The sciences and arts, the Bible
and nature, are open to all. So is the book of history. What new
science, or art, or history, or religion is there for secret societies
to disclose?
III. Religious rites or worship in societies, open or secret--are any
allowable? and, if so, what?
In order to answer this question, we need to consider certain
fundamental and vital principles of Christianity.
1. All men, as depraved and guilty, need regeneration and pardon
through the intervention of Christ.
2. There is access to the true God only through Christ: "I am the
way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but
through me."
3. "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father; but he
that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also."
All Christian churches are based on these truths, and the center and
culmination of their worship is this recognition of Christ in the
Sacrament as the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.
Christ, too, is the center of the worship of heaven.
Hence, if Christians associate with others in worship, it can rightly
be only on the ground that the worship centers in Christ, and
acknowledges him as Lord, to the glory of the Father.
Hence, if, for the sake of extending an organization, men are admitted
of all religions--Pagans, Mohammedans, Deists, Jews--and if, for the
sake of accommodating them with a common ground of union, Christ is
ignored, and the God of nature or of creation is professedly
worshiped, and morality inculcated solely on natural grounds, then
such worship is not accepted by the real God and Father of the
universe, for he looks on it as involving the rejection and dishonor,
nay, the renewed crucifixion of his Son.
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