CHAPTER IL

^T f) c Written Sato,
Next to the Unwritten Laws, or Landmarks of Masonry, comes its Written or statutory Laws. These are the " regulations," as they are usually called, which have been enacted from time to time by General Assemblies, Grand Lodges, or other su- preme authorities of the Order. They are in their character either general or local.
The General Regulations are those that have been enacted by such bodies as had at the time universal jurisdiction over the craft. By the concurring con- sent of all Masonic jurists, it is agreed, that the regulations adopted previous to the year 1721, shall be considered as general in their nature ; because all the Masonic authorities established since that period, have derived their existence, either directly )r indirectly, from the Grand Lodge of England, which was organized in 1717, and hence the regula- tions adopted by that body, at the period of its organization, and immediately afterwards, or by its predecessors, the annual General Assemblies of the craft, were of universal authority at the time of
THE WRITTEN LAW. 41
their adoption. But soon after 1721, other Grand Lodges were established with equal powers to make regulations for their own jurisdictions, and hence the subsequent enactments of tiie Grand Lodge of England ceased to be of force in those new and in- dependent jurisdictions, and they therefore lost their character of universality.
The Local Regulations are all those laws which have been since enacted by the Grand Lodge of England, and the Grand Lodges of other countries, and which are, of course, of authority only in the jurisdictions over which these Grand Lodges exer- cise control. In a general treatise on the laws of Masonry, these local regulations can of course find no place, except when referred to in illustration of any point of Masonic law.
The code of General Regulations, or the universal Written Law of Masonry, is therefore contained in a comparatively small compass, and yet this code, with the Landmarks already recapitulated in the preceding chapter, constitute the foundation on which the whole superstructure of Masonic law is erected. From these Landmarks and general regu- lations, and from the dictates of reason and the suggestions of analogy and common sense, we are to deduce all those fundamental principles which make the science of Masonic law.
It is necessary, therefore, that all those documents which contain the universal written laws of Masonry should be enumerated, as an appropriate introduc- tion to an accurate inquiry into the science whose
42 THE WRITTEN LAW.
principles constitute the subject matter of the pres ent article.
The following documents, and these only, have been admitted to contain the General Regulations and fundamental Constitutions of the Order, and are competent authority for reference in all obscure or disputed points of Masonic law :