Church Membership and Salvation
The Christian Cynosure is optimistic regarding its persistent warfare on secret societies. It expresses the opinion that more people comprehend that certain leading orders, “by their burial services, sending men to heaven on the basis of lodge membership, belong to the religions of the world in which Satan is worshiped, and that they are rivals of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Perhaps it is true that more people are now comprehending this fact, but it is also true that not only are the more prominent orders increasing in membership, but new ones are coming into prominence. The new are patterned after the old, and are, to a great extent, feeders for the old. And, sad to say, much of the new blood that flows into these sanctuaries of the world comes from the popular bodies purporting to be churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is sad to see how men, women, and children are being deceived by secret society evil; but while the lodge, by its funeral service, nominally sends men to heaven on the basis of lodge membership, we note also the absurdity of professed ministers of the Gospel sending people to heaven at death on the basis of church membership. We expect the lodge official to be ignorant in such matters; that is one reason why he is in the lodge at all. But the anti-lodge student of the Word of God ought to know better. May there be more who will comprehend this fact also.