Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe: carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.Robison, John
History
Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe: carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.
Robison, John
Freemasonry -- Early works to 1800; Illuminati -- Early works to 1800
Thousands, I trust, there are, who think that this life is but
a preparation for another, in which the mind of man will have
the whole wonders of creation and of providence laid open to its
enraptured view--where it will see and comprehend with one glance
what Newton, the most patient and successful of all the observers
of nature, took years of meditation to find out--where it will
attain that pitch of wisdom, goodness, and enjoyment, of which our
consciences tell us we are capable, though it far surpasses that of
the wisest, the best, and the happiest of men. Such persons will
consider this Order as degrading and detestable, and as in direct
opposition to their most confident expectations: For it pretends
to what is impossible, to perfect peace and happiness in this
life. They believe, and they feel, that man must be made perfect
through sufferings, which shall call into action powers of mind
that otherwise would never have unfolded themselves--powers which
are frequently sources of the purest and most soothing pleasures,
and naturally make us rest our eyes and hopes on that state where
every tear shall be wiped away, and where the kind affections shall
become the never-failing sources of pure and unfading delight. Such
persons see the palpable absurdity of a preparation which is equally
necessary for all, and yet must be confined to the minds of a few,
who have the low and indelicate appetite for frivolous play-things,
and for gross sensual pleasures. Such minds will turn away from this
boasted treat with loathing and abhorrence.
I am well aware that some of my readers may smile at this, and think
it an enthusiastical working up of the imagination, similar to what
I reprobate in the case of Utopian happiness in a state of universal
Liberty and Equality. It is like, they will say, to the declamation
in a sermon by persons of the trade, who are trained up to finesse,
by which they allure and tickle weak minds.
I acknowledge that in the present case I do not address myself to
the cold hearts, who contentedly
"_Sink and slumber in their cells of clay_;"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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