Concerning God
and Religion A Mason is
obligated, by his tenure, to obey the Moral Law; and if he
rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist
nor an irreligious libertine. He, of all men, should best
understand that God
seeth; for man looketh at the
outward appearance, but God looketh to the
heart.
A Mason is, therefore, particularly bound never to act against the dictates of his conscience. Let a man's religion, or mode of worship, be what it may, he is not excluded from the order, provided he believe in the Glorious Architect of Heaven and Earth, and practice the sacred duties of Morality. Masons unite with the virtuous of every persuasion in the firm and pleasing bond of fraternal love; they are taught to view the errors of mankind with compassion, and to strive, by the purity of their own conduct, to demonstrate the superior excellence of the faith they may profess.
Thus Masonry
is the centre of union between good men and true, and the happy
means of conciliating friendship amongst those who must otherwise
have remained at a perpetual distance.
- From the First Printed Constitutions, 1723, of the First Grand Lodge in the World
(England).