Masonry V. Agnosticism.*

MASONRY V . AGNOSTICISM . *

BY BRO . THE REV . HENRY G . PERRY , M . A ., 32 , K . T . npHIS article would read as well were it entitled Masonic belief contrasting J- and contradicting unbelief , as it exists in the world without Masonry ; for Freemasonry proceeds and builds upon Faith from the beginning , and fosters it . Butas Masons may enquirefirst , "What of Agnosticism ? " we

, , answei " , " It is the new name comparatively , for those who are not so much in contradistinction to "Gnostics" as they are of those who say because we lenow not what answers to divine things if there be such , we assert no belief in any thing positively . We do not know- altogether , and need not therefore , believe at all .

Now this is not so much indifferentism as it is infidelity . Calling it scepticism does not materially vary or mend matters , for sceptisism is but arrant doubt and denial of divine truth . Nor that only , as applied to the origin of the Reedeemer of mankind ' s religion , in the Christian economy , under which we continue , enjoying the glorious liberty of the children of God . The notorious sceptic school of Pyrrhothe Greek hilosopher of Elis 340

, p , years B . C ., had not Christ to antagonize ; but it went on , all lengths and hazards , through teaching of Gymnosophists , Brahmins , Magi and the like , knowing vastly more than many of the modem blatant profane , who give their readers so many stale and vivid rehashes of Voltaire , Volney , Renan and Paine . And to what did it all lead ? Remember some 2 , 222 years ago !—the great sceptic ' s answerin all disputesto his opponentswas the sillshallowsenseless

, , , y , , agnostic : " What you say may or may not be true I oannot decide ; " and thus , in his school taught that truth cannot be reached . So vague , unreal , and worthless withal was all this that Pyrrho left no writings , even ; and those of Timon , his follower , were lost ; while we learn later from another , Sextus Empiricus , that the whole bent of their sceptic work was " rather to overthrow other philosophical structures than to build up their own , " which amounted to

nothing , if not mischievous , moreover and hurtful . For like motive God ' s haters would destroy the Book of Books , beg the question , rob faith , render nothing in return if not violence to authority , and sneak away under the " we don't know" cover . History repeats itself ! and does so here , noticeably , in the very article of faithlessness . The Gnostics were bad enough , but the modern agnostics appear worse ; becausewe maintainaccording to revealed reliionwithout God in the world .

, , g , Let us , to comprehend more clearl y , see what the Gnostics were , as " ancient heretics famous from the first rise of Christianity " in the Eastern parts . If we refer to Hol y Writ , in I . Timothy vi ., 20 ; Colossians ii ., 8 ; and I . John ii ., 18 , we are assured of this infection ' s obtaining in the earliest time . And , strange to add—lucus a non lucendo—extremists even then claimed to be beyond the practical common sense Christian of that primitive period ! For

instance , " they corrupted the doctrine of the Gospel by a profane mixture of the tenets of the old philoso ] 3 hy concerning the ori gin of evil , and the creation of the world . " Irenams accuses them of introducing into religion certain vain and ridiculous genealogies , i . e ., a kind of divine processions or emanations , which had no other foundation but in their own wild imagination . Their persuasion that evil resided in matter , as its centre and source , made