Ryan Denton@TexasPreacher
Why the popular, hard-line/hyper-cessationism doesn’t do justice to the Reformed tradition.
***Primary sources:
Puritan John Trapp: “Actually, supernatural dreams are sent to people by God and his angels, and they are done so either to comfort us, as in Matt 2:19, or to chasten us, as in Job 7:13-14. And God usually repeats them until they are regarded.”
Vermigli: “a good and lawful attention to dreams is not to be forbidden. The godly are permitted to pray that they may be instructed even in their dreams.”
John Owen: “To say God does not or may not send his angels to any of his saints, to communicate his mind to them as to some particulars of their duty according to his word or to foreshadow to them his own approaching work, seems to unwarrantably limit the Holy One of Israel.” Exposition on the Book of Hebrews
John Calvin: “Still, I do not deny that the Lord has sometimes at a later period raised up apostles, or evangelists in their place, as has happened in our own day.” Commentary on 1 Cor. 12:28
William Bridge, Westminster divine: “But, you will say, may not God speak by extraordinary visions and revelations, in these days of ours? Yes, without all doubt he may: God is not to be limited, he may speak in what way he pleases.” The Works of the Rev. Bridge, vol. 1
Richard Baxter: “It is possible that God may make new Revelations to particular persons about their duties, events, or matters of fact, in subordination to the Scripture, either by inspiration, vision, apparition or voice.” Christian Directory
Samuel Rutherford: “There is a revelation of some particular men, who have foretold things to come, even since the ceasing of the Canon, as John Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, have foretold things to come and they certainly fell out, and in our nation of Scotland, M. George Wishart and John Knox.”
“Mr. Flavel replied, That he expected much trouble because of his dream the night before, adding, that when he had such representations made to him in his sleep, they seldom or never failed. Accordingly they were overtaken by a dreadful tempest.” The Life of John Flavel
Luther: “I do, indeed, have dreams from time to time, which move me somewhat....” Commentary on Gen 37:10
Also Luther: “The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth.”
“Increase Mather did no less than three Times as the Year, 1678, was coming on, very Publickly Declare, That he was verily Perswaded, a very Mortal Disease would shortly break in, and the Slain of the Lord would be many. Some of his Friends were troubled at him for it. But when the Year 1678. was come on, we saw the Mortal Disease. The Small-Pox broke in.“ Cotton Mather, Parentator
George Gillespie: John Knox, John Welsh, and others were “holy prophets receiving extraordinary revelations from God, and foretelling strange & remarkable things, which did accordingly come to pass punctually.” Works, vol. 2
etc. etc.
****Secondary sources:
“Some of the later ‘cessationist’ ideas should not be read back into the Reformation era. While the Reformers were quite clearly not modern charismatics, they were also not so suspicious of the supernatural.” Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ's Power
“Personal informative revelation…was the standard Puritan view, as I have observed it—they weren’t cessationists in the Richard Gaffin sense.” J.I. Packer
“Without a doubt, the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches cessationism, but it is a cessationism which requires considerable nuance and allows for supernatural surprises so long as they are working with and through the Word of God.” Kevin DeYoung
“The divines did not intend to deny that God could still speak through special providences that might involve dreams or the ministry of angels, for example, but such revelation was always to be considered ‘mediate.’ Garnet Howard Milne
“However, many of the authors of the WCF accepted that “prophecy” continued in their time, and a number of them apparently believed that disclosure of God’s will through dreams, visions, and angelic communication remained possible.” Garnet Howard Milne
"Where the contemporary continuationist claims that God may still reveal hidden and future events to the church, he or she stands in line with Reformed orthodoxy as represented at the Westminster Assembly. Where the modern cessationist denies any God-given ability to discern such matters, he or she is at odds with the pneumatology and the doctrine of Scripture of the Westminster Assembly." Milne
"The strict cessationist perspective of Warfield and others is a limited perspective on what the reformers and their descendants believed and practiced. If Knox, the Scottish Presbyterians, and the Covenanters were living today in the same manner that they did in the 1500s and 1600s, we would be forced to classify them more with the continuationists than the cessationists.” Dean Smith, Westminster Theological Journal
“The Reformed tradition repeatedly stress the completeness and sufficiency of Scripture. They show an appreciation for discursive processes for deriving conclusions from Scripture. Yet we also find testimony to extraordinary works of the Spirit of a nondiscursive kind.” Vern Poythress
etc. etc.
****Conclusion:
Popular treatments of cessationism have swung to an extreme that the divines didn’t intend. The Reformers, Puritans, and Westminster Divines clearly believed that dreams, angelic visits & prophetic impulses/motions can still have a role in the ordinary lives of Christians. Popular treatments of cessationism rarely (never?) nuance this.
The Divines who gave us WCF 1.1 also wrote 5.3: “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.”
