4 Freemasonry and Revolution
If the Freemasons think it worth while, they will, no doubt, reply to the Morning Post through a better-qualified member of the Craft than myself,15 but, unlike the Jews, they can afford to treat the superstitions with which they are assailed with contempt. It will suffice here to quote what Lord Moira said on the subject in 1800:—
“Certain modern publications have been holding forth to the world the society of Masons as a league against constitutional authorities—an imputation the more secure because the known constitutions of our fellowship make it certain that no answer can be published. It is not to be disputed that in countries where impolitic prohibitions restrict the communication of sentiment, the activity of the human mind may, among other means of baffling the control, have resorted to the artifice of borrowing the denomination of Freemasons, to cover meetings for seditious purposes, just as any other description might be assumed for the same object. But, in the first place, it is the invaluable distinction of this free country that such a just intercourse of opinions exists without restraint as cannot leave to any number of men the desire of forming or frequenting those disguised societies where dangerous dispositions may be imbibed. And, secondly, the profligate doctrines which may have been nurtured in any such self-established assemblies could never have been tolerated for a moment in any lodge meeting under regular authority. We aver, therefore, that not only such laxity of opinion has no sort of connection with the tenets of Masonry, but is diametrically opposite to the injunction which we regard as the foundation-stone of the lodge, namely, Fear God and honour the King.”16
To this it should be added that Masonic lodges—more or less spurious—have not only been used by Atheists and Revolutionists for their own sinister purposes, but also by their enemies. We learn from Robison that even the Roman Catholic Church at one time tried to capture them—possibly for ends not over-friendly to the Established Church in this country—and that the Jacobites, who can scarcely be called enemies of the Throne and Altar, were extremely active in the Masonic Order during the eighteenth century.17