The primary requisite of any Freemason is a firm a belief in one Supreme Being. This is essential and admits of no compromise. This is essential and admits of no compromise.

The Bible, referred to by Freemasons as the Volume of the Sacred Law, is always open in Lodges. Every candidate is required to take his obligation on that Book, or on the Volume which is held by his particular Creed to impart sanctity to an oath or promise taken upon it.

Everyone who enters Freemasonry is, at the outset, strictly forbidden to countenance any act which may have a tendency to subvert the peace and good order of society, he must pay strict obedience to the law of any State in which he resides or which may afford him protection, and must never be remiss in the allegiance due to the Sovereign of his native land.

Whilst Freemasonry thus inculcates in each of its members the duties of loyalty and citizenship, it reserves to the individual the right to hold his own opinion with regard to public affairs. But neither in any Lodge nor at any time in his capacity as a Freemason is he permitted to discuss or to advance his views on theological or political questions.

The Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland have always consistently refused to express any opinion on questions of foreign or domestic state policy either at home or abroad, and will not allow their names to be associated with any action, however humanitarian it may appear to be, which infringes its unalterable policy of standing aloof from every question affecting the relations between one Government and another, or between political parties, or questions as to rival theories of government.

The Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland are aware that there do exist bodies styling themselves Freemasons, which do not adhere to these principles, and while that attitude exists the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland refuse absolutely to have any relations with such bodies or to regard them as Freemasons.