Be this as it may, the use in Masonic ritual of archaic language and the adoption of medieval practices, embellished in the early eighteenth cen-tury by the introduction of blood-curdling oaths and dire penalties, proved a source not merely of curiosity

A CHRISTIAN SOCIETY?

26 From the time of the Union of the Grand Lodge of England and the Antients Grand Lodge, the answer is clearly "No". References to the Supreme Being in the original Masonic rituals seem undoubtedly to have been to the God of the Christian faith. In 1816, in the hope of enabling men of different faiths to take part in Lodge rituals without offending or compromising their own belief, specifically Christian references were largely removed from Craft rituals in England. In fact, during the eighteenth century, the Grand Lodge of England had itself been much engaged in reconstructing some of its rituals. One man who played a prominent part in this work was Dr; James Anderson, a Scottish minister, whose first versions of his proposed Constitutions was presented to the Grand Master in 1723. In his proposed new ‘Charges of a Freemason’, the first had the most far-reaching consequences:

Tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them [members of the Brotherhood] to that Religion which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves. (Quoted by Knight, op.cit., p.27).

27 On the union of the two rival Grand Lodges in 1813, the Antients, who emphasised a link with Christianity, gave way to the Moderns (the Grand Lodge) and accepted their, by then established, practice of omitting specific references to Christ or the Christian faith and thereafter the only — but essential — demand made of those wishing to enter the Craft was and remains that they had a belief in God.

‘Let a man’s religion or mode of worship be what it may, he is not excluded from the order, provided he believes in the glorious architect of heaven and earth, and practise the sacred duties of morality’. (i.e. what may be called a "comprehensive attitude towards religions" was established.) (Grand Lodge 1717— 1967, UGL 1967, p.213).