Charles H. Spurgeon the Prince of Freemasons?
You can watch this video to see that the pose didn't originate in Freemasonry. It's just like that the Nazi salute was derived from the Roman salute. The Nazi swastika was derived from Hinduism and Buddhism except theirs meant death and not life. Having a swastika doesn't make a Hindu or Buddhist a Nazi or does it make a Nazi a Buddhist or Hindu. Doing the Roman salute didn't make the Nazis members of the Roman army. Posing with your hand in the waistcoat doesn't automatically mean you are a Freemason - although it can't be denied that the Freemasons also adopted the sign.
Here's a bit of an interesting story of the hand-in-waistcoat which was later labeled as the "Hand of Jabulon" by the Freemasons as taken from "Reader's Digest Canada":
No, it’s not a secret Masonic code or a reference to an Illuminati ritual. The tradition actually dates back long before the 1700s. According to Today I Found Out, some societal circles in ancient Greece considered it disrespectful to speak with your hands outside of your clothing. Statuary from the sixth century BC, therefore, showed celebrated orators such as Solon with their hands tucked into their cloaks.
Little did the ancient Greeks know that their legacy would carry on a whopping 24 centuries later. In the 18th century, artists began looking to antiquity for inspiration. What did they find but statues of celebrated speakers, posed with their hands in their cloaks. Portraitists began representing subjects in a similar pose, believing that it conveyed a noble, calm comportment and good breeding.
I think many hand signs such as the horned hand or whatever were later adapted by both Freemasons and Satanists for a reason. I think the whole idea that Freemasons as a cult of gentlemen meant they had to look like celebrated orators. You can think of them wanting to look like important men such as Napoleon. Somehow, Napoleon's status as a Freemason is still debatable. If Napoleon died without Christ then it doesn't matter anymore as he would be in Hell. I guess Pope Francis doing the hand in waistcoat sign may also be the same reason why certain people posed like Solon. It'd be better to call it the hand of Napoleon or the hand of Solon. So I wonder why was it called the hand of Jahbulon by Freemasons?
I found an interesting discussion from the "Puritan Board" is the topic of whether or not Spurgeon was a Freemason. Spurgeon was said to have used masonic terms just as Aiden W. Tozer quoted words of wisdom from Catholic mystics while being anti-Catholic himself. Here are some quotes of Spurgeon which mocked Freemasonry:
The life of a Christian is an entirely different thing from the life of other men, entirely different from his own life before his conversion. And when people try to counterfeit it, they cannot accomplish the task. A person writes you a letter and wants to make you think he is a believer, but within about half-a-dozen sentences there occurs a line which betrays the lie. The hypocrite has very nearly copied our expressions, but not quite! There is a Freemason among us, and the outside world watches us a bit, and by-and-by they pick up certain of our signs. But there is a private sign which they can never imitate, and therefore at a certain point, they break down. A godless man may pray as much as a Christian, read as much of the Bible as a Christian, and even go beyond us in externals—but there is a secret which he knows not and cannot counterfeit! - Sermon, October 30, 1881
We are ourselves acquainted with many who have been ruined by bad company, — such were C , who became a reprobate through spending his Sabbaths in excursions and amusement; F, who was led into peculation and ultimate embezzlement through his friends of the billiardtable; He, who was never worth a penny-piece after he had found his heaven in the banquets of the Freemasons; and J, who went from bad to worse through the company of those who laugh at purity, and call vice pleasure. Indeed, the list is endless; and we shall be conceited to no ordinary degree if we imagine that we shall be safe where so many have fallen, never to rise again. - The Sword and the Trowel, December, 1884
One has to understand the meaning of the word freemasonry. Do you know the word mason doesn't always mean someone who is a member of the satanic lodge? Mason can also mean bricklayer or one who prepares the stone for building purposes. The term freemasonry doesn't always mean a member of the lodge. Rather, Spurgeon was using the context of freemasonry by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, "natural fellowship based on some common experience" in this quote:
If any railing accusation is raised against any brother in Christ, reckon that his character is as dear to you as your own! Let a sacred freemasonry be maintained among us, if I may liken a far higher and more spiritual union to anything which belongs to common life. You are members, one of another - see that you fervently love each other with a pure heart. - Christ and His Table Companions
Christians have their sacred freemasonry with each other in the sense that they have a natural fellowship based on some common experience. This, however, doesn't mean that they can be part of the Freemasonry movement because it's a cult of gentlemen with bizarre beliefs. Christians can be freemasons in the sense that they have this fraternal bond. However, they can't be Freemasons in the sense as to joining the movement.
The problem is also doing guilt by association fallacies. Just because Tozer quoted from Catholic mystics didn't make him pro-Catholic. I can go ahead and quote from Siddharta Gautama (founder of Buddhism) or Confucius in a Christian sermon but that doesn't mean I agree with the occultic teachings of Buddhism or Confucianism. Something worth thinking about is that Freemasons also do charity projects but that doesn't make doing them wrong! Would you say that a local Baptist pastor is a Freemason because he did a feeding project while a Freemason was running a feeding project himself? That would be a very fallacious conclusion! That's why I don't even recommend Alexander Hislop's book "The Two Babylons" because it tries to refute Roman Catholicism with such faulty arguments!
Also, it seems that the website "Liberty to the Captives" is apparently run by loonies. I heard that they are sectarian, bibliolatry or Solo Scripturist (those who view the Bible as the only authority rather than as the final authority) heretics who want to convince us that all organized churches are supposedly run by Satanists. The more I read that site - the more I think it can't be taken seriously like the controversial "Jesus-is-Savior" website. Both of these sites are extremely erroneous and must be discarded as valid sources.
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