Pamphlets
TRAPPINGS OF POPERY
Trappings of Popery (Part I): Corrupt Bible Versions/Pictorial Representations of Christ/Arminianism
Bible Protestants loathe the religious system known as Popery, with all its demonic doctrines and abominable practices. They know that Popery is the religion of Antichrist, and that its adherents are blind, deceived, lost souls, worshipping at the shrines of grotesque heathen deities which have been carried over lock, stock and barrel from ancient Babylon, Egypt and Rome, and given Christian names. True Christians, or Bible Protestants (for they are one and the same: not all Protestants are true Christians, but all true Christians are Bible Protestants), reject the great heretical doctrines of Roman Catholicism: such as their blasphemous counterfeit of the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Mother-goddess Mary, and the various false “christs” — the mass-wafer, the crucifix-image, the pope of Rome himself, the priests, and others), their doctrine of salvation by works, their rejection of the all-sufficiency of Holy Scripture, and all the rest. They reject the claims of Papists to be true Christians, and they detest and shun any unholy communion or spiritual fellowship with Papists, knowing that this is to attempt to join Christ to Belial, and is a grievous sin before God.
Trappings of Popery (Part I), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part I), Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Two): Infant “Baptism”/Baptismal Regeneration
The doctrine of Infant Baptism, both as to its subjects and its mode, is a trapping of Popery that is practiced in vast numbers of Protestant churches, and has caused immense harm. It should rather be called infant sprinkling, for it is not immersion, and the meaning of baptism is immersion; but because the phrase is commonly used this way I will retain it for simplicity’s sake here.
Trappings of Popery (Part Two), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Two), Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Three): Repetitive Prayer/The Image and Sign of the Cross
To pray by rote means to pray in a mechanical manner, by routine, rattling off from memory without proper understanding. The Lord Jesus condemned all such vain repetition in prayer when He said: “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them” (Matt.6:7,8).
Trappings of Popery (Part Three), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Three), Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Four): Popish Festivals
It is astounding how many Popish festivals and “holy days” are an accepted and never-questioned part of the lives of the vast majority of those today who would call themselves Protestants and Bible-believing Christians, and how powerful an influence these things have upon them. So powerful, in fact, that even to dare to expose them for what they really are is considered in most circles to be tantamount to heresy, and to a denial of the birth, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Trappings of Popery (Part Four), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Four), Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Five): The Distinction Between “Clergy” and “Laity”
How often do we hear pastors referred to as “clergymen” or “the clergy,” and their congregations as “laymen” or “the laity”! And yet no such distinction is to be found in the Word of God. It simply does not exist. Why, then, are such terms used? And why is such a distinction made between those in the ministry and those who are not?
The Oxford Universal Dictionary says of the word “clergy:” “The clerical office; the clerical order; the body of men set apart by ordination for religious service in the Christian church.” And then it adds: “originally a term of the Catholic church.” Aha! Now we are getting to the root of the matter. It also refers the reader to 1 Pet.5:3. And to that very text we will turn in a moment.
Trappings of Popery (Part Five), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Five), Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Six): Ministerial Titles
The title, “pope,” comes from the Latin word “papa,” which means “father.” And the pope of Rome, as is well known, calls himself, and is called by his spiritually blind devotees, “Holy Father.” And yet the Lord Jesus Christ spoke only of God the Father in this way, with great reverence: “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me” (Jn.17:11). Only the heavenly Father should ever be addressed as “Holy Father.” No mortal man can ever assume such a title to himself, without committing blasphemy. This the Roman Antichrist has done.
Trappings of Popery (Part Six), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Six), Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Seven): Ministerial Garb
Just as ministers of the Gospel are not to take any distinguishing titles to themselves, so they are not to wear any distinguishing clothes. Any form of attire which distinguishes the servant of Christ from other men is merely aping the priests of Rome, and acting as if he were a special priest himself.
Trappings of Popery (Part Seven), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Seven), Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Eight):Ministerial Wealth/Denominational Hierarchy
The Lord Jesus said of Himself, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matt.8:20). He was so poor that He had to borrow a penny to illustrate what He was teaching (Matt.22:19). And although He graciously allows His servants, the men called to minister His Word, to own more than He did in this world (1 Cor.9:1-14; 1 Tim.3:1-5), they are still to always be content with the basic necessities of food and clothing (1 Tim.6:8; Phil.4:11), and to flee from the sin of covetousness (1 Tim.6:9-11), not feeding the flock under their care for the sake of “filthy lucre” (1 Pet.5:2); even though it might mean being “in hunger and thirst,” and “in cold and nakedness” (2 Cor.11:27). And indeed in much poverty, amidst many very trying circumstances, the Lord’s faithful servants have often laboured through the centuries.
Trappings of Popery (Part Eight): Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Eight): Rich Text format
Trappings of Popery (Part Nine): Praeterism and Futurism
There are, essentially, three main systems of biblical prophetic interpretation:
1. The Historicist system. This system of prophetical interpretation holds the prophecies of Daniel, Revelation, and elsewhere, to be “history divinely written beforehand”. In other words, history fulfils Bible prophecy. History is but the outworking, in time, of divine prophecy. The Lord, in His prophetic Word, told His Church beforehand what would come to pass in time. The book of Revelation, in particular, describes events which have occurred from the beginning of the Christian era until now, and which will yet occur until the second coming of Christ and the judgment day.
2. The Praeterist system. According to the advocates of this system, all the prophecies relating to the second coming of Christ, etc., were fulfilled in the first century AD.
3. The Futurist system. According to the advocates of this system, the prophecies of Revelation, etc., are still to be fulfilled at some unknown point in the future, and all within the space of a very short time, consisting of just a few years.
Trappings of Popery (Part Nine), Microsoft Word format
Trappings of Popery (Part Nine), Rich Text format