FREEMASONRY.

To the ordinary observer, Freemasonry is connected with secret signs, gaudy insignia, and mysterious functions, not leading apparently anywhere in particular; but is in fact a sort of Higher Class Friendly Society; rather old-fashioned perhaps, but possibly useful, and certainly perfectly harmless, from the religious point of view, acknowledging, as it does, God as “The Great Architect of the Universe,” and displaying an open Bible among its symbols. The fact that it includes Church dignitaries and Nonconformist divines, etc., in its ranks, still further, veils its true character.
INITIATION
No doubt some real Christians have allowed themselves to be ensnared, but their initiation should have opened their eyes. How can it be of the mind of Him who says, "Swear not at all,” to take solemn oaths not to divulge a secret, still unknown, and to call down on one’s person blood-curdling curses* in case of failure to keep the oaths?
* (As the degrees advance, the responsibilities increase. For the first degree, your tongue is torn from its roots; for the second, your heart; for the third, your bowels, and then burnt, etc., etc., and you pray that it may be so.)
The ritual is really Hindu, with Bible names substituted.
A RELIGION
However, that such a venerable cult, to which so many “wise, mighty and noble are called,” should be in deadly conflict with true Christianity, or even a rival of any religion, seems in this country a proposition too difficult even to contemplate. But any who know how in France la francmaconnerie is synonymous with active opposition to any form of dogmatic Christianity, will not share this difficulty, unless indeed latitudes alter cases.
In the British Empire, its religious character is generally recognized as so neutral, that it starts with a great advantage; for, whereas a man cannot be a Roman Catholic and Protestant, churchman and dissenter, Baptist and Quaker, at the same time, any one may be a Freemason and remain a “faithful” member of his own church; for is it not an ethical system, rather than a religion? Listen to one of its authoritative exponents—Dr. Fort Newton, late Unitarian Minister of the London City Temple: “Masonry is not a religion, but it is Religion (my italics), a worship in which all good men may unite”^—the “good men” being Unitarians, Hindus, Jews, nominal Christians, Moslems, Theosophists, etc.
^ ("The Builders," as quoted in The Menace of Freemasonry.)
For a Christian, then, to be a Freemason is “to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” a thing expressly forbidden,** for Christ is the light of the world, and He is nowhere to be found in  this system.
** (The Spirit of Freemasonry (Hutchinson), acknowledged by Masons to be authoritative.)
Again, “We only pursue the Universal Religion,” or as another writes, “All Masons therefore whether Christian, Jew or Mohammedan . . . although we take different routes . . . we mean to travel to the same place.” Alas, how many, like Bunyan's boatman, are looking to the Heavenly City, and rowing the other way! “I am the Way,” saith the Lord, “no man cometh unto the Father but by Me” (John 14: 6).
RELATIONSHIP TO CHRISTIANITY
Freemasonry utterly repudiates the exclusive claims of Christianity. “It is well,” writes W. L. Wilmshurst, “for a man to be born in a church, but terrible for him to die in one” (my italics). Paul, on the contrary, wrote to Timothy: “Continue thou in the things that thou hast learned and hast been assured of . . . and that from a child, thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3: 14, 15). Contrast this with further words of the same author: "The work of the Church ends, where the knowledge of God begins”! Another, a professed Christian minister, writes: “All candidates, Christian or otherwise, come to us in a state of darkness.” Nay, rather, they come to “a state of darkness,”
SOCIAL ADVANTAGES
In the article on “Freemasonry” in the Encyclopedia Britannica—a dry-as-dust enumeration of the foundation of lodges, a saying “nothing with a deal of skill"—one sentence stands out: “For many years, the craft has been conducted without respect to class, color, caste or creed.” To the uninitiated, this sounds well. The philanthropy of the Society then overflows to the wide world without distinction. Nothing is further from the truth. You must enter it to benefit by its advantages, and you pay dearly. But that commercial and social advantages do accrue to members is a fact held out as a lure to possible candidates. In many houses of business in London, it is “considered advantageous for business purposes, to insist on the higher employees being Masons.”
ANTI-SCRIPTURAL
“Masonry” professes to be the essence of all creeds. She certainly jealously guards the essential features of all human creeds, viz., the denial of the need of atonement by the blood of Christ, and the claim to salvation by self-effort. Man is his own Saviour, and no one else is. How different is the testimony of the Bible! No salvation by works! No salvation in any other but Christ! (Eph. 2: 9; Acts 4: 12). In fact, though the Bible rests among her symbols, Freemasonry contradicts it to her votaries, It is true that a special Bible is presented to candidates at their initiation, but what is on its first page? “The Masons’ Charge—testifying to what the Craft really stands for: Masonry encourages each man to be steadfast in the faith his heart loves best” (my italics); thus in one sentence, setting aside the necessity of conversion, the evangelization of the world and the uniqueness of Christ and His work. Is it not true that any Mason who pretends that Masonry can be harmonized with Christianity is violating the constitution he has sworn to accept?
Freemasonry, viewed doctrinally, is Theosophy. But someone may interject, does it not speak of God, Christ, the Bible, etc.? Yes, like Theosophy, it is heavily camouflaged with scriptural expressions but used in an unscriptural sense. Without doubt, in general, its vocables are the same, but the god of Masonry, at any rate is altogether other than the God of the Bible. He is a composite deity—Jehovah, Baal and On, or Osiris, rolled into one, under the initials J. B. O.*
* (“Lest we should offend,” we will not go further and divulge the great secret of Masonry—the divine name, which no Mason may pronounce by himself, but which is sufficiently widely known outside the Craft.)
Novitiates are kept in ignorance of this; they hear the descriptive title, “the Divine Architect,” and imagine that it is the God of the Bible who is meant. Whereas, if Freemasonry be true, the very idol that Jezebel set up in defiance of Jehovah, and On—one of those gods of Egypt, against which Jehovah “executed judgment"—share the Godhead with Him. Was it for nothing that He gave the commandment, “Thou shalt have none other gods beside Me” (Exod. 20: 3); and said, “My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images” (Isa. 42: 8)? “Christ,” too is on the lips of the Mason, but only in a list of heathen and mythical heroes—Buddha, Vishnu, Baldur, Osiris, Adonis, etc.; all on the same plane, “but different. labels of the same idea.” A niche has always been offered to Christ in “the world’s pantheon,” but He claims the Throne: “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ;”  “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Christ “in all things must have the pre-eminence” (1 Cor. 3: 11; Acts 4: 12; Col. 1: 18).
The Bible, according to the Masonic theory, is only one chapter of a great volume, comprising the Vedas, Koran, etc., all equally God's Word.
Probably much that is going on today in the Indian and other Mission fields among professed Christian teachers who are pressing for an amalgamation of Christianity with all that is best of Hinduism, etc., may be influenced by the fact that these men, though probably not all Masons by initiation, have drunk deeply into the spirit of the Craft, and are carrying out its exact program of combining “the best elements in all religions” to form the Universal Religion. That this will prove to be the religion of the Antichrist that is to come, I have little doubt. But the Truth of God will prevail.
W. Hoste, B.A.
(From the book HERESIES EXPOSED, compiled by William C. Irvine. Published by Loizeaux Brothers, Inc.).
"The Sword of the Lord" Aug. 22, 1952