attention to that
luminous writing of the Infinite Book which is called "The Visible,"
seems to utter, as God did on the dawn of the first day, that sublime
and creative word, "BE! LIGHT!"
It is not beyond the tomb, but in life itself, that we are to seek for
the mysteries of death. Salvation or reprobation begins here below and
the terrestrial world too has its Heaven and its Hell. Always, even here
below, virtue is rewarded; always, even here below vice is punished; and
that which makes us sometimes believe in the impunity of evil-doers is
that riches, those instruments of good and of evil, seem sometimes to be
given them at hazard. But woe to unjust men, when they possess the key
of gold! It opens, for _them_, only the gate of the tomb and of Hell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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