them that diligently seek him: this consoling assurance adds vigour to the performance of duty, quickens the pursuit after happiness, circumscribes our wishes within the compass of God's promises, and enables us to win the SECOND Step. Charity is the ornamented capital which completes the fabric, even the THIRD and SUBLIME STEP, embosomed in clouds and encircled with rays of everlasting glory.

CHAP. VIII.

CONTAINING THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS.

VIEW OF MASONRY FROM THE OFFERING OF

ISAAC TO THE DELIVERANCE FROM

EGYPTIAN CAPTIVITY.

THE opening of this period displays Masonry as inculcating the principles of Christianity still more unequivocally and distinctly, if faith, hope and CHARITY be considered as Christian virtues ; for amongst Masons they are referred to a transaction which illuminates this age of the world; and by which all good Masons hope to arrive at a building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Abraham buried his wife Sarah in a sepulchre in the field of Machpelah, at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years. He endeavoured to console himself for her loss by obtaining a wife for his son Isaac; and bound his steward by a most solemn oath to procure one amongst his own kindred in the land of Mesopotamia. His commission was successful, and he returned with Re

bekkah the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor, Abraham's brother.

In those ages an oath was used on all solemn and extraordinary occasions. It was considered as an awful acknowledgment of the universal presence of God, as well as of his supremacy over all created things, including a belief that he has power to avenge himself on all who shall violate such a solemn appeal to his truth and justice; and soliciting help from God implies also a desire to avoid the penalty, by a firm resolution to observe the prescribed condition. In primitive times men sware by lifting up their hands to heaven ;* by putting their hand under another's thigh;† by imprecation ; and by standing before the altar.§ This last method of making an oath was in use also amongst the idolatrous nations; particularly the Athenians, the Romans, and the Carthaginians.

The mysteries and worship of idolatry, notwithstanding their rapid progress by the indefatigable zeal of Ham, Mizraim, Isis and Ashtaroth, with their able coadjutors the Cabiri, had not wholly superseded Masonry in Arabia Deserta; for Job publickly renounces both the one and the other in the presence of his friends, and acknow

+ Gen. xxiv. 2 and xlvii. 29.
1st Kings, viii. 31.

* Gen. xiv. 22. xiv. 44. 1st Kings, xx. 10.

1st Sam.

1

ledges the practice of them worthy of punishment.* The conclusion of his speech, in answer

to Bildad the Shuhite, contains a series of Masonic duties, all of which he solemnly declares he has uniformly executed.t And hence his integrity

excited the resentment of Satan, whose ordinances he had despised and rejected. "Job and his friends worshipped the one true God in sincerity and truth; and their religious knowledge was in general such as might have been derived from the early patriarchs." He reiterates the doctrines and duties of Masonry throughout the whole of his expostulation s.In opposition to the multiplicity of gods, taught in the lesser mysteries, he appeals to the brute creation for an acknowledgement of one God, the creator and preserver of all things. "Ask the beasts, and they shall teach thee ; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this ?"S

After the death of Abraham, Rebekkah bore unto Isaac twin children, Esau and Jacob; of whom it had been predicted, that the elder should serve the younger. Esau, of a wandering and unsettled disposition, avoided the society of his

* Job, xxxi. 26--28.

I

+ Ibid. xxxi. 14. to end.

Bishop Tomline's Theol., var c. 2. § Job, xii. 7, 8, 9. ¶ Gen. xxv. 23.

own kindred; associated with the inhabitants of Canaan, and with the Hittites; and probably his wanderings might occasionally extend to Egypt. He was, however, early initiated into and tainted with, the idolatrous rites of the neighbouring nations; and gradually seceded from the God of his fathers. His indifference to the rights of primogeniture, which included the sacred office of priest or sacrificer to his family, induced him to dispose of them for a trifling consideration: he was, therefore, rejected by God, termed a "pro

fane person, " because he slighted that privilege which gave him undisputed dominion over the spiritual as well as the temporal affairs of his brethren: but Jacob, who adhered to our science as revived by Abraham and practised by Isaac, received the approbation of God, and was suffered to obtain, not only Esau's birthright, but also his father's blessing.

Isaac secretly encouraged a partiality for his eldest son, in whom he might conceive the promises centred; and hoped, notwithstanding he had deviated from the faith of his fathers, that the blessing of Abraham might descend through him. But Rebekkah, grieved at the preference given to Esau; who had already taken wives from among Hittites, and given in other respects

* Heb. xii. 16.