CHAPTER 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;1 and bound his steward by a most solemn

1 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 (Gen. xiv. 22); by putting their hand under another's thigh (Gen. xxiv. 2, and xlvii. 29); by imprecation

oath to procure one amongst his own kindred in the land of Mesopotamia. His commission was successful, and he returned with Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor, Abraham's brother.

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by the indefatigable zeal of Ham, Mizraim, Isis, and Ashtaroth, with their able coadjutors the Cabiri, had not wholly superseded Masonry at this period in Arabia Deserta; for Job publicly renounces both the one and the other in the presence of his friends, and acknowledges the practice of them worthy of punishment.2 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. 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 expostulations. In opposition to the multiplicity of gods, taught in the lesser mysteries, he appeals to the brute creation for an acknowledgment of one God, the creator and preserver of all things. "Ask the beasts, and they

(1 Sam. xiv. 44, 1 Kings xx. 10); and by standing before the altar (1 Kings viii. 31). This last method of making an oath was in use also amongst the idolatrous nations, particularly the Athenians, the Romans, and the Carthaginians.

2 Job xxxi. 26-28.

3 Ibid. xxxi. 14 to end.

4 Bishop Tomline's Theol., par. 1. c. 2.

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?"5

After the death of Abraham, Rebecca 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 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 "profane person,' "8 because he

5 Job xii. 7-9.

6 The Talmudists say that Isaac was a second Adam, and resembled him in every thing. Adam had two sons, Cain and Abel; and when Abel died he had Seth in his stead, so that he always had two sons. Isaac also had two sons, Esau and Jacob; and like to Cain, who was a child of sin, became a murderer, Esau was a shedder of blood, according to Solomon Jarchi. Abel being kind-hearted, offered sheep and lambs, which are symbols of innocence and benevolence; and Jacob dwelt in tents, and was a lover of peace and tranquillity. Thus Cain and Esau were depraved and iniquitous-Abel and Jacob good and beloved. (See the Concil. vol. i. p. 73.)

7 Gen. xxv. 23.

8 Heb. xii. 16.

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 Rebecca, grieved at the preference given to Esau, who had already taken wives from among the Hittites, and given in other respects strong symptoms of apostacy, hoped to find means of obtaining for her son Jacob his father's blessing. Apprized, therefore, of Isaac's intention to confer on Esau the great privilege of his birthright, and hearing him give directions for a collation of venison as a preparatory ceremony to imparting his final blessing, by policy she obtained for Jacob the rights and privileges of primogeniture, which were solemnly conveyed and ratified by the irrevocable covenant, to which God himself was a witness.

Esau was exasperated almost to madness at being thus supplanted a second time by his brother, and only waited until the death of Isaac to execute his resentment upon Jacob, and avenge, by a deed of violence, the privileges he had lost; for he had become fully sensible of their value and consequence. His mother, to avert the threatened danger, sent Jacob to Padanaram, a distant country in the land

of Mesopotamia, that he might remain in safety under the protection of his maternal uncle Laban. A fugitive from his own country, alone and friendless, overcome with the bodily exertion of his journey, augmented by anxiety of mind, he laid himself down to rest at a place called Luz, with the cold earth for his bed, a stone for his pillow, and the cloudy canopy of heaven for his covering. Here it pleased the Lord to impart that comfort which his situation so imperiously demanded; and which was conveyed to his senses through the medium of a most extraordinary vision. He thought he saw a LADDER, composed of staves or rounds innumerable; whose foot was placed on the earth, but whose top extended to heaven, and was enclouded with a radiant circle of celestial glory. On this ladder the angels of God appeared as the authorized ministers of his dispensations of justice and mercy. were ascending to receive divine commissions from the fountain of all goodness, and others were descending to execute these commissions on the earth. Suddenly there appeared, amidst the beams of glory which encircled the ladder's top, the Almighty Architect of the universe in person; who addressed the sleeping Jacob in words full of peace and consolation: "I AM the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed, and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to

Some

9 The three most remarkable visions recorded in Scripture, are, this of the Ladder, the vision of the Burning Bush, and that of the Ancient of Days vouchsafed to Daniel.