The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation: The Majority Puritan Viewpoint on Whether Extra-Biblical Prophecy Is Stil (Studies in Christian History and Thought) [Paperback]

This book concludes that the authors of the Westminster Confession believed that God still directed people in all of life, but that immediate revelation which came from God had ceased now that the church had the completed Scriptures. Holding tenaciously to the unity of Word and Spirit, they affirmed that nothing can be added that alters the doctrines of the New Testament and no further revelation would be given to show the way of salvation other than what God intended to impart through His Son which is fully contained in Scripture, for all of life and for all history. However, they contended that another form of "mediate" revelation continues, i.e. revelation mediated by the Scriptures, not merely for a greater grammatical of contextual understanding of the Word, but as an application of the already revealed Word of God to the life of an individual, church, or nation. Thus dreams, visions, and spiritual gifts analogous to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit originally displayed by the apostles did not cease but continued as modalities as long as they did not contradict the Unity of the Word and the Spirit. Hence they distinguished between the Holy Spirit and "privates spirits' of individuals whose words do not accord with the Word of God, and whose pronouncements are not prophecy but mere opinions.

By
R. A. Parry "Robin Parry" (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation: The Majority Puritan Viewpoint on Whether Extra-biblical Prophecy Is ... (Studies in Christian History & Thought) (Hardcover)
When the seventeenth-century English Puritan-dominated parliament became embroiled in a conflict with Charles I, the members of the Long Parliament sought military assistance from the Scots. The Scots, however, also desired to see a united Reformation of church and society and proposed a covenant to institute a greater religious uniformity in the three kingdoms. The English parliament established the Westminster Assembly to prepare the documents for that uniformity. One of those documents, the Westminster Confession of Faith, addressed the major theological disputes of the day; one of which centred on whether God still revealed His will outside of the Bible. The book concludes that the Westminster divines believed that God still directed people in all of life, though revelation which came immediately from God had ceased now that the church had the completed Scriptures. In the opening chapter of the Confession, the divines of Westminster included a clause which implied that there would no longer be any special immediate revelation from God. Means by which God had once communicated the divine will, such as dreams, visions, and the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, were said to be no longer available. 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. How is the `cessationist' clause of WCF 1:1 to be read in the light of these claims? This book reconciles this paradox in a detailed study of the writings of the authors of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

`Garnet Milne presents us with a much-needed study.... He builds his case by presenting judicious and thorough evidence from a large number of both primary and secondary sources. It is a fascinating and groundbreaking book...and clarifies a remarkable amount of profound, theological detail.'
Joel R. Beeke, from the Foreword

`Connecting the past to the present is always a difficult but necessary task for the responsible Christian theologian. Dr Milne's work is a good example of how modern questions can be sensitively engaged in a manner which gives due respect to the great formulations of the past without either imposing Procustean criteria on such historic discussions or simply historicising such to the point of irrelevance.'
Carl R. Trueman, Professor of Church History and Historical Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA

`Scholars in puritan studies are increasingly alert to the variety of the movement's theology and spirituality. Garnet Milne's carefully-argued conclusions will provide a major resource for the reassessment of the
most critical of puritan doctrines - the sufficiency of Scripture.'
Crawford Gribben, Long Room Hub Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Print Studies, Trinity College, Dublin

Garnet H. Milne lives with his wife Carol in Wanganui, New Zealand. He has served as pastor of two Reformed churches in Wainuiomata and Wanganui over the past eleven years. He has contributed to the Westminster Theological Journal and was editor of his denominational magazine Faith in Focus for many years. Dr Milne's doctorate in historical theology, from Otago University, forms the basis of this book. He has lectured at apologetic societies, participated in public debates and is involved extensively in bringing a Christian perspective to political and social issues in his home country.