The gift of prophecy in church history, especially in Reformed and Puritan circles

[Gavin]

http://www.ephesians2.net/Articles/Grudem-HistoryProphecy.htm

This is an excerpt from Wayne Grudem's book on prophecy, which can be purchased here (http://www.ephesians2.net/Bookstore/Default.htm) .


Part one:

THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH contains many examples of the gift of prophecy functioning in the way I have described it in this book. It was somewhat of a surprise to me to discover these after this book was first published. This largely happened because people who read my book sent me or called to my attention such material in the writings of Samuel Rutherford, Charles Spurgeon, and others. Such historical evidence happens to be especially significant for Reformed cessationists, since several of these writers were champions of Reformed doctrine in their own day.

1. JOHN KNOX (ca. 1514—1572)

John Knox was a Scottish Reformer whose powerful preaching and writing determined much of the course of the Reformation and the out-working of theology in the churches in Scotland.

In a biography of Knox, historian Jasper Ridley says Knox and other Protestants "expected their leaders to have the gift of prophecy."1 Ridley records several prophecies of Knox that came true, one of which concerns the death of William Kirkaldy of Grange—a prophecy that Knox spoke to two men who were with him as he was dying:

You have formerly been witnesses [he said] of the courage and constancy of Grange in the cause of the Lord; but now, alas, into what a gulf has he precipitated himself. I entreat you nor to refuse the request which I now make to you. Go, and tell him in my name that unless he is yet brought to repentance, he shall die miserably; for neither the craggy rock [the castle] in which he miserably trusts, nor the carnal prudence of that man [Lethington] whom he looks upon as a demi-god, nor the assistance of foreigners, as he falsely flatters himself, shall deliver them; but he shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to punishment, and hung on a gallows in the face of the sun, unless he speedily amend his life, and flee to the mercy of God. The man's soul is dear to me, and I would not have it perish if I could save it. [emphasis added]2

Ridley then details the fulfillment of the predictions:

On August 3, Grange and his brother James . . . were hanged. Lethingron had died suddenly soon after the surrender of the castle: he probably committed suicide.

Thus two of Knox's prophecies were apparently fulfilled. All the chronicles state that when Grange met Drury in front of the castle walls to discuss the terms of surrender, he was unable to come out through the castle gate because it was blocked by the stones that had fallen after the English bombardment. He was therefore let down over the wall by a rope, or ladder. Knox had prophesied that Grange would be spewed out of the castle, not at the gate but over the wall. When Grange was hanged at the market cross of Edinburgh on a sunny afternoon, he was hanged facing towards the east; but before be died, his body swung round to face the west, so he was hanged, as Knox had foretold, in the face of the sun. [emphasis added]3



2. THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH (1643—1646)

In the first chapter of this confession ("Of the Holy Scripture"), paragraph 10 says:

The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture. [emphasis added]

Here "private spirits" are placed on the same level as "decrees of councils," "opinions of ancient writers," and "doctrines of men." All of these are to be subordinate to "the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture." But what are "private spirits"?

Byron Curtis has recently argued that at the time of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), "private spirits" meant "personal revelations," and that the Westminster Confession did not rule them out but insisted they were to be subject to Scripture. Curtis writes, "...in mid-seventeenth-century England there was an established meaning to the phrase ‘private spirits' denoting personal revelations."4 Curtis cites the Oxford English Dictionary, showing that at the time of the WCF the term "spirit" could take either the sense "opinion" or "revelation," but he then shows significant evidence from other literature close to the WCF in time and subject matter, evidence showing that "private spirits" was commonly understood to mean "personal revelations" that people claimed they had received from the Holy Spirit.

Curtis concludes,

The historical and linguistic evidence indicates that WCF ¶1.10's phrase "private spirits" had a clearly recognized meaning which can be traced in [certain current controversies].... That recognized meaning denotes private revelation, not personal opinion.5



3. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (1600—1661)

Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish pastor and theologian and one of the most influential delegates to the Westminster Assembly (1643-1649), which composed the Westminster Confession of Faith in London from 1643-1646. Rutherford stayed four years in London (1643-1647) for the Westminster Assembly, and while there "he was an industrious student and a prolific writer."6 The following work was published in 1648, indicating the possibility that much of it was written while he was participating in the Westminster Assembly as one of its primary authors. Though the archaic spelling is a bit difficult, the third kind of revelation that he describes ("Of some facts peculiar to Godly men") is the kind of phenomenon that I describe in this book, and he refers to these as "prophecies."

This fact is especially relevant for those who claim that the Westminster Confession of Faith excludes the continuation of the gift of prophecy today. If this were true, it would mean that one of the primary authors of the Westminster Confession, while solemnly professing adherence to the Confession that he helped to write, and while understanding the meaning of the Confession as well as any man then alive, actually published a document that contradicted that Confession, and did so without any word of explanation to his readers or any loss of ecclesiastical standing or reputation (from 1647 until his death in 1660 "he was preeminent in Scotland as a scholar and leader"7). Such an idea simply does not fit with the historical facts. Rather, this document gives ample evidence that belief in the continuation of the gift of prophecy is consistent with a wholehearted affirmation of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Rutherfurd, Samuel, A Survey of the Spirituall Antichrist. Opening the Secrets of Familisme and Antinomianisme in the Antichristian Doctrine of John Saltmarsh (et al) (London, 1648).8

Part One, Chapter VII—"Of Revelations and Inspirations"

Now as touching revelations and inspirations of the Spirit, I conceave with all submission to the Learned and Godly..., there is an internall revelation, of things that men beleeve. And this I conceave to be foure-fold.

1. Propheticall.

2. Speciall to the elect only.

3. Of some facts peculiar to Godly men.

4. False and Satanicall.

(1) Propheticall Revelation is that irradiation of the minde that the Holy Ghost makes on the minde and judgement of the penman of holy scripture, whether Prophets or apostles and that by an immediate in-breathing of the minde and will of God on them, whether in visions, dreames, or any other way, without men, or the ministery or teaching of men, as he did to Esaiah, Ieremiah, Esa. 1.1. Ier. 1.1. Or to Paul Gal. 1.1, 11, 12, 15, 16.. . . and what they both write or preach must be added to the object of our faith, and their writings must be added to the booke of the revelation, which is forbidden. Rev. 22.17, 18, 19. Deut. 12.32. Deut. 30. 5, 6...

(2) There is a speciall internall revelation, made of things in scripture, applyed in particular to the soules of elect beleevers, by which, having heard and learned of the Father Ioh. 6.4 (40) there is made knowne and revealed to them, by the Spirit of wisedome and revelation, what is the hope of their calling, and what is the riches of the glory of the inheritance in the Saints. Ephes. 1. 17, 18, 19.... And this is common to all that beleeve...

Now this Revelation is a cleare evidence in the conscience by the Testimony of the Spirit, that I am a child of God Rom. 8. 16 whether it be immediate; or from speaking signs and markes of sanctification 1 Ioh. 1.3. 1 Ioh. 3 4.18, 19,20.... [41]

(3) There is a revelation of some particular men, who have foretold things to come even since the ceasing of the Canon of the word, as John 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 Sr. 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 . . . [42, emphasis added]

(4) ... no Familists, or Antinomians, ... that ever I heard of... ever did utter any but the fourth sort 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.... David George prophecied of the raising [42] of himselfe from the dead, which was never fulfilled, ... now the differences between the third and fourth 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. 1 1. prophecying (if the calling of the Jewes, and Ioh. Revel. 1.10 and through the whole booke; yea they never denounced ludgement against those that beleeve nor 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... that here 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.... [43]

2 The events reveled to Godly and sound witnesses of Christ are nor contrary to the word...

3 They were men sound in the faith opposite to Popery, Prelacy, Socinianisme, Papisme, Lawlesse Enthysiasme, Antinomianisme, Arminianisme, Arrianisme, and what else is contrary to sound doctrine, all these being wanting in such as hold the fourth sort of revelations we cannot judge them but Satanicall.



4. GEORGE GILLESPIE (1613—1648)

George Gillespie was also a delegate to the Westminster Assembly, and one of its influential and prominent debaters. Gillespie wrote that several heroes of the Scottish Reformation such as John Knox and George Wishart were

such extraordinary men as were more than ordinary pastors and teachers, even holy prophets receiving extraordinary revelations from God, and foretelling divers strange and remarkable things, which did accordingly come to pass punctually.9

An excellent source for examples of remarkable cases of prophecy in the ministries of Scottish preachers is John Howie's book, Scots Worthies.10 The stories of prophecies in the life of John Welsh (see 123-139) are especially noteworthy.

[Gavin]

Part two:

5. WILLIAM BRIDGE (1600—1670)

William Bridge was a Nonconformist preacher of Puritan convictions who was also a delegate to the Westminster Assembly. In a sermon probably preached in the late 1640s but published in 1656, Bridge said,

... may not God speak by extraordinary visions and revelations, in these days of ours? . . . Yes, without all doubt he may: God is nor to be limited, he may speak in what way he please. What God may do I will not dispute: he may thus speak to men, if it please him; yea, and if we may give credit unto known histories, the Lord hath spoken in this way sometimes to some of his servants since the apostles time. . . . Yet there is a great deal of difference between faith in the promise and a vision or revelation. Possibly, then, the Lord may speak in such a way as this is to some of his servants. But now, that you may have a boundary in this matter...

Though God may thus speak to some of his servants, yet if I have an itching desire after visions and revelations it is ill.... yea, I am to be so far from desiring God to speak in this way of a vision, as I am bound rather to be backward to it.... An itching desire after visions, argues that a man is not content with the Scripture.11

Though Bridge thus discourages a seeking after such contemporary revelations from God, he does not think them impossible, and seems to believe that some have happened. Once again, if the Westminster Confession of Faith had required that such prophecies or revelations were impossible, Bridge could not have affirmed the WCF. But he was in fact part of the assembly that wrote it.



6. RICHARD BAXTER (1615—1691)

Richard Baxter was a Puritan pastor and writer whose writings represent the culmination of mature Puritan reflection on the application of Scripture to life. His book The Reformed Pastor is still in print today and is widely regarded as a classic guide to the life and conduct of a pastor.

Baxter's largest work, A Christian Directory, was first published in 1673 and remains in print even today.12 In it he discusses the possibility of contemporary revelations from God. As paragraph 4 in the following citation indicates, he allows that they may happen and calls this "prophecy," though he cautions against excess and abuse and gives guidance for hearing such claims "with a proportionable suspicion."

Quest. CLX. May we not look that God should yet give us more revelations of his will, than there are already made in Scripture?

Answ. You must distinguish between, 1. New laws of covenants to mankind, and new predictions or informations of a particular person. 2. Between what may possibly be, and what we may expect as certain or probable. And so I conclude,

1. That it is certain that God will make no other covenant, testament, or universal law, for the government of mankind or the church, as a rule of duty and of judgment....

2. It is certain that God will make no new scripture or inspired word as an infallible, universal rule for the exposition of the word already written...

3. It is certain that God will give all his servants in their several measures, the help and illumination of his Spirit, for the understanding and applying of the gospel.

4. It is possible that God may make new revelations to particular persons about their particular duties, events, or matters of fact, in subordination to the Scripture, either by inspiration, vision, or apparition, or voice; for he hath nor told us that he will never do such a thing. As to tell them, what shall befall them or others; or to say, Go to such a place, or, Dwell in such a place, or, Do such a thing, which is nor contrary to the Scripture, nor co-ordinate, but only a subordinate determination of some undetermined case, or the circumstantiating of an action.

5. Though such revelation and prophecy be possible, there is no certainty of it in general, nor any probability of it to any one individual person, much less a promise. And therefore to expect it, or pray for it, is but a presumptuous tempting of God.13

[Baxter goes on with more cautions against abuses.] .

Quest. CLXIV. How is a pretended prophet, or revelation, to be tried?

Answ. 1. If it be contrary to the Scripture it is to be rejected as a deceit.

2. If it be the same thing which is in the Scripture, we have it more certainly revealed already; therefore the revelation can be nothing but an assistance of the person's faith, or a call to obedience, or a reproof of some sin; which every man is to believe according as there is true evidence that indeed it is a divine revelation or vision; which if it be nor, the same thing is still sure to us in the Scripture.

3. If it be something that is only besides the Scripture, (as about events and facts, or prophecies of what will befall particular places or persons) we must first see whether the evidence of a divine revelation be clear in it or not: and that is known, 1. To the person himself, by the self-attesting and convincing power of a divine revelation, which no man knoweth but he that hath it (and we must be very cautelous lest we take false conceptions to be such). 2. But to himself and others it is known, (1.) At present by clear, uncontrolled miracles, which are God's attestation; which if men show, we are bound (in this case) to believe them. (2.) For the future, by the event, when things so plainly come to pass, as prove the prediction to be of God. He therefore . . . is to be heard with a suspended belief; you must stay till the event show whether he say true or nor: and not act any thing in the mean time upon an unproved presumption either of the truth or falsehood of his words.

4. If you are in doubt whether that which he speaketh be contrary to God's word or not, you must hear him with a proportionable suspicion, and give no credit to him till you have tried whether it be so or not.

5. It is a dangerous snare and sin to believe any one's prophecies or revelations merely because they are very holy persons, and do most confidently aver or swear it. For they may be deceived themselves. As also to take hysterical or melancholy delirations or conceptions for the revelations (if the Spirit of God, and so to father falsehood upon God. 14

I may add a personal note at this point: When I first found this material in Baxter, I photocopied these two pages and sent them to J. I. Packer, whose doctoral dissertation at Oxford was on Baxter's work. Packer sent back the following note:

By the way, some weeks ago you faxed me an extract from Baxter about God making personal informative revelations. This was the standard Puritan view, as I have observed it—they weren't cessationists in the Richard Gaffin sense.15



7. CHARLES SPURGEON (1834—1892)

Charles Spurgeon was a Baptist pastor in London and by many estimates the greatest preacher of the nineteenth century.

In the following excerpts, Spurgeon tells of times when God enabled him to know and say things about people that he could not have known on his own. Although Spurgeon does not apply the term "prophecy" to these cases, they are striking examples of the kind of thing that Paul had in mind when he said, "But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you" (1 Cor. 14:24-25, RSV):

There were many instances of remarkable conversions at the Music Hall; one especially was so singular that I have often related it as a proof that God sometimes guides His servants to say what they would themselves never have thought of uttering, in order that He may bless the hearer for whom the message is personally intended.

While preaching in the hall, on one occasion, I deliberately pointed to a man in the midst of the crowd, and said, "There is a man sitting there, who is a shoemaker; he keeps his shop open on Sundays, it was open last Sabbath morning, he took ninepence, and there was fourpence profit out of it; his soul is sold to Satan for fourpence!"

A city missionary, when going his rounds, met with this man, and seeing that he was reading one of my sermons, he asked the question, "Do you know Mr. Spurgeon?" "Yes," replied the man, "I have every reason to know him, I have been to hear him; and, under his preaching, by God's grace I have become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Shall I tell you how it happened? I went to the Music Hall, and took my seat in the middle of the place; Mr. Spurgeon looked at me as if he knew me, and in his sermon he pointed to me, and told the congregation that I was a shoemaker, and that I kept my shop open on Sundays; and I did, sir. I should not have minded that; but he also said that I took ninepence the Sunday before, and that there was fourpence profit out of it. I did rake ninepence that day, and fourpence was just the profit; but how he should know that, I could not tell. Then it struck me that it was God who had spoken to my soul through him, so I shut up my shop the next Sunday. Ar first, I was afraid to go again to hear him, lest he should tell the people more about me; but afterwards I went, and the Lord met with me, and saved my soul."

I could tell as many as a dozen similar cases in which I pointed at somebody in the hall without having the slightest knowledge of the person, or any idea that what I said was right, except that I believed I was moved by the Spirit to say it; and so striking has been my description, that the persons have gone away, and said to the friends, "Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did; beyond a doubt, he must have been sent of God to my soul, or else he could not have described me so exactly." And not only so, but I have known many instances in which the thoughts of men have been revealed from the pulpit. I have sometimes seen persons nudge their neighbours with their elbow, because they had got a smart hit, and they have been heard to say, when they were going out, "The preacher told us just what we said to one another when we went in at the door." [emphasis added]16

Another incident is related in which a thief was discovered:

At the Monday evening prayer-meeting at which Spurgeon related the incident linked with the sermon of July 31 he also mentioned the sermon at Exeter Hall in which he suddenly broke off from his subject, and pointing in a certain direction, said "Young man, those gloves you are wearing have not been paid for: you have stolen them from your employer." At the close of the service, a young man, looking very pale and greatly agitated, came to the room which was used as a vestry, and begged for a private interview with Spurgeon. On being admitted, he placed a pair of gloves upon the table, and tearfully said, "It's the first time I have robbed my master, and I will never do it again. You won't expose me, sir, will you? It would kill my mother if she heard that I had become a thief." The preacher had drawn the bow at a venture, but the arrow struck the target for which God intended it, and the startled hearer was, in that singular way, probably saved from committing a greater crime.17

8. CONCLUSION

My expectation is that these citations have just scratched the surface of the evidence for the continuation of the gift of prophecy and of affirmations that such a gift or such sub-scriptural revelations could continue throughout the history of the church.18 When the gift has been suppressed or viewed with suspicion, it has probably occurred less frequently, since the Holy Spirit will not often work in a way that overrides our expectations. And when this gift has occurred, many times it has not been called "prophecy" or equated with the gift in 1 Corinthians 12-14, probably because of an incorrect assumption that prophecy would only be of the kind found in the canonical Old Testament prophets.

Then at other times, the gift was thought to be prophecy but abuse came in through an incorrect assumption that it was the very words of God and had to be obeyed. Then false teaching followed, erroneous sects arose, and the good gift of God was rejected due to the mistakes and abuses of the sects who claimed "prophecies" for their wrong teachings or practices.

Yet at times (as in Richard Baxter's writings) quite a mature understanding is found, even though it is still with a very low expectation that God would actually use this gift today.

It is my hope that the church may yet come to a balanced understanding of this gift as something valuable yet never equal to Scripture in authority, and always to be tested. Then the church may yet enter into a period where this gift is neither rejected, nor disdained, nor trusted as infallible, nor blindly followed, but earnestly desired and expected according to 1 Corinthians 14:1, 39, and regularly tested according to 1 Corinthians 14:29 and 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21; and where it may then function as God intended, for people's "upbuilding, and encouragement, and consolation" (1 Cor. 14:3).

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Endnotes

1. Jasper Ridley, John Knox (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 43.

2. Ridley, John Knox, 517. I am grateful to Ron Lutgens, a former student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, for sending me his paper, "the Reformed Fathers and the Gift of Prophecy," in which he called my attention to this material on John Knox and other Reformed writers.

3. Ibid., 519.

4. Byron Curtis, "'Private Spirits' in The Westminster Confession of Faith 1.10 and in Catholic-Protestant Debate (1588-1652)," WTJ 58 (1996): 257-266.

5. Curtis, "Private Spirits," 264. A response to Curtis was subsequently published by Garnet H. Milne, "'Private Spirits' in the Westminster Confession of Faith and in Protestant-Catholic Debates: A Response to Byron Curtis," in WTJ 61 (1999): 101-110. Milne at least shows that the expression "private spirits" was was sometimes used to refer to people who falsely claimed to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit, but that is something that Curtis would not deny.

6. Adam Loughridge, "Samuel Rutherford," in New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan; and Exeter, England: Paternoster, 1974), 867.

7. Ibid.

8. This long citation from Rutherford is copied from the transcript of the world that was sent to me by Professor David Jones of Covenant Seminary, St. Louis. I am grateful to him for calling my attention to this material and for providing me with his transcript of it.

9. Curtis "Private Spirits," 266, quoting from Gillespie's Treatise of Miscellany Questions (Edinburgh: 1844), 30.

10. John Howie, Scots Worthies, 2d edn, ed. Andrew A Bonar (Glasgow: John M'Gready, n. d.). The work was first published in 1775. Commenting on this work, Jack Deere notes that earlier editions of Scots Worthies spoke of the gift of "prophecy" in some of the Scottish Reformers, but in 1845 an editor named William McGavin changed the wording to "sagacious foresight" (Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996], 79.).

I am grateful to professor Dean Smith of Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pa., for first calling my attention to the material in Scots Worthies.

11. Curtis, "Private Spirits," 265-266, quoting from William Bridge, "Scripture Light the Most Sure Light," The Works of William Bridge, 5 vols. (1845; repr., Beaver Falls, Pa.: Soli Deo gloria, 1989), 1:417-418.

12. Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory (1673; repr., Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria, 1996).

13. Baxter does not interact with, and perhaps does not consider at this point, Paul's encouragement in 1 Corinthians 14:1, "earnestly desire the spiritual gift, especially that you may prophesy," and 1 Corinthians 14:39, "earnestly desire to prophesy."

14. Baxter, Christian Directory, 722-723.

15. Personal fax from J. I. packer to Wayne Grudem, Sept. 9, 1997 (quoted by permission).

16. Charles Spurgeon, The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon: compiled from his Diary, Letters and Records by his wife and his private secretary (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1898), 2:226-227. I am grateful to the late Dr. Louis Drummond, former president of Souteastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, for calling this and the following Spurgeon citation to my attention.

17. C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, vol. 2: The Full Harvest: 1860-1892 (repr., Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1973), 60.

18. The paper by Ron Lutgens cited at the beginning of this appendex also quotes Martin Luther (1483-1546) as opposing current fanatics who claimed to be prophets, but still allowing that God could give this gift today (Luther's Works: Sermons [Lenker edition], 12:190, 207), and quotes John Calvin (1509-1564) as saying that God now and again revives some spiritual gifts as the need of the time demands, and that prophecy as "particular revelation" is a class of prophecy that "either does not exist today or is less commonly seen" (quoting Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.3.4).

[Freak]

Great read Gavin.