The most wonderful thing of all is that the distinguished Lutheran and Calvinist theologians who belong to our order really believe that they see in it (Illuminati) the true and genuine sense of Christian Religion. Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?
I declare and I challenge all mankind to contradict my declaration, that no man can give any account of the order of Freemasonry, of its origin, of its history, of its object, nor any explanation of its mysteries and symbols, which does not leave the mind in total uncertainty on all these points. Every man is entitled therefore, to give any explanation of the symbols and a system of the doctrine that he can render palatable.
We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behavior, show, condescension, popularity, and toleration of their prejudices, which we shall at leisure root out and dispel.
This is the great object held out by this association; and the means of attaining it is illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason which will dispell the clouds of superstition and of prejudice.
If a writer publishes any thing that attracts notice, and is in itself just, but does not accord with our plan, we must endeavour to win him over, or decry him.
But alas, they are all sadly deficient, because they leave us under the domination of political and religious prejudices; and they are as inefficient as the sleepy dose of an ordinary sermon.
It was the full conviction of this, and of what could be done, if every man were placed in the office for which he was fitted by nature and a proper education, which first suggested to me the plan of Illumination.
The head of every family will be what Abraham was, the patriarch, the priest and the unlettered lord of his family, and Reason will be the code of laws to all mankind.
For the Order wishes to be secret and to work in silence; for thus it is better secured from the oppression of the ruling powers, and because this secrecy gives a greater zest to the whole.
In another situation, and in an active station in life, I should have been keenly occupied, and the founding of an order would have never come into my head.
Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?. Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery.The hankering of the mind is irresistible.
Let this circumstance of our constitution therefore be directed to this noble purpose, and then all the objections urged against it by jealous tyranny and affrighted superstition will vanish.