Fourthly.  Religion has no need of them.  “The church is the pillar and ground of the truth.”  “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  The preaching of Christ and him crucified is and must continue to be the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. Religion, then, has no need of these secret orders.

We come now to this:  Neither charity, morality, patriotism, nor religion imposes obligations on us to join them. It will not pay was our first fact.  We have now reached this other, that no consideration of duty requires it.  But,

IS IT RIGHT?

First.  Christ, our Master, neither instituted nor countenanced these orders.  Reviewing his whole earthly ministry, he said (John xviii:  20):  “I spake openly to the world;” and “in secret have I said nothing.”  By this double affirmation he strongly suggested his preference for open, unsecret ways and proceedings.

Secondly.  In those rites, proceedings, and regalia which do appear, these orders are frivolous, belittling, and unworthy of respect.  If the revealed are such, what must the unrevealed be?

Thirdly.  These orders stand convicted of deceit and falsehood.  They profess secrets and mysteries worth buying.  Hundreds of high-minded men, of irreproachable character and integrity, who have, therefore, “renounced these hidden things of dishonesty,” testify over their own signatures, that their secrets are but signs, pass-words, ceremonies, etc., covering nothing but emptiness and vanity.

Fourthly.  These orders are unfriendly to domestic happiness and well-being, breaking in upon the sacred confidence and unity of husband and wife, pledging him to conceal from her the proceedings of perhaps fifty nights yearly, thus often sowing seeds of distrust, filling his breast with what must not be divulged to her, involving him in affairs and habits not unfrequently injurious to the best interests and state of the family.

Fifthly.  These orders are hostile to the heavenly-mindedness, the spirituality of those who join them.  We speak from much testimony.  “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed.”  The prudent man foreseeth the evil, but the foolish pass on and are punished.  This voice of one is that of many concurring wise, faithful, and godly men, viz.:  “I am afraid of these secret societies; they have sucked the spirituality out of all the members in our church who have joined them.”  Young, promising Christians have often been blighted by them.  The fervor of piety, interest in the church and its work, interest in Christ and his people, interest in God’s Word and Spirit, all the various elements of an earnest life of faith and heavenly-mindedness have been blighted in these lodges.  And in urging this, we appeal to so many witnesses, and cover so wide a field of observation, as to make it certain that this is not the exceptional but the ordinary result.