ON THE ALL-SEEING EYE.

  WHEN  we look round on the wonderful  works of God, as displayed in the formation of this globe  which we inhabit; when we  extend  our view  to  the  immense arch  of  heaven,  and

behold  the  amazing orbs of  light,  burning with  perpetual refulgence, and  illuminating every part of the vast and boundless expanse.

When we contemplate the wonderful productions of  Nature, from the stupendous ocean to  its minutest  inhabitant; from the majestic  lion that  prowls  in  the  desert,  to  the  most insignificant  reptile that hides its diminutive  form beneath the surface  of  the earth;   we  can  scarcely   resist   the impression  which  such  an  employment  will naturally  produce in the mind, that, the origin  of  these  mighty  phenomena,   which exhibit  such a wonderful mechanism in  their stricture,  and  such a regularity  in  their

motions,  must  have  been  the  work  of  an invisible and all powerful Architect. 

Do  we enquire how came the human frame by all those mysterious   properties  which  sustain   and preserve its  uniformity of action from one generation to  another; - how came man by the  reasoning faculty which elevates him so much above  the level of the animal creation?

This could  not be  merely  fortuitous, for  accident  seldom

produces  two inanimate forms that  bear  any degree of resemblance to each other; and  the human  body,  so complicated, so uniform,  so perfect  in  all  its  parts  and  faculties, could, least of all, be the effect of chance, and  therefore  must  be  the  work  of  some superior  Being; and he who  could  form  the

wonderful  machine,  and  furnish   it   with reason, must be divine.

The    existence   and   truth   of    this omnipresent  Being  are the  first  steps  of Masonry,   and  ought  to  be  the  principal

objects  of our contemplation. As  Masons  we are  directed  to remember that  wherever  we are, or whatever we are about to do, his All-Seeing Eye observes  us;  and whilst we continue  to  act  in  conformity  with   the established usages and customs of our  Order, we are under an obligation to discharge every moral  and  social  duty, with  fervency  and zeal.

  The   emblem  now  before  us,  if  rightly considered, is of infinite importance both to our present and future welfare. It encourages and  enforces an habitual obedience to  those moral  precepts, which form  the  beauty  and excellence  of our system, and impresses  the mind  with  an  awful sense of the  perpetual

inspection and scrutiny, which every thought, word, and action, must inevitably sustain from  an  infinitely good and perfect  Being.

The  All-Seeing  Eye of God  is  every  where present. He is equally in the Lodge Room  and in  the  closet;  in  the  broad  expanse  of heaven,   and  in  the  secret  recesses of caverns,  vaults, and dungeons.  He  observes every action; he hears every address, whether of sacred prayer, or of impious blasphemy.

The  ground of a Lodge is said to be  holy, in  reference  to a certain  hill  in  Judea, where  the  deity frequently condescended  to communicate  with  man. 

First  with   Enoch, whence he was translated to heaven  without passing   the  gates of death; then with Abraham, when he obeyed the divine  command, and actually bound his son Isaac, in whom all the promises centered, for the purpose of sacrifice, but was arrested by a voice  from on  high.

Next,  with  King  David,  when  he offered  up  that acceptable sacrifice  which was  approved  by  a supernatural  fire  from

heaven; and lastly, with King Solomon, at the Dedication  of the Temple. And on  this spot the divine Shekinah   dwelt   until   the Babylonish Captivity.

But, however our Lodges may be hallowed by a reference  to  these striking events, and hence be esteemed blessed with the continual presence of the divinity; there is no place however  secret, or however barred from human observation, but God is equally and substantially present.

The universe, extended beyond the reach of  human ideas,  where  worlds  are  piled  on  worlds innumerable, widely distant from the smallest  speck in  that  superb vault of studded  lights, which human ingenuity,  with all  its implements of science can trace,  is

the  solemn temple of the Lord; and here and every where his All-Seeing  Eye  is  always present. 

Here, in the open Arch of  heaven, the divine finger may be seen;   that glittering canopy, where every orb of light chants forth a  song of  praise.  Here  the contemplative Mason lifts up his heart to his

Maker, assured that in whatever circumstances he  may  be placed, if he be the friend of Virtue, he still enjoys the sunshine of God's almighty protection.

Should he, like  Joseph, the son of Jacob, be confined to the solitary cell  of  a  dungeon, His All-Seeing Eye is there;  or  should  he unhappily,  visit  the haunts of debauchery and licentiousness,  He is  there  also. 

Whether the Mason  practice virtue or vice; whether he be an ornament to his  profession, or disgrace it  by acts of fraud and violence, he cannot rid himself  of that All-Seeing Eye which  is  upon him wherever he goes; which follows him into his most secret  retirements,  and  beholds  the hidden  thoughts and practices of the  heart.

If  in the spirit of masonic philanthropy, he present his mite in secret to the worthy distrest, his reward is not lost; for God has

beheld  the transaction, and shall return it openly  in  seven fold blessings. And He is equally present where injustice and wrong are committed.  He hears the cry of the virtuous oppressed,  and will assuredly  interpose at the most convenient season.

These considerations  have something so awful in their nature and

tendency,  that they can scarcely fail  to produce a salutary impression.

You must  feel confounded  when you are about to commit an evil action, if for a moment you call to mind your masonic lessons, and reflect that the All-Seeing Eye is upon you; that invisible Eye whose power could prevent the greatest enormities; and  not only  strike you with instant death, but destroy both soul and body for ever.

The ancient idolaters in all their various systems  of worship, had some faint ideas of an Eternal and Omnipresent God, which must

necessarily have been derived from the true religion;  and was undoubtedly preserved in the mysteries, along with the doctrine of a future state.

Pausanius informs us that they worshipped a God who is eternal.  His words are remarkable. Orpheus said, God is ONE, he is of himself alone, all things are  born of  him, and he is the governor of the world. Pythagoras also, to the same effect, says, there is but one God, who created all things. Plato adds, God is the parent of all things.  Ø  Euripides,  Sophocles, Lucan, and other Greek and  Latin poets and philosophers say the same thing.  The  great

Cudworth  has  effectually  shown  that   the Egyptian  Mystagogue taught to the initiated, the unity and omnipresence of  the  godhead.

The altar at Athens is an indirect  testimony to the same truth;  for

amongst the numerous deities with which their pantheon was  crowded, they believed in one superior god, of whose precise  nature and properties they publicly professed their utter ignorance, * although they admitted his eternity, omnipotence, and omnipresence.  But we are furnished with unquestionable evidence, that, notwithstanding their professions, they did actually know something of  the  true  and  only  God. 

The inspired writings inform us that the deity was known in  idolatrous nations, under his own  proper and significant appellation of JEHOVAH.

Saint Paul says, that they knew God, though they glorified  him  not as God, neither were thankful; but worshipped the creature  rather than  the  Creator. And God himself tells us that they   possessed  the  TETRAGRAMMATON, Tetractys, or Sacred Name, which amongst the Jews was JAH; for he says, "from the  rising of  the sun, even unto the going down of  the same, my NAME shall be (or is, according  to the translation of Cudworth,) great among the Gentiles.  And they superstitiously believed

that this Name was of such sovereign efficacy, as to enable the possessor to cure diseases, work miracles, and foretell future

events.

One of the uncanonical books of our scriptures asserts, that  the  heathen gave this great and incommunicable Name to  their idols.  They considered the chief god as, or,  he that hath many names.
Accordingly he was known  by a great variety of appellations, all

signifying the same Being, whose  EYE is in every place, beholding the evil and the good; for the numerous tribe of inferior gods were merely worshipped as mediators.

Thus Hesiod says,  "there are thirty thousand deities inhabiting  the earth, who are subjects to Jupiter, and guardians of men."*

The Great Name of the Deity, which is termed by Josephus, incommunicable, is  said to be preserved in the system of Freemasonry.

Calmet  observes, "when we pronounce Jehovah, we  follow  the  crowd; for we do not know distinctly the manner wherein this proper and incommunicable Name of God should be pronounced,  which is written with  Iod, Hi, Vau, Hi, and comes from the verb haiah, he has  been. 

The ancients have expressed it differently. Sanchoniathon writes   Jevo; Diodorus the Sicilian, Macrobius, St. Clemens Alexandrinus,   St.   Jerom,   and    Origen, pronounce Iao; Epiphanius, Theodoret, and the Samaritans, Jabe or Jave; we find likewise in the  ancients, Jahoh, Javo, Jaou, Jaod. Lewis Capellus  is  for  Javo;  Drusius  for  Jave, Mercer for Jehevah; Hottinger for Jevah.  The Moors  call their god Juba, whom some believe to be the same as Jehovah. The Latins, in all probability, took their Jovis, or Jovis Pater from Jehovah. It is certain that the

four Letters which we pronounce Jehovah, may likewise be  expressed by Javo, Jaho,  Jaon, Jevo,  Jave, Jehvah, and that the ancient Hebrews were not unacquainted with the pronunciation of it, since they recited it in their  prayers, and in the reading  of  their sacred   books. 

But  the  Jews, after the captivity of Babylon, out of an excessive and superstitious respect for this Holy Name, left  off the custom of pronouncing it, and forgot the true pronunciation of it. *

The Tetragrammaton was preserved and transmitted by the Essenes.  It  was  always communicated in a whisper, and under such a disguised  form, that while its component parts were universally known, the connected whole was an incommunicable mystery.  They used, in common with the whole Jewish nation,

the  ancient and significant symbol by  which this Name was designated, viz. three jods, with the point kametz placed underneath them, thus,  to express the equality of the three Persons of which they believe the godhead  to be  composed. This Holy Name they held in the utmost veneration. Calmet says, they believed the Name of God to include all things. 

"He who  pronounces it, say they, shakes heaven and earth, and inspires the very angels with astonishment and terror. There is a sovereign authority in this name. It  governs the world by its power. The other names and surnames of the deity, are  ranged

about it like officers and soldiers, about their sovereigns and generals; from this KING NAME they receive their orders and obey."

Another celebrated Symbol of this august Name, was; the disposal of the three points in a radiated form, so as to represent an

imperial diadem.  The letter Schin too, was adopted as a mysterious emblem to  designate the Tetragrammaton; and hence this letter was supposed to comprehend many valuable qualities. It was, therefore, deeply engraven by the Jews on their phylacteries, both before and behind, to induce the protection of  the  omnipresent  deity  it  represented.

Another Symbol was an equilateral triangle illuminated with a single Jod.  This  initial letter Jod, "denotes the thought, the idea of God. It is a Ray of Light, say the enraptured cabbalists, which  darts a lustre too transcendent to be contemplated by mortal eye.  It is a point at which thought pauses, and imagination itself grows  giddy and confounded.

Man, says M. Basnage, citing the rabbies, may lawfully roll his thoughts from one end of heaven to the other; but they cannot approach that inaccessible Light, that primitive existence contained in the letter Jod." 

The chief varieties of this sacred Name amongst the inhabitants of different  nations, were Jah, and Bel or Baal, and On or Om. The first of these, as we have just seen, had  many fluctuations.

Jupiter, Jove, Evohe, were but corruptions of Jah or Jehovah. Iao,  was pronounced by the Oracle of Apollo, to be the first and  greatest of the deities. 

The name of Jupiter Sabazius, as Selden justly remarks, is clearly  derived from Jehovah Sabaoth, a term perpetually applied to the

Most High in the page of revelation, and that the celebrated    Tetragrammaton, the incommunicable name was well known to  the Greeks, appears abundantly from the writings of Clemens   Alexandrinus and Diodorus Siculus."  The tetragrammaton  is  said  to have been the pass-word amongst the Egyptians, to the  secret chambers of initiation.  

Amongst the Apalachites of Florida, the priests of the Sun were  called by the remarkable name of Jaovas, which was also the name of the deity.

The modern Jews say that this word was engraven on the Rod

of Moses, and thus he was enabled to work his miracles; and they add, that Jesus Christ stole the same word out of the Temple, and

inserted it in his thigh, between the skin and the flesh, and by its sovereign potency preformed all his wonders in Judea.

The compounds of the second name Bel, are of  great  variety. Bel-us, was used  by  the Chaldeans; and  the  deity was known amongst the ancient Celt‘, by the name of Bel or Bel-enus,  which

title,  by  the modern authors, is identified with  Apollo.

The primitive name of  Britain, was Vel  ynys, the island of  Bel;  and  the fires lighted up on May-day, were in honour of this deity, and called Bel's  fire.  The inhabitants made use of a word, known only to themselves,  to express the unutterable name of the deity,  of which the letters  O.I.W. were a sacred Symbol. In this they resembled the Jews, who always said Adonai, when the name of Jehovah occured. 

Another variation was  Bal  or Baal, as Bal-rama, used  by  the

Indians; Bal-der, by the Goths; Baal and Baalzebub, by the Sidonians; Baal-berith, the god of the Shechemites; Baalpeor or Baal-reem, of the  Moabites; Baal-tis, of the  Phoenicians; and  Baal-zephon, of the Egpytians. Baal  was the  most  ancient god of the Canaanites  and was  referred  to  the Sun. 

Manasseh raised altars to this deity, and worshipped him in all  the  pomp  of heathen superstition; and when these altars were destroyed by Josiah, the worship of Baal is identified with that

of the Sun.

The third variation was On.  Under this appellation the deity was worshipped  by  the Egyptians; and they professed to believe that

he was eternal, and the fountain of light and life; but, according to their gross conceptions, being necessarily visible.

The Sun was adored as his representative, and was, most probably the same as Osiris.  They knew  the  general purport of  the  name  and little  more. If they believed ON to be the living and eternal God, they allowed the same

attributes to the Sun, which they undoubtedly worshipped  as  the  Lord  of  the  creation.

Oannes was the god of the Chaldeans; and DagOn  of  the Philistines, both of  which  are derivations of  the  same  name  On, was evidently  the  same  deity  as  the   Hebrew Jehovah;  and  was  introduced  amongst   the Greeks   by   Plato,  who  acknowledges   his eternity  and  incomprehensibility  in  these

remarkable  words; "Tell me of the  god.  ON; which  IS, and never knew beginning."  And the   same  name  was,  used  by  the   early Christians for the true God; for St. John  in the Apocalypse,  has this  expression which is translated in our authorized version of  the  scriptures, by, "HIM, which is,  and

which was, and which is to come."

  The  same word with a small variation,  was one  of  the  names of the Supreme  Deity  in India;  and  a devout meditation  on  it  was considered  capable of conveying the  highest degree  of  perfection. In the Ordinances  of Menu,  we  are informed how this sacred  word was produced. "Brahma milked out, as it were,

from  the  three  Vedas, the  letter  A,  the letter  U, and the letter M; which  form,  by their coalition, the triliteral monosyllable,

together with  three   mysterious  words,  bhur,   bhuvah, swer;  or, earth, sky, heaven." These three letters,  which are pronounced OM,  refer  to the  deity in his triple capacity of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer.

The method of using it   is   given  in  the  same  code.  "Three

suppressions of breath, made according to the divine  rules accompanied with the  triverbal phrase,  bhurbhuvahswah  and  the  triliteral syllable OM, may be considered as the highest devotion  of  a  Brahmen."  Mr.  Colebrooke informs  us  that "a Brahmana, beginning  and ending  a Lecture of the Veda, or the recital of  any holy strain, must always pronounce to himself  the  syllable  OM;  for  unless  the syllable  Om precede, his learning will  slip away  from him; and unless it follow, nothing will  be  retained;  or that  syllable  being prefixed  to  the  several names  of  worlds; denotes   that   the  seven  worlds are manifestations  of  the power,  signified  by that syllable."

From  what has been said, we may reasonably infer,  that  together  with  the  name,  the idolaters  preserved in their mysteries  some indistinct knowledge of the godhead,  derived

from the true system which preceded them; and accompanied with an acknowledgement  that  he possessed the attribute of omnipresence;  the Symbol of which was the same as that used  in

the  Science  of Freemasonry;  viz.  an  EYE, which was said to be equally in every  place,  for the purpose  of  taking  a strict  and  impartial  cognizance  of  human actions.

  Fix  your eyes, then, on that part  of  the Lodge,   where  this  expressive  Emblem   is delineated. It will remind you that the Deity is  watching over us, and will weigh, in  the balance  of Truth, every action, every  word, every  thought.  As  Masons,  you  are  fully impressed  with this important consideration,

because it is fundamental to the Science  you profess. It is inculcated upon you in all our illustrations, and can never be banished from your  recollection. You are conscious of  the

presence of that great and glorious Being;  - you are conscious that at this very moment he is  employed  in examining your hearts.  They are  open  to  his inspection. But  are  they pure;  are  they  impressed with  the  never- failing  virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity; -   are   they   the  abode  of   Temperance, Fortitude,   Prudence,  and  Justice,   those splendid  Cardinal  Virtues,  by  which  your masonry professes to be distinguished; - does

Brotherly Love burn brightly there; - do they prompt  you to exercise the first, best  gift of heaven to your destitute Brethren, Relief; -  and  does  Truth  hold her  seat  in  your bosoms? If you are masons in reality;  masons in  the  strictest acceptation of  the  term, your  hearts are the seat of every moral  and social  virtue; and will not shrink from  the close  inspection  of the All-Seeing  Eye  of God.   But   we   cannot   emulate   absolute perfection; and therefore our hearts neither are, nor perhaps should be the  abode of   celestial  purity,  unalloyed  by  human weakness or hereditary contamination.  Hence, whether  as  masons or as men, we cannot  but entertain  some feelings of dread, under  the

reflection  that  we  are  subjected  to  the constant and perpetual superintendenee of the All-Seeing  Eye. And this is not a  sensation either improper or peculiar to ourselves. The best  and most virtuous masons the world ever produced,   as  well  as  wicked  men,   have entertained the same feelings. When Adam fell from his primitive state of innocence; in the first  agitation of remose, he  attempted  to hide  himself  from the presence  of  God,  because  he dreaded the consequences  of  his fearful inspection. Cain heard his tremendous  voice; and shrunk into himself with terror. Jacob  saw the Lord in a vision, and when  he

awake  front  his- sleep, he was afraid;  and said;  How  dreadful is this place!  This  is none other but the house of God, and the gate of  heaven!  ØMoses, under the impression  of God's presence,  trembled  exceedingly,  and confessed his very great apprehension.  David was    horribly    afraid    wider    similar

circulnstances.? And many instances occur  of individuals being struck with instant  death, for   their   presumption  in  the  immediate presence of God. Uzzah but touched the Ark of

the  Covenant over which the Lord dwelt,  and was struck dead in a moment.  *  And the Almighty smote  and  slew fifty  thousand  men of Bethshemesh,  because they irreverently looked into the Ark.

  These  instances  are amply  sufficient  to convince  you,  not merely of  the  universal presence  of  the Deity, but of  his  decided abhorrence  of all impurity and  carelessness of  living. If therefore, as masons, you  are willing  to  be the objects of  his  fatherly superintendence,   let   these    reflections accompany   all   your  labours,   all   your recreations;-and when the business of the day is  about  to  be  closed; let  us  with  all humility  and  reverence return our  grateful acknowledgements  to the Great  Architect  of the  Universe, for favours already  received, and  supplicate his support on our endeavours to  adorn  and cement our lives and  actions, with every moral and social virtue.