TO OUR READERS, CORRESPONDENTS, &c. In our next will appear an ORIGINAL PAPER, on a highly-curious mechanical Subject, written by a Person whose Name has been much celebrated in the political World; but whose Talents, had they been solely directed to Mechanics, had certainly been extremely useful to Mankind. It was designed for Insertion in the Transactions of a Public Society, but (from what Circumstance we know not) it has never yet been printed. We are obliged to a Correspondent for his Hints, which shall be attended to as opportunity serves. One, he will perceive, we had anticipated. Any of the PORTRAITS contained in this Work may be had in Frames, handsomely gilt and glazed, at 3s. 6d. each, by applying at the BRITISH LETTER-FOUNDRY, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, CHANCERY-LANE, where Communications for the PROPRIETOR will be thankfully received. SUBSCRIBERS may have their Volumes bound by sending them as above. THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE, OR GENERAL AND COMPLETE LIBRARY. FOR JUNE 1795. A HISTORY OF MASONRY, TO THE PRESENT TIME. THE Almighty Architect of the Universe having prepared this globe, and replenished it with all its animal, vegetable, and mineral furniture, as a habitation fit to receive the class of rational beings his wisdom determined to place in it; he created man in his own image, and endued him with a capacity of mind, and powers of body, for acquiring those sciences, and exercising those arts, that are so successfully cultivated by every civilized nation. How Adam forfeited the state of felicity in which he was originally placed, is not our peculiar province to enquire, farther than we are informed by the inspired penman: it is sufficient to remark, that he incurred banishment from the garden of Eden, by too eager a desire for knowledge, of which he ventured to anticipate the possession by a prohibited act. Hence he entailed upon himself and all his sinful posterity the severe punishment of earning their bread by the sweat of their brow; and Principally from the writings of our highly-respectable and well-skilled Brethren NoORTHOUCK and PRESTON. + The first Christians computed their times as the nations did among whom they lived, till A. D. 516, when Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman abbot, taught them to compute from the birth of Christ: but he lost four years, by fixing the Christian æra four years later than the truth. Therefore though, according to the Hebrew chronology, and other good authorities, Jesus Christ was born in the year of the world 4000: yet if we add to those years the present year of our Lord, or A. D. 1795, the sum 5795 will not be the true Anno Mundi, or year of Masonry, without the farther addition of these four lost years. But this being a degree of accuracy that Masons in general do not attend to, we must, after this intimation, still follow the vulgar mode of computation to be intelligible. of having a life of labour closed by the extinction of their vital powers in death! Man being, as we have seen, destined to labour, possesses a fund of industry, and a happy facility in inventing arts and sciences, whether mechanical or liberal; all of which have a tendency to the benefit of social intercourse. Therefore we need not question but that the allwise God, by implanting these propensities in our nature, intended that we should not only live happily as individuals, but be mutually assistant to each other for the good of human society; which, in the Scripture phrase, is to be all of one mind, having compassion one for another, and to love as brethren. See him from nature rising slow to art! To copy instinct then, was reason's part. "Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale; "And hence let reason late instruct mankind *." We may be well assured that Adam instructed his descendants in all the knowledge he himself possessed; which, when we consider his immediate communications with his Maker, and the extraordinary perceptions he purchased at so dear a price, contrary to express command, must have been far greater than that of an ordinary man born amid the wild scenes of nature, with no farther opportunities of information than the mere supply of immediate wants afforded. Accordingly we find cultivation soon attended to in Adam's family, for, of his two sons, Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the earth. After their separation, upon the murder of Abel, Cain, with his family, being expelled from Adam's altars, built a city, and called it Dedicate or Consecrate, after the name of his eldest son Enoch; whose race following this example, improved themselves not only in geometry and Masonry, but made discoveries of other curious arts +. Thus Jabal, the eldest son of Lamech, first invented the use of tents, as moveable dwellings adapted to grazing, and taught the art of managing herds of cattle, which heretofore had been dispersed wild through the land: Jubal, his third son, was the inventor of music and musical instruments; and Tubal Cain, his youngest son, found out the art of forging and working metals. The descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam, came nothing behind those of Cain in the cultivation of useful arts; this patriarch of the other half of mankind, must have greatly profited under the continual tuition of Adam, with whom he lived till the year of the world 930, and succeeded him then with the assistance of Enosh, Kainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, and Enoch*. The latter, as a monument of his superior abilities and love to posterity, foreseeing the universal desolation which would soon happen by water or fire, and deprive mankind of those arts and sciences already improved, raised two large pillars, one of brick, the other of stone, and inscribed thereon an abridgment of the arts and sciences; that if the pillar of brick happened to be overthrown by the flood, the other of stone might remain; which Josephus + tells us was to be seen in his time, in the land of Siriad, by the name of Seth's or Enoch's pillar. It is more than probable that about this time astronomy began to be studied; for, as there is nothing more surprising than the regularity of the heavenly luminaries, it is easy to judge that one of the first objects of attention for mankind would be, to consider their courses, and to observe their periods. It could not be curiosity only that prompted men to apply themselves to astronomical speculations; necessity itself must have dictated them. For if the seasons are not observed, which are distinguished by the planetary motions, it is impossible to succeed in agriculture. If the duration of the month and year were not determined, a certain order could not be established in civil affairs; nor could the days allotted to the exercise of religion be fixed. Thus, as neither agriculture, polity, nor religion, could dispense with the want of astronomy, it is evident that mankind were obliged to apply themselves to the sciences from the beginning of the world. The posterity of Seth, who had for many ages retained their integrity in the true worship of God, and a close application to sciences, were at last infected with the same contagion of profaneness and immorality as the race of Cain; so that all sorts of wickedness overspread the earth: this depravity at last ended in their destruction and extirpation by the deluge, in which all the human race perished, except Noah and his family ‡. Here was a dismal face of things: instead of the earth, adorned with the productions of nature, and the improvements of art, a watery desart appeared, which offered nothing to the view of Heaven but the floating wrecks of man and his fellowcreatures, swept away in one common destruction! This was the most dreadful and amazing judgment, the most horrid and portentous catastrophe that nature ever yet saw ||. Preparatory to this awful desolation, God commanded Noah to build a great ark §, or floating castle, wherein his family, with an assortment of every species of animals might be preserved to replenish the earth, when the intended judgment was completed; and the assistance of his three sons in this great undertaking may be conceived as in the capacity of a deputy and two wardens. Geometrical principles, and architectural proportions, being common to all * See Gen. v. 6-25. ↑ See Gen. vi, 11, 12, 13. Jos. Antiq. lib. i. c. 2. See Gen, vi. 14, &c. buildings, composed of whatever materials, and calculated for whatever purposes, it cannot be construed into an unwarrantable liberty, to consider naval architecture as closely allied to the Masonic art; and in this particular and most extraordinary instance the Great Architect of Nature is represented as condescending to dictate the plan, and to assign the proportion of its parts. On board of this stupendous vessel Noah, with his three sons, their four wives, and the proper number of animals necessary for continuing the several species, were preserved from the irresistible torrents that overwhelmed all the rest of animated nature; the marine tribes excepted, which, during the flood, remained in their proper element. From these Masons, or four Grand Officers, thus miraculously preserved, the whole present race of mankind are descended. This chosen family brought with them over the flood, and afterward communicated to their children, all the knowledge possessed by the old world. The first thing Noah did upon his landing, was to build an altar*, and offer a burnt sacrifice of every clean beast and fowl. God having accepted the sacrifice, blessed Noah, and gave him power over all living creatures, with a permission to eat them as freely as of the produce of the ground: he forbade him, however, to eat the blood of animals, or to shed the blood of man; commanding him to punish manslaughter with death, and to replenish the earth with inhabitants. Being all of one language and speech, it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east toward the west, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there together as Noachidæ, or sons of Noah, the first name of Masons. And when Noah ordered his sons and grandsons, in the year 101, in which Peleg was born to Heber, to disperse and take possession of the several parts of the earth, according to the partition he had made; they, through fear of the bad consequence of separation, and resolving to keep together, assembled in great numbers on the plains of Shinar ‡, to build a city and a tower whose Summit might reach up to heaven! This extravagant idea was conceived in an age by far too remote and obscure for us to possess any authentic particulars concerning it; but, beside the account we have of this tower from Moses, the enormous pyramids of Egypt, which are probably not far short of it in antiquity, are to this day standing monuments of the grand designs mankind were then capable of forming. The incontrovertible evidence of these pyramids encourages us to repeat the loose notices which have been handed down to us relating to the tower of Babel.—The foundation is reported to have been a square of half a mile in compass, and the building to have consisted of eight square towers, rising in stages above each other, with an ascending passage on the outside, all the Gen. viii. 20, 21. † See Gen. xi. 1, &c. Gen. xi. 4, &c. |