{1613 - ?}
Authority of Holy Scripture
You go against the judgment of all Divines; contrary to the opinion of Orthodox, learned and godly men. Answer: I respect, honor and reverence godliness in every man, in all men; yet am I not to regulate, bound or modulate my faith by the wisdom, notion or measure of any man’s apprehensions; no, though the most godly and most learned among men. And therefore we are not to enquire what this or that man’s thought, opinion or judgment is, of such or such a point, but what the Scripture doth say, determine or conclude of this or that particular. Our faith is not to stand in the wisdom of men; this were to lay the foundation upon sand. {I Cor.2:5, I Thes.2:13} Nor are we to receive the Word itself in the word of man, but as it is, in truth, the Word of God. Truth is not Truth because man saith it, but because it is so in itself; neither is it so to any man, till it come unto him in the power and demonstration of the Spirit. The Scriptures themselves were given, not by tradition of men, but by inspiration of God. Scripture is not Scripture to a man, till it come to him in the same spirit by which it was dictated at first. Whereas you urge the opinion of godly and learned men, as contrary to mine, and they preachers too; among whom you made mention of Mr. Ball, in his Catechism; tis more than I know, or care to enquire what he saith in this matter; but be it granted that he {and others too} are contrary-minded. What then? I could produce many that are on my side, and so oppose godly and learned men against your godly and learned; yet then there would be but man against man. Let the matter be brought to the Test, and let the Touch-stone distinguish between the gold and the dross; to the Law and to the Testimony; and if the Scripture cast the truth on your side, I will subscribe. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Baptism
As for Baptism, I leave you and others also to the freedom of your faith therein. But if you will impose the observation thereof, and the obedience thereunto upon me as to an Ordinance, I must first be satisfied. First; whether by Baptism you understand Paedo-baptism, Childish-baptism, or the Baptism of Children? If so, then where is either your precept or pattern for so doing? Or, Secondly; if you will have Baptism of water to be restrained and to belong only to those that are adult and of ripe years; yet then, where is your authority from any institution of Christ after his resurrection, who had before by his death put an end to foregoing Types and Figures of Himself? Therefore; that place {Mt.28:19} will not hold Water, nor serve your turn at all in the sense you urge it, and would have it brought unto; for those words {into the NAME} do rather exclude than imply, in, into, or with water. Nor is it enough that you tell me of the practice of the Apostles, that they did baptize with water and that after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, unless you produce a warrant from Christ, authorizing them so to do, and commanding them and us, by way of injunction to submit unto it, as a necessary and binding duty. But I say; First, If you will make the practice of the Apostles {their histories as recorded by the Holy Ghost in the Book of Acts} your rule in one thing, why not in another, the ground and authority being equal for both, and therefore both alike binding? And then, why do you not anoint your sick with oil, as the Apostles did, {Ja.5:14} and as James commandeth you? Is the use and virtue of anointing lost, and doth the efficacy of Baptism last? Will water keep longer than oil? Again; why do you not circumcise as Paul did? You will say that Circumcision is abolished, but Baptism is not? Was John any more than a servant, as Moses was? Why then must he abide in the House of God, when the Son himself is come? I do not find that Paul did repent for shaking hands with Moses in circumcising Timothy, more than he did for saluting John, in baptizing some of the Corinthians. Yet; Secondly, I deny not, but that the Apostles might have an indulgent dispensation given unto them, suitable to the infancy of the Church then, as others may have now answerable to the lowness and weakness of the faith of some in these days, whom I leave to stand or fall to their own Master; but if Baptism be enforced as a Law, I shall question two things, and very much scruple. First; whether it be not an adding to the Book of God to interline and insert the Baptism of Children into the Bible when there is no such thing mentioned by Christ or his Apostles in all the New Testament, either by way of Command or Custom? Secondly; whether to conclude Baptism of water and so consequently to impose it on any from that in Matthew 28:19 be not a part of will worship; a making void the command of Christ by men’s traditions; and a taking away from the Book of God? For whereas Christ there brings up Baptism to its height, fullness, glory, purity and perfection; some go about to empty, weaken and make void the sense and scope of that Scripture, by applying that to water, which Christ expressly attributeth and appropriateth to the Father Himself and the Spirit. I have not the faith to believe, that the reasonings and arguments of men, the conclusions, inferences and inductions of Reason are sufficient to make any Ordinance in the Church of Christ, without an immediate, plain, direct, punctual and divine institution from Christ. But enough hath been said of this by others {as Mr. Henry Denne & John Tombes} already. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Death in Adam – Life in Christ
You charge me that I should say the first Adam was born or created blind; and this, you say, is error, heresy and false doctrine. Answer: First; I did say that every man, by nature is born blind, in respect of discerning the things of God. {I Cor.2:14} Secondly; I said also, that the first Adam in his created state was blind, as to the understanding of the Mystery of God in Christ to be revealed unto him, or as to the true knowledge of himself and the condition he was then in. He had the sight of sense, he saw his wife, the tree and the apple that he did eat; but he had not a sight of the imperfection and shortness of the present state he was then in, and to that which he was afterwards to be raised up unto in Christ. For; if he had known the property of the Tree of Life, {which represented Christ} he would not have forsaken and rejected it, but rather have eaten of the fruit thereof, that he might have lived; as the Apostle speaks. “Which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” {I Cor.2:8} If Adam that was the chiefest and most excellent in knowledge above all other creatures in the world; if he had known the mystery of Christ in the Tree of Life, he would not have been seduced by the Serpent to seek his perfection in the forbidden fruit. Man that is ignorant of God’s Righteousness, goeth about to establish his own. {Rom.10:3} Why else is not the opening of their eyes affirmed of Adam and Eve, till after their eating of the forbidden fruit? {Gen.3:7} What coverings had they of the divine nature, glory and righteousness of God in the day of their Creation; and could they see the want thereof before their eyes were opened? Let me further illustrate this thing thus: A child as soon as it is born, is said to be an innocent, harmless child, free from the guilt or commission of any {personal} sin; is his nature therefore pure, perfect, holy, heavenly, and void of all inclinations to sin? Again, Paul saith of himself, that he was blameless as touching the righteousness of the Law, {Phil.3:6,} before his conversion; had he therefore an adequate righteousness, every way agreeable and equal to the spirituality and holiness of the Law? Before the Law came he had little or no sin, he was lusty and strong in his fleshly confidence, he came into no misfortune or danger of his life; but when the Law entered, his sin abounded, his strength weakened, his life withered and died. {Rom.5:20, 7:9} Sin was in his nature before, but not discovered till the Commandment came; it lay in him as a dead thing, underground, out of sight, and out of mind, it troubled him not, it was as a benumbed or dead member, he was not sensible of it at all. Without the Law, sin is dead. {Rom.7:8} Thus the first Adam, as he was created innocent, {so they speak,} harmless, and void as yet of doing any evil till the act of his disobedience in eating; but his condition, state, or nature, in the day of his Creation, was not as pure, perfect, and holy as the Law of God; and the commandment came unto him to kill him, to make sin abound and become exceeding sinful, that he might not think his present state sufficient, and content himself therewith, but die unto that, and seek a better state in Christ. He was naked and without the Wedding garment at first, {Gen.2:25 – Note: Nakedness is want of Divine Righteousness,} but was not ashamed of his nakedness; he was showed, told, and convinced of his nakedness by his presumptuous undertaking, of being more perfect in his own way; and therefore God reasons thus with him; “who told thee that thou wast naked; Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? {Gen.3:11} Thus Adam who was alive before the commandment came, is now killed by the Letter, and dies to that first life, his resurrection to a better life being by the Promised Seed. Mr. Baker: But Adam in his Creation was not as Paul and all men else, or as children are now since the Fall, defiled with any original pollution. Answer: First; I do not say that Adam was contaminated with any act of sin, or uncleanness before his fall; yet this doth not prove him to be as exactly holy and perfect as the Law, for if he had been so, how came he so crooked and contrary to the Law? The perfection of the Law consists in perpetuity as well as in purity and such should the state of Adam have been if it had been equal to the Law. Yet, Secondly; if Adam had not in him the Principles and Seeds of sin, how could he have transgressed and become a sinner? For the spawn of wickedness and evil in the Devil had not been enough to produce and propagate the prodigious off-spring of iniquity and sin, unless there had been suitable matter in the nature of Adam to mix with his serpentine suggestion and temptation. It is said, {Jn.14:30,} that the Prince of the world came to Christ, and found nothing in him. He could never fasten any temptation on Christ, all his assaults could not prevail over him; had he found as little in the first Adam, as he did in the Second, there had been the like success, {Mt.4:11,} and no monster of Misery had been brought into the World. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Death in Adam – Life in Christ
Adam was created in a wealthy state, inasmuch as he was not at all indebted to the Law, though he was not in possession or seized of the true riches of Divine Righteousness and Glory. He had the perfection of an earthy nature by Creation; but he had the participation of the divine nature by Promise. {Gen.3:15, II Pet.1:4} He had all moral and natural excellency belonging to his earthy and created state; but was he ever the more endowed with the true treasure of divine righteousness and holiness, for having the image and superscription of the Heavenly King, upon no more but a piece of earth and clay? It must be more current coin of the purest silver and gold upon which the Kings picture must be stamped to make a man really rich in the possession of it. It must be the divine nature, Jesus Christ the Second Adam, the Heavenly Man, that Eternal Word of God, the purity of which is that upon which God stamps his glory, and by which man is eternally happy. Adam had a virgin-like innocency in his created state; but not a Matrimonial Union unto God; or, at best, he was bound to God but with the bond of creation, which was as himself earthy; or the bond of the first Covenant, the Covenant of works; during which time he was barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of God, and in respect of any spiritual issue of divine comfort, immortal peace, joy unspeakable and glorious, &c. But {in the second Adam} God doth betroth his people to Himself, in Mercy, Righteousness, and Truth, {Hos.2:19,20,} whereby they shall KNOW the Lord; their Espousals are forever, and such as whereby they have a true Spiritual knowledge of God. The Lord hath united his people to himself in Christ, by a New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace; such a Matrimonial engagement that cannot admit of a divorce; such sweet enjoyments have they from Him, such Conjugal and Spiritual Communion with Him, that they increase and multiply in their Joys, Peace, Comfort, Rest, and the barren is made fruitful and a joyful mother of many children. {Is.54:1-5, Ps.113:9} Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Death in Adam – Life in Christ
Tis true, Adam was made right, strait, direct, even, plain, smooth, upright, but not righteous or holy; or if naturally and morally righteous and holy; yet not spiritually so. He had a rectitude, a purity and perfection in its kind, answerable to his created being. The first Adam had no more than a terrestrial body, and a glory suitable unto it; but the glory of terrestrial is one and the glory of celestial is another. The glory of Adam was as far inferior to the glory of Christ, as the Moon and Stars are below the Sun. The glory of the first Adam was to fall like the stars, and totally to be eclipsed, as the moon may be. His state, and even the ministration of his condemnation was Glory, how much rather then shall the Dispensation of Righteousness by the second Adam exceed in Glory? For even that glorious state of Adam, which was but mean and transitory, had no glory in respect of Christ’s glory, which excelleth and remaineth, {II Cor.3:10,11,} as the Apostle discourses concerning the transcending liberty of the Saints under the Dispensation of the Everlasting Gospel by the Spirit of Glory, above what the Jews had under the beggarly Rudiments of the Law. So far as the Natural Jew can heighten himself towards perfection by all the furniture and accommodations of the worldly Sanctuary and the carnal Commandment, so far may he be a Post-representation {if I may so say} unto us of the first Adam. For as the first Temple was to be destroyed, and all the Worship and Services thereunto to belonging to be abolished; as the outward Jew was to be cut off, that the inward Jew might sprout forth; so may we thereby be put in mind, that we cannot enter into our Heavenly House, Christ Jesus, that building of God; till this earthy house, the Natural state of the first Adam be dissolved. {II Cor.5:1} We take not possession of our glorious Mansion-house, Christ Jesus, in the promised Seed, till our old mud-wall, earthy house of the first Adam be fallen about our ears, and become a ruinous heap; and God {as the Apostle saith of the Law and first Covenant} taketh away the first Adam, and subjected the first Creation to Vanity, that he may bring in the second Adam, who established and sustained all things by the word of his power, {Heb.10:9,} and with him a better hope, {Heb.7:19,} the hope of gaining a better state in Christ than was lost by Adam. When the soul is once environed with, and wrapped up in the glory of Christ Jesus, it will tread and trample upon all the excellency of the earthy man. It will not disdain and scorn the sublunary dross and dung of his fallen state only, but it will also despise and contemn the very lunary glory, the shining excellencies, the gold, silver, pearls and precious stones, the perfection of the natural and created state. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Death in Adam – Life in Christ
Objection - But Adam was made in the likeness and Image of God; and is not that spiritual? Assertion – First; no likeness is the same, for Adam was made in a similitudinary and adumbrate Righteousness and Holiness, but not in Righteousness and Holiness of Truth. {Eph.4:24} Secondly; he was the shadow of the Substance, the picture of the Body. If a Painter draw the picture of a man never so exactly, will you say it is a living picture? Thirdly; if the image of God in Adam be enough to make him spiritually holy and perfect, how will you defend Christ from being a sinner? For it is said, that God made his Son of a woman, under the Law, and sent Him in the likeness of sinful flesh. {Gal.4:4, Rom.8:3} Therefore Christ was really a sinner, if your line of argumentation we follow? Yet this is your ratiocination, and the manner of your dispute. Adam {you say} was made in the likeness of God, who is unequivocally holy, and therefore Adam was so too. Why will not my argument hold as well as yours? And then it follows, that because Christ was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, therefore he had sinful flesh really in him and about him, more than by imputation only, if Adam had a spiritual holiness more than by imputation. Fourthly; not to dispute the rise and original of the soul, whether it be by propagation or infusion? I conceive Adam may be said to be made in the Image of God in a two-fold consideration. 1. Either as he was a living soul. In the Gospel according to Luke the third chapter, and verse 38, Adam is called the Son of God, as Enoch was the Son of Seth, and as Seth was the Son of Adam, for there the Genealogy of Christ after the flesh, is carried back and driven upward from Joseph, and terminated in God. Mistake not what I say, but read it with a grain of salt. I do not say, that Adam was the Son of God by natural generation, according to a gross, vulgar and carnal construction, no more than any of the rest were the sons one of another by Creation; but as there was a continued derivation of life, by successive propagation; the fountain of which life was in God. Now as God is said to be the living God, and as Adam is said to be a living soul; so Adam {as living, or having life} may be said to be in the Image of God. This seems to me to be the sense and scope of that in Gen.1:26 compared with Chap.2:7. For that man which God would have to be made in his own image; that man, even when he was completed and perfectly finished; the most that was said of him is that he became a living soul. Here is the altitude and height of the first Adams perfections, as the Apostle takes measure of him: “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body; and so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” {I Cor.15:44,45} None can conclude that Adam was spiritual, because he had a natural life. Secondly; Adam may be said to be made in the image of God, as he was a public person, representing Christ; and so he is said to be the figure of him that was to come. {Rom.5:14} Adam was before Christ in priority of time and appearance in the flesh; as the picture of a King sent unto a foreign Princess may be said to be first {discovered and seen} in being in that Country; and thus the Natural is before the Spiritual. {I Cor.15:45} But in priority of cause Christ was before Adam, in the nature of his existence; as the Efficient before the Effect, and as the body or substance must be before the picture which doth represent the body; and thus Christ is Alpha as well as Omega, the beginning and end, the first as well as the last. {Rev.22:13} God, who is Essentially One, hath a three-fold manifestation of Himself. First; in the lifeless and dark shadow of the Law; in the Temple which had a gradual holiness, a place holy, more holy and holiest of all. In the sacrifices, &c. The Law was but the shadow, not the Image. {Heb.10:1} Secondly; in the lively {though dim and dull} semblance of man; in which thick earth the divine majesty had but a little weak splendor and luster. Nor did the eternal power of the Godhead stamp on Adam, make him divine, or of an eternal power like itself; neither did the image of God’s spiritual Righteousness and Holiness in man make him spiritually righteous and holy. The Kings image stamp upon a piece of Clay, doth not make the Clay to be Gold, nor living Clay. Thirdly; in the living substance, Christ Jesus, who is the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the very character of his being. {Heb.1:3} This, and this only is that Son, that only begotten Son, that came out of the bosom of the Father, which alone can spiritually declare and make known God as he is a Spirit, and bring forth abundance of Grace, Righteousness, Life and Immortality to light. {Rom.5:17,18, II Tim.1:10} Immortality comes by Christ; Adam was not Immortal, nor Spiritual. Abraham had two sons, one after the flesh, the other by promise; the elder was after the flesh, and was not to inherit with the younger, which was by promise. {Gal.4:22,23,30} God, the High and Holy One, the Eternal Father hath two Sons, one after the flesh {as I may say} the natural or first Adam; the other after the spirit, Christ, the Promised Seed. The elder son, or first Adam, had not the Inheritance of Righteousness, Life and Glory settled upon him; but Christ, the second Adam, was appointed heir of all things. {Heb.1:2} Ishmael, though he was the first-born of Abraham, had no possession of Abraham’s heritage; the promised Land was not entitled to him, neither was he counted for the seed. And why should we think that Adam, though he was the first-born of God by creation, had an hereditary right to heaven, righteousness or {Divine} holiness, seeing he is not counted for the Seed. The inheritance of true divine righteousness, &c is conferred and confirmed on Christ alone, the spiritual Isaac, and those that are his. {Gal.3:14,16,29} Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Death in Adam – Life in Christ
There is therefore a two-fold image of God. 1. Of Life: In this Adam was formed, when he was made a living soul. This life, and the righteousness, perfection and glory thereof, though it be but natural, is so precious unto man, that skin for skin, and all that he hath will he give for it. {Job.2:4} It is the master-piece of Satan’s temptations, and the last plot usually, that he hath on man to set upon him as he did on Christ. {Matt.4:8,9} The Devil will carry a man to the highest pitch of the first Adam, as to the top of an exceeding high mountain {for Adam’s created state was far more exceedingly high than any present, natural and worldly condition of man now} and there show him all the dominion that Adam had over all that earthly creation, and what a glorious state he was in; and then this old serpent tempted and enticed man to look upon this golden ball of vanity, and accept of it, tells him he shall be {as} God. But the spiritual man discerns and foresees the danger, espies the serpent under the herbs, knows there is death in the apple, and therefore despises all the pompous vanity of the first creation. When Satan, by despair, cannot break a man’s neck from the fall of Adam, he will bring him to the brink and brow of his created state, and from thence endeavor to call him down {as the Jews did to Christ} and make him run headlong to his flattering ruin. {Lk.4:29, 5–6} When the Devil cannot drive a man away from God by the corrupt Adam, he will draw him to himself by the pure Adam, and there hold him as a close prisoner, in fetters of Gold, as he did before in shackles of Iron. The Kingdom, Power, Glory of this creation is delivered to the god of this world. The Serpent took away man’s excellency and glory; the Serpent offers it him again upon terms. Surely that cannot be worth the taking up, which the Devil proffers, and if Satan have dominion, and be lord over man’s riches, to give and take at his pleasure, I can hardly be persuaded that it is spiritual. The enemy of man hath laid his earthy honor in the dust, and trod his life to the ground. I wonder that we should so much dote upon the painted beauty of man! Tis a sign our eyes are weak, and that we are dim-sighted, not able to behold the beauties of holiness in God. Besides, what hope is there for us to recover Adams State? For if there was a total privation, {as doubtless there was of Adams life,} there can be no more regress to it. Adam is not said to swoon or faint, but to die in the day he did eat; not the death of the body, for he lived many hundred years after; but the death of that State, to which he was not to return again. And therefore we are bid to mortify the old man, not labor to recover him to his health and strength. Nor will it serve the turn to say, that as we died in Adam, so we are made alive by Christ; as though our reviving by Christ were no more than a restitution to the life or the first Adam; for our life which we have by Christ, is by Resurrection not by regression; not a returning to the same life, but a raising to another life. There is also the image of God as it consists in knowledge. {Col.3:10} And this image I do not find attributed to Adam; but is peculiarly appropriated to Christ, and those that are his. Not Adam, but Christ hath the spirit of Wisdom and Knowledge; and in Christ not in Adam, are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge. {Col.2:3} If Adam had received a true Spiritual and Divine knowledge of God and Christ in the Tree of Life, he had been immortal and could not have died, for the seed of that Knowledge is Eternal, and so is the fruit too. {Jn. 17:3, I Jn.3:9} Every man is brutish in his knowledge, saith the Prophet. {Jer.10:14} Yea, he is become brutish by his knowledge. {Jer.51:17} Not only in his low, base and fallen state; but even in his high and honorable state; man {in honor} is but as a beast, for want of understanding. {Ps.49:20} Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Fleshly Ordinations and Institutions of Men
It was lawful for the Israelites to take the jewels of silver and gold from the Egyptians that they might spoil the Egyptians. {Ex.3:22,12:35,36} Yet see what a snare these jewels became unto Israel, when their very Priest Aaron himself had converted them to an idolatrous use in the Molten Calf. {Ex.32:4} Now they became so loathsome and odious that Moses burnt those jewels to ashes. The children of Israel could not carry so filthy and abominable thing into the holy and promised land of Canaan. Human learning, natural gifts &c., are the Egyptian jewels of this world, which the Israel of God, the Saints themselves may borrow and wear as ear-rings, for they will serve to adorn a man’s discourse and hang as a jewel in the ear of the Auditor; but such is the madness of outside Jews, Letter-Christians, and formal professors that they must see their god; their god must go before them, for they will not be content with the God of Scripture, but they must have a made god, gods made in a visible and sensible shape that they may see their god before them at all times. But blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. And such is the rashness, folly, and simplicity of men-priests, who seek the favor and praise of men, more than of God; that to please a giddy, and head strong multitude they will comply and give them what religion, worship, or god they call for. If the vulgar popularity cry up Presbytery, that shall be established for a time, and but for a time, for the tide may turn; Independency may come in fashion, and then very like if that be desired, it will not be denied. The common people must be satisfied or else tithes, dues, and worldly maintenance will fail. Now the ear-rings are called for; gifts, pars, abilities, endowments, these qualifications of nature with a little of the spirit {which may well enough be left out too, were it not for fashion and better sound sake in discourse} will make up a complete Minister. How many having but passed through the sire of an academical education, a sleight and formal examination, and a powerless, weak, and lifeless Ordination, have come forth molten Calves, and many a silly soul hath danced about them as their ghostly-fathers, Oxford-saviors, and petty-gods. When human parts and learning are mixed in the worship of God to specificity, modify, or denominate it, then it becomes Idolatrous. This calf we carry not into Canaan, any otherwise than as Israel having drunk of the water into which the powder was thrown, {Ex.32:20,} might be said to carry the Calf into Canaan; it is not seen nor named under the dispensation of the Spirit. Man’s wisdom and parts may beautify the things of man, but no way adorn the things of God; what need you overlay gold with copper? Do you think that the Israelites were so stupidly ignorant as to take the Molten Calf for the Immortal God; yet when they would have a visible representation of the invisible Being, and change the Glory of the Incorruptible into the image of corruptible man, beasts, &c., God gave them up {as well as the Gentiles} to dote upon and follow that which was not God. {Psal.81:12, Rom.1:21-24} When God speaks to man there is no similitude of Himself {in the wisdom, parts, and excellency of Man, or the Righteousness of the first Adam} to be seen. The ambition and industry of the Creature is to bring down the Creator into the lower region of sensible appearances, to clothe and compass the incomprehensible Deity and Mystery of the Lord Jesus, and the glorious Gospel of God in visible forms and the wisdom of the flesh; and when men have made a god like unto themselves, and fashioned a Religion and Worship after the invention of their own fancies, they are ready to cry out with those at Lystra in the speech of Lycaonia that “the gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.” {Acts 14:11} The longest, largest and widest form, order, and ordination of man is too short strait, and narrow to circumscribe and limit the blessed teaching of the infinite Spirit of the Holy One of Israel. - The language of men is confounded; one calls for Presbytery, and a multiplied Episcopacy is brought up; one cries out, “Here is Christ;” another, “Lo there he is;” every man seeks to set up his form, and would have a shrine made for his own Diana. Tis just with God to bring those down, and leave them below under fleshly forms, and visible sensible appearances, who {like Peter} out of a drowsy and sleepy temper, cannot be contented with Christ alone in the spirit, and that righteousness of God in him, but must have a Tabernacle for Adam also when he appears {like Moses and Elias} in his glory. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Fleshly Ordinations and Institutions of Men
I approve not any more than you do of precipitate, rash, ignorant fools that run before they are sent into the ministry. If any pretend to have the qualification of the Spirit, and hath it not, reject that man as a Pharisaical hypocrite; but if any have the gift take heed you throw not water in his face to quench the spirit of prophesy in him. If God bid any one to go about his work, let no man discourage or forbid him to do it; Christ will not allow his own beloved disciple to forbid another to do his work, although he hath not the same formal and verbal commission, and doth not walk in the same external call and ceremony of Discipleship with the other. He that never had hands of men laid on him, {Lk.9:49 50,} may cast out as many devils and convert as many souls, as he that goes out with never so many spells and charms of fleshly Ordinations and Institutions of Men. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Infinite Wisdom of Grace
The Serpent, that most subtle beast in the field of this earthy Creation, which steals into the paradise of man’s natural excellency and glory, and there circumvented him with the enchantments and snares of Death. Cursed Creature! Let it be thrown flat on its belly and let its food be forever nothing but the dusty vanities of the ground that is under foot and trampled upon {like that lofty City, Isa.26:5,6} by the feet of the poor and the steps of the needy, scorned, despised, and slighted saints, let it eat and live only upon the foolish, frothy, fleshly praises of the Natural Man; let its meat be nothing else but the carnal earthy righteousness of that fickle, frail, inconstant, unstable, transient state of the first Adam. And yet, O the depth of the Wisdom and Works of the Lord! How unsearchable is his understanding, counsel, purpose! His ways are in the waters, and the beams of his chambers are there; He hath a sweet and secret entertainment for his people beneath and within the fluctuations, estuations, ragings, foamings, confusions of the sea and waters of this creation; his thoughts towards his saints are very deep; a fool cannot fathom them, an unwise man cannot find them out; for He contrived the way of man’s happiness to lie within the Gates of his Ruin and Destruction, that he which loseth his life may find it. Man’s wisdom of the flesh, his own lust draweth and driveth him to the ditch of Death, {Lam.1:14,15,} this like the Serpent, doth stab man to the heart by a glance upon the rib, {Gen.2:22 & 3:1, &c.,} to say that man’s wisdom was ordained for a trap and snare of death unto him cannot be born, and will not be granted by all; but to say that God did, and doth so order and dispose it to that end, can be denied by none; for the Lord can overwhelm the Egyptian flesh with its chariots and horses, human wisdom and carnal reason, in the self-same sea that he carrieth the true spiritual Israel into the Holy Land. The principles of man’s mortality are seated within himself, but the cause of his health and life is in, and from the Lord. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.” {Hos.13:9} Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Infinite Wisdom of Grace
“In a great house {saith the Apostle} there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor.” {II Tim.2:20} It doth not argue want of skill in the workman, nor want of wisdom in the master of the house, in that every vessel is not of gold. But what if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his pleasure known, dashed in pieces the vessel of dishonor, that earthen vessel of the first Adam and his created state, fitted to ruin and destruction; and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of Mercy which he had afore prepared {in Christ, not in Adam} unto glory. What if the wisdom of God {which ordereth all things} disposed so of these things, have you anything to say against it? What if God would make way for the magnifying of his heavenly riches of Grace in Christ, by undermining the earthy treasure of man in the first Adam. It is rather a prudent plot than an improvident folly; and the admiration of Divine Wisdom, no detraction from it, to make darkness first, and then command light to shine out of it. The earthy man in the beginning of his created state was without form, and void of divine righteousness, and then darkness was upon the face of the deep things of God; and when God by his Spirit in the Eternal Word; Christ Jesus had {as now he doth} brought forth light. {Gen.1:2,3, I Cor.2:10, John 1:3-5} Yet he did, and still doth divide and distinguish between the light and darkness. {Gen.1:4,5, I Thes.5:5} Light and Darkness, Earth and Heaven, the First and Second Adam, and their righteousness are not all one, yet God did not want art and skill when he made all these, though he did not make Earth Heaven, nor the first Adam’s righteousness spiritual and heavenly. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Sin & the Sovereignty of God
Objection - The Cause of the Cause is the cause also of the effect, therefore if Adam had but the seeds and Principles of sin in him, at his Creation, though he were not actually a sinner, yet you make God the author of sin. Assertion - First; what if I say, that God was the cause without which Adam had not fallen, is there any hurt in that? God might have made Adam in such an Immutable condition that he could not have fallen, and then certainly you would have said, God was the cause of his standing. Secondly; a blind child is not in so good a condition as one that hath his eyes; yet the blindness of the child is neither his fault, nor his fathers, though it be the cause of the child’s stumbling and falling. Adam is called the son of God; this Adam was created blind, as to the spiritual understanding of divine things; yet neither did this man {Adam} or {God} his parent sin, in that he was born blind; but that the Workmanship of God in Christ might be manifested in him. {Jn.9:2,3,} It was not the fault, but the Wisdom and pleasure of God to make Adam so, that he might make way for the exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the magnifying of the riches of his grace and love in Christ. Thirdly; once more take it thus; a virgin not yet deflowered, but retaining still her chastity as in the day she was born, you will not say, but this chaste and pure virgin hath the Seeds and Principles of propagation, and a desire too of natural issue; yet this damsel cannot be reproved of fornication as an harlot, nor hath she sinned if she marry and have children; she is not to be accused of folly, unless she give up herself to a stranger in an illegitimate and meretricious way. Who more chaste and innocent than Adam? Yet did he violate that primitive and created purity, when he turned aside to couple and close with the allurements of the Serpent. He had not offended, if he had betrothed his soul to God in the Sacrament of the tree of life; yea, it had been more honor, happiness and safety for him so to have done. The Devil is called the father of murder and lies; {Jn.8:44;} indeed he is the father of all that is evil; and therefore it is said, that the whole world {all that is of the world in opposition to God} lieth in the Wicked one; {I Jn.5:19;} every wicked and sinful act lieth in the loins of the Devil, as the father thereof; but except Satan had gendered with the heart of Adam, there had been no such bare born brat as sin ever brought into the World, there was first lust in Adam, which by the injections of Satan, conceived and brought forth sin; {James 1:13-15;} when he had completely finished his sin in the actual eating of the forbidden fruit, then he died and not before, {Gen.2:17,} though he was mortal at first. Satan is the father, man’s heart the mother of all evil. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}
Unction from the Holy One
Immediate Revelations, you said, are not to be expected nowadays. How then can you judge between truth and falsehood? Or so peremptorily conclude me to be in an error, seeing you acknowledge your ignorance in human learning, which, you say, is necessary to the better understanding of spiritual things? If you rely on other men’s opinion, and resolve to be of their judgment, your faith will stand in the wisdom of men, not in the power of God; and why may not one man {the wisest man} deceive you as well as another? If human learning and the wisdom of this world be so necessary, what then is the meaning of that in Matthew 11:25, “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” It may be said of learned as well as of great men, that they are not always wise. - I deny not but that godliness and the mystery of God may be bestowed upon men of learning, but I say also that it is not committed to the learning of men, so as that, thereby they should be more qualified for the dispensation of the Everlasting Gospel. But if man’s wisdom be set in the chair and called Rabbi, Father, Master, or Doctor; if it be any ways ascribed unto either for generation or education of the new man, I detest and abhor it, as the vilest supposition in the world, and as a thing so bad as that I lack a word to express my utter hatred of it. - Who think that the qualifications of a Minister are to be purchased with the cost of education at some University? It should have no place in the Worship of God, though it may be allowed in the worshippers. The tools of man will pollute the Altar of God. {Ex.20:25} - Tis not the work of man, but of God, to persuade the heart. Paul may plant in the ear of Lydia, but God must give the increase in her heart. {Acts 16:14} Paul, and other men, may sow the divine seed in the letter thereof, in the sense of hearing and the rational faulty of the understanding; but God must break and pierce those clods of earth, flesh and natural reason; he must thoroughly open the carnal heart, before there can be any increase or fruit springing up in the spirit, before there can be any improvement of that seed unto the knowledge of the Divine Mystery. Henry Pinnell {Word of Prophesy, 1648}