Third Principles Lecture

Joshua: Exalted Companions, there are three epochs in Masonry which particularly merit your attention: the history of the first or Holy Lodge; the second or Sacred Lodge; and the third or Grand and Royal Lodge.
The first or Holy Lodge was opened two years after the exodus of the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage by Moses, Aholiab, and Bezaleel, on consecrated ground at the foot of Mount Horeb, in the wilderness of Sinai, where the host of Israel had assembled and pitched their tents, to offer up prayers and thanksgivings for their signal deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians. In this place the Almighty had thought fit to reveal Himself before that time to His faithful servant Moses, when he commissioned him His high ambassador of wrath against Pharaoh and his people, and of freedom and salvation to the house of Jacob. Here were delivered the forms of those mysterious prototypes, the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant; here were delivered the sacred laws, engraven by the hand of the Most High, with those sublime and comprehensive precepts of civil and religious polity, which, by separating His favoured people from all other nations, consecrated Israel a chosen vessel to His service; for these reasons this is denominated the first or Holy Lodge.
Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyr and Hiram Abiff, presided over the second or Sacred Lodge. It was opened in the bosom of the holy Mount Moriah, under the very centre of the ground on which the Sanctus Sanctuarum was afterwards erected. On this consecrated spot Abraham had proved his intuitive faith by leading his beloved son Isaac a destined victim to the altar of his God. Here, on the thrashing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite, David offered the mediatorial sacrifice by which the plague was stayed; here he received in a vision the form of that magnificent temple afterwards erected by his illustrious son; and here the Almighty declared His sacred name should dwell; for which reasons we distinguish this the second or Sacred Lodge.
The third or Grand and Royal Lodge was holden at Jerusalem; it was opened after the return of the Children of Israel from their Babylonish captivity, under Zerubbabel, prince of the people; Haggai, the Prophet; and Joshua, the son of Josedech, the High Priest. Now was the kingly power restored in the person of Zerubbabel to the royal line of David and princely tribe of Judah. Nor was a vestige thereof again effaced until after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus, in the year 70 of the Christian era; to commemorate which restoration this is called the third or Grand and Royal Lodge, and the resemblance in the Chapter before us to these great originals is, that in every regular Royal Arch Chapter we acknowledge the representatives of the Grand and Royal Chapter at Jerusalem. The three Principals represent Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Joshua, whose names they bear; the two Scribes represent Ezra and Nehemia, Selectors and Expounders of the sacred law, and attendants on the august Sanheidrim, by whose names they are distinguished. Your three selves represent the three faithful sojourners, by whom the secrets of the Royal Arch were found, in consequence of which discovery they were honoured with seats in the august assembly, composed of the rulers and elders of the people, represented by the rest of the Companions now present.