Garnet
Howard Milne in his book The Westminster
Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation: The Majority
Puritan Viewpoint on Whether Extra-Biblical Prophecy is Still Possible (Wipf
and Stock, 2007) argues that the Westminster divines were cessationist in their
understanding. Yet Milne
acknowledges that these same divines operated with a nuanced view of
revelation. Milne explains:
Secondly, when the divines penned their cessationist
clause, they were operating with a conscious distinction between two types of
revelations, one of which they deemed had ceased and one of which continued,
and always would continue until the end of time. That which had ceased was “immediate” revelation in the
sense of a direct conveyance by the Holy Spirit upon the faculty of the
understanding. The key features of
this “immediate” revelation were that it was equal to Scripture in authority
and that is contained new extra-biblical revelation of either doctrine, ethics
or other forms of divine guidance. (p. 287)
Milne
goes on to explain the other kind of revelation that continued:
Thirdly, the divines allowed that dreams, angelic
visitations and prophetic impulses or motions might have a role in the only
legitimate revelation that now remained, “mediate” revelation. “Mediate” revelation, as its name
implies, was revelation mediated through some intermediary; in this case, the
Scriptures. The Scriptures were an
essential mean whereby God imparted this revelation. What was thus conveyed was a greater understanding of the
meaning of God’s mind in the
Scriptures, not merely a greater grammatical or contextual understanding of the
biblical text. “Mediate”
revelation was considered to be an application of the divinely inspired written
Word of God to the life of an individual, nation or church.
An analogous use of the former modalities of
“immediate” revelation was not, therefore, denied. (p. 287)
This
may seem like the traditional distinction between “revelation” and
“illumination” but the process of disclosure for “mediate” revelation could
include “dreams, angelic visitations and prophetic impulses or motions.” It is crucial to note that in practice “mediate” revelation did not
really look distinct from “immediate” revelation. Milne gives as an example of “mediate” revelation:
Angels too were considered to be able to impress the
faculty of the imagination and move the thought processes in such a manner that
secrets could discovered through contingent events. The 1605 Gunpowder Plot was believed to be providentially
uncovered through the means of an angelic agency putting it into the mind of Francis
Tresham to warn his Catholic brother-in-law Lord Monteagle by letter, advising
him not to attend Parliament on 5 November of that year. Lord Monteagle subsequently revealed
the plot to the government and so disaster was thwarted. (p. 288)
Why
is this considered “mediate” revelation—what Scriptures are the medium through
which this revelation is being conducted?
Milne argues:
The Scriptures were relevant in these sorts of cases
as the source of the mediated revelation, because they contained promises of
deliverances for God’s people, covenanted nations and churches, in a variety of
contexts. (p. 288)
It
should be notice that the connection between the revelatory modality (angelic
agency acting on the mind) and the specific biblical text is a bit
stretched. Under such a rubric
almost any non-discursive revelatory modality could be made to fit with some
broad Scriptural theme.
In
light of the above, care should be taken not to merely respond to a word—the
verbal token “revelation”—but, rather, to probe into the conceptual dynamics
behind the language. There may be
resources in the Reformed heritage—both the conceptual distinction between
“immediate” and “mediate” revelation as well as the actual practices of the
heritage—that help bridge the gap in understanding between cessationists and
continuationists.[1]
[1]
Two crucial essays that help bridge this gap are Dean R. Smith, “The Scottish
Presbyterians and Covenanters: A Continuationist Experience in a Cessationist
Theology,” Westminster Theological
Journal 63 (2001), 39-63 and Vern Poythress, “Modern Spiritual Gifts as
Analogous to Apostolic Gifts: Affirming Extraordinary Works of the Spirit
Within Cessationist Theology” Journal of
the Evangelical Theological Society 39 (1996), 71-101.
