The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“But in order to find the ‘perfect points of entrance’ to this secret (and we are told elsewhere that ‘straight is the way and narrow the gate, and few there be that find it’) emphasis again is laid in our teaching upon the necessity of complete moral rectitude, of utter exactness of thought, word and action, as exemplified by rigid observance of the symbolic principles of the square, level and plumb-rule.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “We are told seven or more years was the normal period, though less sufficed in worthy cases. The most severe tests of discipline, of purity, of self-balance were required before a neophyte was permitted to pass forward, and a reminiscence of these tests of fitness is preserved in our own working by the conducting of the candidate to the two wardens, and submitting him to a merely formal trial of efficiency.”
  2. “and herein we emulate what is written of the joy that exists among the angels of heaven over every sinner who repents and turns towards the light.”
  3. Delightful High
  4. “It is, of course, common knowledge that great secret systems of the Mysteries (referred to in, our lectures as ‘noble orders of architecture,’ i.e., of soul-building) existed in the East, in Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, amongst the Hebrews, amongst Mahommedans and amongst Christians; even among uncivilized African races they are to be found. All the great teachers of humanity, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Moses, Aristotle, Virgil, the author of the Homeric poems, and the great Greek tragedians, along with St. John, St. Paul and innumerable other great names–were initiates of the Sacred Mysteries.”
  5. “‘As it was in the beginning, so it is now and ever shall be, into the ages of ages.’ Hence it is that every Master of a Lodge is called upon to swear that no innovation in the body of Masonry (i.e., in its substantial doctrine) is possible, since it already contains a minimum, and yet a sufficiency, of truth which none may add to nor alter, and from which none may take away”