The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), drawn up in London in the 1640s, has been one of the most influential confessions in the history of Reformed theology. It has occupied a very significant place in the life of a great many Protestant churches since the seventeenth century, and continues to serve as a chief subordinate standard in several major denominations today.
In the opening chapter of the Confession, the divines of Westminster included a clause which implied that there would no longer be any supernatural revelation from God for showing humankind the way of salvation. Means by which God had once communicated the divine will concerning salvation, such as dreams, visions, and the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, were said to be no longer applicable. 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 facts? Was it intended as a strict denial of the possibility that any supernatural revelation for the purposes of salvation could take place after the apostolic period, or did its authors, as some modern scholars have argued, allow for a more flexible view, in which such divine revelation through extraordinary means might still take place? This thesis explores these questions in the light of the modern debates over the interpretation of the Confession�s language and its implications for the church today. It considers the difference between "mediate" and "immediate" revelation as understood by the Westminster divines, and attempts to show that only "immediate" revelation was considered to have ceased, while "mediate" revelation, which always involved Scripture, was held to continue.
A detailed analysis of the writings of the Westminster divines reveals that these churchmen possessed both a strong desire to maintain the unity of Word and Spirit and a concern to safeguard the freedom of the Holy Spirit to speak to particular circumstances through the language and principles of Scripture. God still enabled predictive prophecy and spoke to individuals in extraordinary ways, but contemporary prophecy was held to be something distinct from the prophecy of New Testament figures. In the minds of both the Scottish Presbyterians and English Puritans, prophecy was considered to be an application of Scripture for a specific situation, not an announcement of new information not contained within the Bible. The Scriptures always remained essential for the process of discerning God�s will.
The Introduction to the thesis considers the debate over WCF 1:1 in its modern setting. Chapter One outlines the socio-political and theological context of the Westminster Assembly, and discusses the question of how to assess the respective contributions of the divines to the documents it produced. Chapter Two investigates the Westminster view of the necessity and scope of special revelation, and discusses the nature of the "salvation" which was conveyed by this means. Chapter Three surveys the exegetical traditions underpinning the teaching that former modalities of supernatural revelation had ceased. Chapter Four seeks to respond to modern claims that Puritan theology allowed for a "continuationist" position, by canvassing evidence both from seventeenth-century Reformed thinkers themselves and from their critics, who maintained that Westminster orthodoxy was indeed cessationist in style. Chapters Five and Six explore the claims to and explanations for "prophecy" in Reformed theology in both England and Scotland in the seventeenth century. Chapter Seven examines the question of the theological status of the Westminster Confession in its own time. To what extent were subscription requirements envisaged by the Assembly and the governments of the day, and what form did these requirements take?
The thesis concludes that the Westminster divines intended the cessationist clause to affirm that there was to be no more extra-biblical, "immediate" revelation for any purpose now that the church possessed the completed Scriptures. The written Word of God was fully capable of showing the way of "salvation" in its wider scope as either temporal or eternal deliverance. At the same time 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". The primary means was held to be the written Scriptures, illuminated by the Holy Spirit. The unity of the Word and Spirit was maintained, and God�s freedom to address individual circumstances remained intact.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217452 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Milne, Garnet Howard, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Theology and Religious Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Garnet Howard Milne |
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