Page:Entertaining history of masonry.pdf/3

( 3 ) Whilſt one of the Seniors holdeth the book, that he or they put their hands on the book, whilſt the maſter ought to read the laws or charges.

Which charges were ; That they ſhould be true to one another without exception, and ſhould be obliged to ſee their brothers and fellows neceſſities, or put them to labour and reward them accordingly.

But in theſe latter days, Maſonry is not compoſed of artificers, as it was in its primeval ſtate, when ſome few catechiſtical queſtions are only neceſſary, to declare a man ſufficiently qualified for an operative Maſon.

The terms of free and accepted Maſonry (as it now is) has not been heard of till within theſe few years : no conſtituted lodges, or quarterly communications were heard of till 1691, when lords and dukes, lawyers and ſhop-keepers, and other inferior tradeſmen, porters not excepted, were admitted into this myſtery : or no myſtery. The firſt fort being introduced at a very great expence, the ſecond fort at a modurate rate, and the latter for at the expence of ſix or ſeven ſhillings, for which they receive the word, as the term it ; which is more ancient and honourable, than the order of the ſtar, and garter ; which antiquity is accounted,