Freemason Constitution

The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, "For the Use of the Lodges" in London and Westminster, was published in 1723.

It was edited by the presbyterian clergyman, James Anderson, to the order of John Theophilus Desaguliers, and approved by a Grand Lodge committee under his control.

This work was reprinted in Philadelphia in 1734 by Benjamin Franklin, who was that year elected Grand Master of Masons in Pennsylvania.

It was also translated into Dutch (1736), German (1741), and French (1745). Anderson was minister of the Presbyterian church in Swallow Street, London, which had once been Huguenot church, and one of its four Deacons was Desaguliers' father.

At the time of his meeting with Desaguliers, he seems to have passed himself off as a Talmudic scholar.

His reward for his labours was the copyright on the work. In time, and to Anderson's dismay, it was condensed into "pocket" editions over which he had no control and from which he received no income. It was expanded, updated, and re-published in 1738.

The historical section, which comprises almost half the book, has already been described. This is followed by the "Charges", or general rules for the conduct of Freemasons, and Payne's Regulations, the specific rules by which Grand Lodge and the lodges under its control were to be governed.

The ceremony for dedicating a new lodge was briefly outlined, and the work finished with a section of songs.

For the first time, the old hand-written charges and constitutions was replaced by an accessible, printed condensation of all there was to being a Freemason, omitting only the ritual. Although the historical section was attacked at the time, and ever since, as being a work of obvious fiction, the work remains a milestone in masonic history.

The "Antient Charges" published in the current Book of Constitutions of the United Grand Lodge of England have altered little from those originally published by Anderson

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