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17
LORENZO DE MEDICI. The latter was the head of a rich international bankers’ family in
Florence.
One generation before him Pope John XXII had given the Medici family the task
of collecting taxes and tithes for the Church.
This helped the Medici to become one of the
richest and most influential banking houses in Europe.
LUTHER”s rebellion against the Catholic Church was justified because the latter had
become a business institution rather than a place of faith.
One of the leading personalities
of the reformation was PHILIP OF HESSE, called The Magnanimous, who founded the first
Protestant University at Marburg and organized a political alliance against the Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V.
After LUTHER’s death his confessional community was supported by SIR FRANCIS
BACON, the highest Rosicrucian in England.
Under KING JAMES I Bacon coordinated the project of writing an authorized Protestant
English Bible.
This version was first published in 1611 and became as the “King James
Bible”, the most widely used bible in the English-speaking world. [H: Please read that again
–
1611 and hardly 2000 years ago.]
The Counter-Reformation was led by a new brotherhood, the Society of Jesus, better known
as the JESUITS.
These were formed in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola and they were a militant
Catholic secret society with secret rituals, symbolism and initiation degrees (the oath for the
2
nd
degree demanded the death of all Freemasons and Protestants).
The JESUITS were
sent to England to fight against the Protestant heretics.
They were very busily searching for
heretics to punish, which meant that the Freemasons really had to guard their secrets else
they stood to lose their heads.
The FREEMASONS worked in total secrecy in England, Scotland and Ireland and promoted
the observance of human rights and of Protestantism.
The signing of the MAGNA CARTA
was attended by the Grand Masters of the Freemasons and of the Knights Templar, and the
different lodges were also responsible for the Protestant movements in England and in
Germany.
In1717 the London Masonic Lodge began to work in public for they thought England to be
safe enough.
This time is given in many history books as the start of Freemasonry.
That is
officially correct, but their secret work started thousands of years before, yet, as I mentioned
before, the secrecy would have been all but pointless if today everybody would know when
and where the Freemasons had been up to what.
The public work by the London Lodge caused great consternation among the other Masonic
lodges who accused the Londoners of treason.
When this simmered down, the Freemasons
began to spread all over Europe and the New World. Later they emerged in the New World
with the Declaration of Independence and with the “Boston Tea Party” which was organized
by the BOSTON MASONIC LODGE.
John Locke, for instance, used the Masonic tenants when he wrote the constitution of the
offered colony of South Carolina, which later became a Masonic bastion.
The writings of Sir
Francis Bacon also reflect the philosophies of the Freemasons.
The Declaration of Independence was written and signed almost exclusively by
Freemasons.
GEORGE WASHINGTON and most of his generals were FREEMASONS. It
is a fact that without the work of the Freemasons the United States of America would not
exist today.
CHAPTER 2
