From http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/mackeys_encyclopedia/r.htm
The tendency of all true Freemasonry is toward religion. If it make any progress, its progress is to that holy end. Look at its ancient landmarks, its sublime ceremonies, its profound symbols and alle gories—all inculcating religious doctrine, commanding religious observance, and teaching religious truth, and who can deny that it is eminently a religious Institution? But, besides, Freemasonry is, in all its forms, thoroughly tinctured with a true devotional spirit. We open and close our Lodges with prayer; we invoke the blessing of the Most High upon all our labors; we demand of our neophytes a profession of trusting belief in the existence and the superintending eare of God; and we teach them to bow with humility and reverence at His awful name, while His Holy Law is widely opened upon our altars. Freemasonry is thus identified with religion; and although a man may be eminently religious without being a Freemason, it is impossible that a Freemason can be "true and trusty" to his Order unless he is a respecter of religion and an observer of religious principle.
But the religion of Freemasonry is not sectarian It admits men of every creed within its hospitable bosom, rejecting none and approving none for his peculiar faith. It is not Judaism, though there is nothing in it to offend a Jew; it is not Christianity, but there is nothing in it repugnant to the faith of a Christian. Its religion is that general one of nature and primitive revelation—handed down to us from some ancient and Patriarchal Priesthood—in which all men may agree and in which no men can differ. It inculcates the practise of virtue, but it supplies no scheme of redemption for sin. It points its disciples to the path of righteousness, but it does not claim to be "the way, the truth, and the life." In so far, therefore, it cannot become a substitute for Christianity, but its tendency is thitherward; and, as the handmaid of religion, it may, and often does, act as the porch that introduces its votaries into the temple of divine truth. Freemasonry, then, is indeed a religious institution; and on this ground mainly, if not alone, should the religious Freemason defend it.
To the above observations by Doctor Mackey we may add that the religion of Freemasonry was examined at. some length in a book bearing that title by Brother Josiah Whymper, Past Deputy District Grand Master, Punjab, India. Brother Whymper's purpose was to draw the attention of Freemasons to the circumstance that the original religious principles of Freemasonry were based on Christian Catholicity. He believed that in a well-meant but, in his judgment, mistaken effort to let Freemasonry be all things to all men this principle had been forgotten. In fact, he had found that some Freemasons denied it altogether, asserting that all distinct profession of Christianity was abandoned in 1717 when the Grand Lodge was founded. Colonel J. J. Boswell raised a question in the Masonic Record of India, 1878, under what authority the Koran was used in Lodges working under the English Constitution. Soon thereafter Brother J. J. Davies, the Worshipful Master of Lodge Ravee at Lahore, in the Punjab, addressed the following letter (see Religion of Freemasonry, page 1) to the Grand Secretary of that District: Allow me to invite your attention to a correspondence which very lately appeared in a Masonic Journal, the Record of Western India, regarding the alleged practice in some Lodges of obligating persons on other than the Sacred Seriptures of the Christian Dispensation. From the correspondence you may observe that opinion on the subject is divided: one Brother who signs himself "P. M. 1215" alleging that the practise is in accordance with the spirit of Masonic law, whilst another Brother, a "W. M." on the contrary, considers that it is in direct violation of Masonic law: in letter, in spirit, and the practice of antiquity.
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