William Stirling 
The Canon 
Illustrated Edition

An Exposition Of The Pagan Mystery Perpetuated In The Cabala As The Rule Of All The Arts. The author of the present work argues out his case with much precision and a wealth of figures, proving most clearly that the external measurements of almost every ancient temple, the figures of the New Jerusalem, Holy Oblation, and other temples, real and imaginary, reveal the magnitudes of the sun, moon, and other planets, together with the distance of their orbits. And most ingeniously he argues that, as all these calculations were, of necessity, impossible of comprehension to the vulgar, they were typified by symbols, the principal of all these symbols being the cross. Therefore it follows, in his opinion, that the rage of the so-called Reformers of the church was not a blind unreasoning fury, blended with a dislike to beauty, but a reasoning fury against a symbol that they understood. And he remarks, when speaking of the Puritans, whom he most justly stigmatizes as both ‘ridiculous and ignorant, ‘ that it was curious that, having cast away the cross, they should still retain the Christ, as both are one.