So was S Rutherford( helped draw up Westm. Standards) Reformed ?

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lynnie

Puritan Board Graduate
Rhetorical question :)

You can say this stuff has all ceased. But our Reformed forebears by no means all agreed.

This is from Vern Poythress' length essay. Underlines or bold are mine.

Modern Spiritual Gifts as Analogous to Apostolic Gifts

First, the words of Samuel Rutherford are of special interest, because he was one of the people involved in drawing up the Westminster Standards.

Samuel Rutherford says:

There is a 3 revelation [a third kind of revelation, in addition to canonical revelation and to the internal testimony of the Spirit giving assurance] of some particular men, who have forefold [sic; foretold] things to come even since the ceasing of the Canon of the word, as Iohn Husse, Wickeliefe, Luther, have foretold things to come, and they certainely fell out, and in our nation of Scotland, M. George Wishart foretold that Cardinall Beaton should not come out alive at the Gates of the Castle of St. Andrewes, but that he should dye a shamefull death, and he was hanged over the window that he did look out at, when he saw the man of God burnt, M. Knox prophecied of the hanging of the Lord of Grange, M. Ioh, Davidson uttered prophecies, knowne to many of the kingdome, diverse Holy and mortified preachers in England have done the like: no Familists, or Antinomians, no David George, nor H. Nicholas, no man ever of that Gang, Randel or Wheelwright, or Den, or any other, that ever I heard of, being once ingaged in the Familisticall way, ever did utter any but the fourth sort [satanic prophecies] of lying and false inspirations: Mrs Hutchison, said she should be delivered from the Court of Boston miraculously as Daniel from the Lyons, which proved false, Becold prophecied of the deliverance of the Towne of Munster which was delivered to their enemies, and he and his Prophet were tortured and hanged, David George prophecied of the raising [p. 43] of himselfe from the dead, which was never fulfilled, now the differences between the third and fourth [satanic] revelations, I place in these. 1 These worthy reformers did tye no man to beleeve their prophecies as scriptures, we are to give faith, to the predictions of Prophets and Apostles, foretelling facts to come, as to the very word of God, they never gave themselves out as organs immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost, as the Prophets doe, and as Paul did Rom. 11. prophecying of the calling of the Jewes, and Ioh. Revel. 1.10. and through the whole booke; yea they never denounced Iudgement against those that beleeve not their predictions, of these particular events and facts as they are such particular events & facts, as the Prophets and Apostles did. But Mrs. Hutchison said Rise, Reigne, pag. 61 art. 27. That her particular revelations about future events, Were as infallible as any scripture, and that shee is bound as much to beleeve them as the Scripture, for the same Holy Ghost is author of both, ….

[p. 44] 2 The events revealed to Godly and sound witnesses of Christ are not contrary to the word: But Becold, Iohn Mathie, and Ioh. Schykerus (who kild his brother for no fault) and other Enthysiasts of that murthering Spirit Sathan who killed innocent men, expresly against the fixt command. Thou shalt not Kill, and taught the Boures of Germany to rise and kill all lawfull Magistrates, because they were no Magistrates; upon the pretence of the Impulsions and Inspirations of the Holy Ghost, were acted by inspirations against the word of God; All that the Godly reformers foretold of the tragicall ends of the proclaimed enemies of the Gospell, they were not actors themselves in murthering these enemies of God, nor would M Wishart command or approve that Norman and Ioh. Leslyes should kill the Cardinall Beaton, as they did.

2 [sic; should be 3] They had a generall rule going along that Evill shall hunt the wicked man: onely a secret harmelesse, but an extraordinary strong impulsion, of a Scripture-spirit leading them, carried them to apply a generall rule of divine justice, in their predictions, to particular Godlesse men, they themselves onely being foretellers not copartners of the act.24

.................

John Howie cites a number of instances from the Covenanters in Scotland, John Welch and Robert Bruce:




After writing several times to him, to suppress the profanation of the Lord’s day at his house, which he slighted, not loving to be called a puritan, Welch came one day to his gate, and, calling him out, told him that he had a message from God to show him; because he had slighted the advice given him from the Lord, and would not restrain the profanation of the Lord’s day committed in his bounds, therefore the Lord would cast him out of his house, and none of his posterity should enjoy it. This accordingly came to pass; for although he was in a good external situation at this time, yet henceforth all things went against him, until he was obliged to sell his estate; and when giving the purchaser possession thereof, he told his wife and children that he had found Welch a true prophet.26

..............

Coton Mather: In the Year, 1676, he had a strange Impressision [sic] on his mind, that caused him, on Nov. 19, to Preach a Sermon on those Words, Zeph. III. 7 … and Conclude the Sermon, with a Strange Praediction, That a Fire was a coming, which would make a Deplorable Desolation…. On the next Lords-Day, he Preached … that when the Lord Jesus is about to bring any heavy Judgment upon His People, He is wont to stir up the Heart of some Servant of His, to give Warning of it; which Warning should be Remembred, that so People may be ready to entertain what must come upon them…. The very Night following, a Desolating Fire broke forth in his Neighbourhood.37


He [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 upon the place; 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, …. The famous Dr. Henry More, who is not Ordinarily numbred among Fanaticks, has a Passage that may a little Solve some of these Appearances. “Though the Spirit of Prophecy in some sense be ceased, yet GOD hath not hereby Precluded His own Power, nor yet that of His Ministring Spirits from Visiting and Assisting of His Servants as He Pleaseth. And there are some Pious Persons to whom it must not be Denied, that very Unusual Things of one sort or another, have sometimes happened.”

..........

( Poythress)Hence the reports reveal something of the flexibility of Reformed thinking concerning extraordinary providential actions of God.

All of these extraordinary phenomena can be subsumed under the description given in the Westminster Confession of Faith, 5.3: “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.” God’s work, so described, surely encompasses all nondiscursive processes. Many of these nondiscursive processes doubtless “make use of means.” But because of its strong commitment to the sovereignty of God and the mystery of his plan, the Confession acknowledges explicitly that there may also be operations that are not attached to means in any ordinary way. The ultimate determining factor in every case is “his pleasure.”
 
We've touched on this type of question before. For example:
http://www.puritanboard.com/f62/charismatic-calvinists-517/?highlight=prophecy

All I can say is "hard cases make bad law." Extraordinary things happen even today, and even Satan can manifest himself as an angel of light, so we are often encountering things for which we have no commonplace explanation. So we refer ultimately back to the power of God and his providential government.

But it is a mistake (and I think Rutherford would probably agree) to be looking for extraordinary occasions or events, or to be expecting extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit in the church. We have the promise of God's presence and power in such ordinary and mundane things as preaching and bread and wine. Seeking after signs, said Jesus while IN the age of unquestionable extraordinary things, was indicative of waywardness.

That is the normative position. God can do what he wills. He's told us to practice ordinary things.
 
We've touched on this type of question before. For example:
http://www.puritanboard.com/f62/charismatic-calvinists-517/?highlight=prophecy

All I can say is "hard cases make bad law." Extraordinary things happen even today, and even Satan can manifest himself as an angel of light, so we are often encountering things for which we have no commonplace explanation. So we refer ultimately back to the power of God and his providential government.

The position of Ruthrford and others on God's extraordianary dealings is not a problem of "hard cases make bad law." Unlike some in the modern church they did not claim that God had totally retired the spiritual gifts. As Lynnie has shown, although they recognized that God normally uses means, especially that of the word, the WCF allows that God " is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.”

The problem began when some in the charismatic movement went overboard and either mishandled genuine gifts by not governing them by biblical controls or they were deceived by Satanic counterfeits by claiming that their prophecies must be regarded on the same level as Scripture in advance of proven fulfillment or despite proven falsity. When this moving beyond biblical boundaries occurred in one direction, other people, seeing the error, overreacted in the other direction.

Instead of saying "Nothing new here, we know God does extraordinary things from time to time. Just follow the biblical controls God provided us to discern between true works of God's Spirit and works of another spirit," which would have been the correct response, the overreactors developed a theology that claimed that the spiritual gifts of 1 Cor. 12 have been retired by God. Locked into a position where they claim that swans today can only be white, when a black swan seems to turn up (a post apostolic parallel to the gifts) they insist that it is not a swan at all, rather than considering whether or not the theological reasoning whereby they intrpret the impossibility of black swans is either GNC provable or the historical position of the reformers. As I have shown elsewhere a couple of common arguments for cessationism of the gifts fail to meet the GNC test, and Lynnie has shown that a full cessationist view was not that of Rutherford nor the experience of the reformation Scottish church.

If something happens today that is clearly not of human origin, we have two alternatives. The happening is either of God, or it is of the devil. If we have overreacted and claim that God has retired the spiritual gifts, and then an exact parallel to a spiritual gift occurs before us, we have two alternatives: we can 1) reexamine our theology of "gift retirement" and if we find that our theology is not a GNC deduction from the scriptures then we can say: by biblical standards this is a spiritual gift in action, or 2) if we find upon rexamination of our theology that the deduction that God has retired the spiritual gifts at some point is a GNC deduction from the Scripture, then we can correctly claim that what is happening is of the devil.

Getting our theology right here is very important. If we are wrong one way, we decieve ourselves and others that something of the devil is of God. If we err the other way, we deceive ourselves and others that a gift of the Holy Spirit is of the devil. This would come uncomfortably near to the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit committed by the Pharisees in Matt. 12:24 when they attributed Christ's power over demons to Beelzebub.

It seems to me that the way the early reformers handled the matter was both biblically faithful and pastorally wise. By allowing the possibility of God moving in extraodinary ways they avoided the dangers of nonjudgemental acceptance of the false nor an uncritical rejection of the true.

But it is a mistake (and I think Rutherford would probably agree) to be looking for extraordinary occasions or events, or to be expecting extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit in the church. We have the promise of God's presence and power in such ordinary and mundane things as preaching and bread and wine. Seeking after signs, said Jesus while IN the age of unquestionable extraordinary things, was indicative of waywardness.

That is the normative position. God can do what he wills. He's told us to practice ordinary things.

I suggest that the belief that seeking after signs is always a mistake is not correct. If God is clearly operating in extraordinary fashion already, as he was in the case of the Corinthian church, Paul's instructions "earnestly desire the higher gifts" and, alongside love, "earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy" not for the bnefit of individuals, but for edification of the church and power in evangelism (I Cor. 12:31, 14:1-4,12, 24,25) would seem to be applicable to such a situation.

The Corinthian church had the OT and, if Paul had followed his normal practice before leaving them, they would have had elders ordained by him. Since Paul requires the elders to be competent teachers of the word, it is a reasonable assumption that the preaching of the word was given its due weight in Corinth. Certainly Paul says nothing that necessarily implies the contrary. Which would mean that prophetic gifts can be exercised alongside instead of instead of a biblical preaching ministry. As Lynnie's examples implicitly remind us, that was the case in reformation Scotland and in other places too.

I am unsure whether or not Paul's instructions can be even be limited to a Corinth type situation, or whether they are legitimately applicable to situations where the gifts are not particularly present. Certainly,Christian churches (in North America taken as a whole), are not having the same kind of effect on our culture that the church had in the first century. I don't know what the percentage ratio of annual conversions to members is in the Reformed denoms, but I know that in "growing" evangelical churches broadly faithful to biblical faith, think they are doing well with .5-1% annual membership growth, and at least 50% of that growth is in transfers. Contrast this with what has happened when God has empowered the preaching and evangelism of his church with power.

The 1858,9 Welsh revival, led by a solidly Calvinistic, but incompletely educated minister named David Morgan, resulted in 25% of the Welsh population being converted within 18 months, with the vast majority of those people proving the soundness of their conversions in that they remained church members in good standing for 30 years or more. See Eifon Evans books, Revival Comes to Wales and Two Welsh Revivalists : Humphrey Jones, Dafydd Morgan, and the 1859 Revival in Walesfor details.

Looking at events like this gives us a sense of the potential power in the preached or gossiped word that is generally missing from Christian preaching and evangelism today. If our churches are not growing in gnenuinely converted disciples and are not increasingly effecting our culture for good, I suggest we will be guilty of lack of love to our neighbours if we are not praying for God to exponentially increase the power and effect of our evanglism whether by the word preached, by gossiping the gospel or by whatever extraordinary means he may see fit to use.
 
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Instead of saying "Nothing new here, we know God does extraordinary things from time to time. Just follow the biblical controls God provided us to discern between true works of God's Spirit and works of another spirit," which would have been the correct response, the overreactors developed a theology that claimed that the spiritual gifts of 1 Cor. 12 have been retired by God.

Thank you for your lengthy and carefully thought out reply. It has taken me years to come to the place you describe so well. In shaking off the errors of my early charismatic years it felt safer to avoid clear biblical subjects like the gifts, and the fact that there really is an enemy and some things occasionally are attacks from the evil realm, and not just sinful people. I kept coming back to the verse that where there is no oxen the stall is clean, but there is much profit with an ox. Did I want the clean stall with no mess, or kingdom profit with piles of manure? ( I wanted the clean stall)

What helped me most was John Piper saying that in his experience it seems like the gifts "don't work"...every church that allows them today seems to end up in big trouble. But he had to face scripture and that he must live by the word, not experience. So he is slowly and delicately trying to open the door to that realm, but with safeguards in place.

What has been wonderful to me in my PCA experience the last few years is experiencing gifts in prayer. I have asked the Lord to guide my intercession and I have had "words" numerous times where he clearly spoke to me to pray for a certain person- not knowing anything. Then I find out they were in the hospital, or had a financial crisis, or some other huge trouble. I have felt led to give money, and twice it was exactly the amount that the person needed and had asked God to provide. My church experience is safe, being the PCA, ha, but I am learning the blessing of gifts in the private place.

I guess I have a long way to go, and I don't know all the answers, but I know cessationism is not biblical. As one person used to say, if it was your darling kid who had an inoperable tumor on the brainstem, you would be earnestly desiring spiritual gifts like miracles of healing in a hurry.
 
So, if you just believe hard enough, will God send you a special layer-on of hands? If he doesn't, does that mean your faith was too weak? Where are these healers? Can you go and find one of them? Are they in the phone book? In the Christian Directory? I have heard of such advertisements, but I wouldn't recommend calling up one of them.

Does God do miracles? Does he heal the inoperable brain tumor? Well, as I said before I believe he does.

But there's a big difference in believing that he does, and believing that certain people today have obtained the gift of healing through the laying on of hands of the apostles. Gifted healers in the Bible didn't touch people who then weren't healed. How do today's "gifted" healers stand up? Or is it trial and error now? Infallible healing has given way to fallible healing? Anyone raised from the dead lately?
 
There is a tremendous amount of confusion about God acting extraordinarily and cessationism.

In a nutshell: It is not un-Biblical to believe that God acts in His Creation or that He answers prayer or that He heals.

It is un-Biblical to claim the continuation of Apostlic gifting, the continuation of revelatory gifts, etc.

The thing that really irks me about these discussions is the unstated premise that what we have from God, in His Word, is insufficient without the continuation of the Apostolic gifts. Consider how the Apostle Peter viewed this:

2 Peter 1

14Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

15Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

16For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

17For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

18And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

19We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

20Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

21For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
We have a more sure Word than what Peter and John heard on the Mount of Transfiguration! Why? Because God regularly manifest Himself in these kinds of ways and spoke out of clouds or said verbal things through people but corrupt hearts and dull ears forgot them quickly. "What did you hear Him say again?"

We have living Words recorded for us. Peter was confident that, as he left, we had been left with everything we needed as the Apostolic age finished laying the foundation with the death of the last Apostle.

If you lack confidence in the Word then that grieves me but I will not permit that view to be propogated here.
 
So, if you just believe hard enough, will God send you a special layer-on of hands? If he doesn't, does that mean your faith was too weak? Where are these healers? Can you go and find one of them? Are they in the phone book? In the Christian Directory? I have heard of such advertisements, but I wouldn't recommend calling up one of them.

Does God do miracles? Does he heal the inoperable brain tumor? Well, as I said before I believe he does.

But there's a big difference in believing that he does, and believing that certain people today have obtained the gift of healing through the laying on of hands of the apostles. Gifted healers in the Bible didn't touch people who then weren't healed. How do today's "gifted" healers stand up? Or is it trial and error now? Infallible healing has given way to fallible healing? Anyone raised from the dead lately?

In the interests of clarity of thought and discussion between cessationists and continuists, I would greatly appreciate it if cessationists would stop posing the straw man argument of supposed "gifts" that clearly don't meet biblical criteria. That's not the real problem. By definition, something with no wings is clearly not a swan.

The real probglem is not something that does not meet the biblical criteria for the gifts, for that is clearly not a gift. Instead the real problem that must be analyzed and discerned is those situations that exactly parallel the gifts, like the tongues case Chuck Smith describes that I alluded to in another thread, or those individuals in reformation days who had repeated intimations come to pass.

If you want to discredit yourself with an intelligent charismatic and lose all possibility of helping him or her discern the abuses of the movement, then straw man arguments such as the one above that do not come to grips with the real problem are a very good way to proceed. But straw man arguments are not sanctioned by the WCF as a means of settling religious disputes.
 
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And equally detrimental to the productivity of conversations re: pneumatic charismata is the notion, as Rich addressed, that cessationists teach that all miraculous workings and powers of God have ceased, or that he no longer miraculously answers the prayers of his saints, or that Spiritual activity has ceased. This is no one's fault, but the cessationist argument nevertheless is most often misunderstood in this way.

I think, at the very least, if we all corporately recovered the methods and means of Reformed piety, looking to Word and Sacrament for the ministration of the Spirit, then such issues and debates would largely fade (even if not they are not technically resolved), as there would be no more dwelling upon hypotheticals of what God has revealed he still may or may not do. Some might still intellectually think that such messages in tongues are acceptable for today, but will certainly not seek them, nor teach that men ought to expect them, but will rather (with us cessationalists) drive people to the Word and Sacrament. We can still rejoice when the miraculous happens, but when we search for the ministration of the Spirit we ought to search him in the ordained means.
 
The real probglem is not something that does not meet the biblical criteria for the gifts, for that is clearly not a gift. Instead the real problem that must be analyzed and discerned is those situations that exactly parallel the gifts, like the tongues case Chuck Smith describes that I alluded to in another thread, or those individuals in reformation days who had repeated intimations come to pass.

Moderator: If this isn't explicitly advocating an unconfessional position, it's coming really close. Be careful, or this thread will be closed.
 
There is a tremendous amount of confusion about God acting extraordinarily and cessationism.

In a nutshell: It is not un-Biblical to believe that God acts in His Creation or that He answers prayer or that He heals.

It is un-Biblical to claim the continuation of Apostlic gifting, the continuation of revelatory gifts, etc.

The thing that really irks me about these discussions is the unstated premise that what we have from God, in His Word, is insufficient without the continuation of the Apostolic gifts. Consider how the Apostle Peter viewed this:

2 Peter 1

14Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

15Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

16For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

17For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

18And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

19We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

20Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

21For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
We have a more sure Word than what Peter and John heard on the Mount of Transfiguration! Why? Because God regularly manifest Himself in these kinds of ways and spoke out of clouds or said verbal things through people but corrupt hearts and dull ears forgot them quickly. "What did you hear Him say again?"

We have living Words recorded for us. Peter was confident that, as he left, we had been left with everything we needed as the Apostolic age finished laying the foundation with the death of the last Apostle.

If you lack confidence in the Word then that grieves me but I will not permit that view to be propogated here.

Rutherford clearly distinguished between the revelation of biblical authority (which we all agree has ceased) and the type of revelation that anyone here may advocate. The point I make is that people now throw the baby out with the bathwater because of the abuses of the charismatics while there is ample evidence that many reformers were not cessationists. How do you respond to his quote?

Your statement seems to indicate that any continuationist lacks confidence in the Word (if i misread you I apologize). Do you make that statement about Rutherford, Luther, Piper and anyone else mentioned in this thread? I for one will not throw these guys under the bus. We should be skeptical about any supposed revelation anyone claims to have but to say they don't happen is not supported by the biblical text or the confessions.
 
I don't stand behind the veracity of Smith's account: as I said in the earlier post mentioned, I only have his witness for what happened and not the required two witnesses that Paul requires for a matter to be settled.

The issue is PB rules regarding arguing against cessationism. Thread closed.
 
Rutherford clearly distinguished between the revelation of biblical authority (which we all agree has ceased) and the type of revelation that anyone here may advocate. The point I make is that people now throw the baby out with the bathwater because of the abuses of the charismatics while there is ample evidence that many reformers were not cessationists. How do you respond to his quote?
I respond that what cessationism believes is not understood. There is a difference between "gifting" and God acting in extraordinary ways. Who are these men and women that have been given a gifting by the Church for continued revelation?

Your statement seems to indicate that any continuationist lacks confidence in the Word (if i misread you I apologize). Do you make that statement about Rutherford, Luther, Piper and anyone else mentioned in this thread? I for one will not throw these guys under the bus. We should be skeptical about any supposed revelation anyone claims to have but to say they don't happen is not supported by the biblical text or the confessions.
I can only deal with my own Biblical convictions in this matter and the conclusions I draw are based upon how the presentation of these "contined gifts" impact the theology of the people who receive it.

God is constantly revealing Himself to us. Constantly. His Creation utters forth speech and His Word is a lamp unto our feet.

When we begin with a healthy understanding of how the Providence of God operates as well as how the Spirit works through the Word and His Church then we aren't constanly looking for the fantastic.

One of the things that I hear from people a lot is "...it's a God thing..." when something they hoped would work out works out in an extraordinary way. My observation is that, if they were to open their eyes a bit wider, they would realize that there are "God things" happening all around them, even in the tempest. People have their spiritual ears tuned up only to hear the loud sounds and so their spiritual senses become dulled to learning from God in the quiet things that we would all do well to take better notice of and constantly redound our praise to Him for.

My problem is not that I doubt that God acts in extraordinary ways that we don't expect. I praise Him for it. My second daughter was healed extraordinarily by God. My problem is that people create theologies around the extraordinary events, call it continued gifting, and then look to those people (or themselves) with those gifts as authoratative and dull their senses to the surer testimony He has given us.
 
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