Basis of the institution: The institution is composed of Protestants, united and resolved to the utmost of their power to support and defend the rightful Sovereign, the Protestant religion, the Laws of the Realm, and the Succession to the Throne in the House of Windsor, BEING PROTESTANT and united further for the defence of their own Persons and Properties, and the maintenance of the Public Peace. It is exclusively an Association of those who are attached to the religion of the Reformation, and will not admit into its brotherhood persons whom an intolerant spirit leads to persecute, injure or upbraid any man on account of his religious opinions. They associate also in honour of KING WILLIAM III, Prince of Orange, whose name they bear, as supporters of his glorious memory.
Alf is one of many Orangemen who cannot see how anyone could find such a statement objectionable; the principle of religious tolerance is for them an imperative. Over and over again people like him spoke to me of the importance of respect for those of different religious persuasions. They talk a lot of ‘decent’ Roman Catholics, by which they mean those who want to live at peace and will not be taking potshots at Protestants from behind hedges, throwing stones at their parades or voting for those who want to drive them off what they would describe as ‘the Queen’s highway’, or force them into a United Ireland.
How they join
The etiquette is that you are asked, though obviously you can intimate to an Orangeman that you would like to join his lodge. Your name will be proposed and seconded and there will be a vote: maybe about 10 per cent of people are excluded at that stage. Then, in theory at least, you are vetted: ‘There’s supposed to be a committee in each lodge which should actually check the qualifications and the type of character of a candidate,’ said Martin Smyth, retired Grand Master. ‘I was reading the minutes of my lodge about three years ago and I discovered that when I was proposed, a member of the lodge said: “There’s no need to have a censoring committee on this candidate.” And another brother got up and said this candidate should be treated like everyone else and proposed a censoring committee. That brother was my father. It reflects the type of man he was and perhaps reflects me too. Because I believe that things should be done decently and in order and show no favouritism. And whoever it is be treated equally.’
The 1997 recruitment leaflet puts it succinctly: ‘If you are a practising Protestant in the truly religious sense; regularly at your place of worship, morally upright in your life, and if you display a tolerant spirit towards those with whom you may disagree, then you will be welcome within the Orange instititution.’ Tolerance goes only so far, though. So frightened is the Irish Orange Order still of the wiles of the Church of Rome that it is afraid of converts. There is an unspoken fear that they might be Romish (or, worse, Fenian) Trojan horses. It is therefore difficult, though not impossible, for them to join.
Anyone wishing to join the Orange Order will be told of ‘The Qualifications of an Orangeman’, to which he is expected to live up. ‘The qualifications show what the commission is – what’s expected of people,’ said another Orangeman. ‘And people fall short of what’s expected. They fall short of what’s expected from their respective churches too, but it doesn’t mean to say the whole church is entirely wrong because of that. And the same applies to the Orange institution.’ He was another veteran, and he was as proud as Alf of the principles and language of ‘The Qualifications’ which are crucial to an understanding of the fundamental principles of Orangeism. Recently they were published with an illuminating commentary from the Chaplains’ Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge for study in lodges. I have included here in italics and in brackets a section from the commentary on each part of ‘The Qualifications’. Although rather long and indigestible for those unused to reading scripture, it is worth making the effort to read the whole passage.
An Orangeman should have a sincere love and veneration for his Heavenly Father (To fear God is to treat Him with reverence and respect … The Orangeman ‘should never take the Name of God in vain’* because to do so is to despise His Most Holy Majesty … God is Sovereign and God is Saviour … We recognize God’s Royal Rule and we rest on God’s redeeming work): an humble and steadfast faith in Jesus Christ (As Orangemen we stand by the Gospel. ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved’ … Payments and Penances are not required. Christ has paid all His people’s debt … But doctrine implies duty. Brethren, let it be our care to exercise the faith we proclaim and to prove our profession by the deeds of a godly life)., the Saviour of mankind, believing in Him as the only Mediator between God and man’. (The one all-perfect Mediator excludes all others. No one else, not even his own blessed mother, can fulfil the work which He reserves to Himself) He should cultivate truth and justice, brotherly kindness and charity, devotion and piety, concord and unity, and obedience to the laws; his deportment should be gentle and compassionate, kind and courteous (Loving God, we are to love our neighbour also … The virtues of truth, justice, kindness and charity are only visible when we put them into practice), he should seek the society of the virtuous, and avoid that of the evil (We are of course but sinners saved, and we will seek the welfare of every fellow-sinner. But to share their vice would shame us and harden them. From such we turn away); he should honour and diligently study the Holy Scriptures, and make them the rule of his faith and practice (The Bible is our only infallible rule of faith and practice. To them we bow and place no mere tradition of men beside them. They are our guidelines for godly living. Their daily study is the secret of our strength.), he should love, uphold, and defend the Protestant religion, and sincerely desire and endeavour to propagate its doctrines and precepts (A ‘Protestant’ is one who ‘protests for’ the Evangelical Doctrine. Such was the meaning given to the word by the first Reformers. The common faith they taught is the religion we are pledged to uphold and defend. An Orangeman stands for the great truths re-discovered at the Glorious Reformation. That ‘Christ alone’ is our only sacrifice, that it is through ‘Grace alone’ that we can experience salvation, that justification can be received through ‘Faith alone’, and that the ‘Bible’ alone, is our only rule); he should strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome, and scrupulously avoid countenancing (by his presence or otherwise) any act or ceremony of Popish Worship; he should, by all lawful means, resist the ascendancy of that Church, its encroachments and the extension of its power, ever abstaining from all uncharitable words, actions, or sentiment towards Roman Catholics (Our Order and the Word of God prescribe a double duty to us. We are to speak the truth, and we are to speak it in love … Truth demands that we expose and refute the peculiar errors of the Church of Rome. Love requires that we do this in a manner which honours our Saviour. Above all we proclaim that Redemption is complete. No priestly ritual can add to the work of Christ … We refuse all communion with the errors of Rome nor can we share in her forms of worship. And we do all this for love of truth, and love of souls); he should remember to keep holy the Sabbath day, and attend the public worship of God, and diligently train up his offspring, and all under his control, in the fear of God, and in the Protestant faith (While every day is His by right He has appointed one day in seven for His special service … The Sabbath should be our delight. Not gloom but gladness should mark its tone … our children should know that it is a glad thing to go to the house of God); he should never take the name of God in vain, but abstain from all cursing and profane language, and use every opportunity of discouraging those, and all other sinful practices, in others; his conduct should be guided by wisdom and prudence, and marked by honesty, temperance, and sobriety; the glory of God and the welfare of man [should be the motives of his actions] (An Orangeman is to bear witness to the truth among his neighbours day by day. We claim to reverence God. How can we blaspheme His name? … As those who will answer to Him from whom nothing is hidden we must show by our speech and convince by our characters that we are sincere servants of the Most High), the honour of his Sovereign, and the good of his country, should be the motives of his actions. (Every Orangeman is called to be a loyal citizen of the country which gives him shelter* As a good citizen he will be obedient to the laws of the land, his higher obligations to God