ience, 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. As to Christ, he tolerates no
neutrality. He who is not for him is against him. These principles do
not involve the question of secrecy. They hold true of all societies,
open or secret.

If, on such anti-Christian grounds, prayers are framed, rites
established, and chaplains appointed, ignoring Christ and his
intercession, God regards it as a mockery and an insult to himself and
his church. In it is revealed the hatred of Satan to Christ. By it
Christ is dethroned and Satan exalted.

These principles do not exclude worship and prayer from societies. In
any societies, true worship in the name of Christ will be accepted.

Let us now apply these principles to the societies of Free Masonry,
the modern mother of secret societies. Concerning these we hold it to
be plain:

That they have neither scien