A Brief History of Cessationism

No issue has been more controversial among Protestants in the past 40 years than the charismatic gifts and the role of miracles in the post-apostolic age. The issue was controversial in previous eras of Protestant history, too, although theological lines were not usually drawn as hard and fast as they are between “cessationists” and “continuationists” today.

In the 1700s and 1800s, suspicion of claimed miracles was connected to anti-Catholicism. Protestant critics saw the Catholic tradition as riddled with fake claims of miracles. Ridiculing the fake miracle claims of Catholics (such as icons bleeding a liquid that turned out to be cherry juice) became a staple of Reformed polemics against the Catholic Church. So when seemingly miraculous events happened in Protestant churches, even sympathetic observers warned against the threat of bogus miracles. Read More

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Systematic Theology - Volume III, Volume 1
Confessions of a Functional Cessationist

The historic Anglican position is articulated in A Homily Concerning the Coming Down of the Holy Ghost and the Manifold Gifts of the Same, which is attributed to Bishop John Jewel and appears in the second Book of Homilies. It is summed up in these words, "Hereby then it is evident and plain to all men, that the Holy Ghost was given, not only to the Apostles, but also to the whole body of Christ’s congregation, although not in like form and majesty as he came down at the feast of Pentecost." This position does not exclude the manifestation of the charismatic gifts and the occurrence of miraculous events in post-apostolic times. The two Books of Homilies expand upon the doctrine articulated in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.

Historic Anglicanism, however, rejects the notion that the Holy Spirit gives special revelations to certain individuals, which supersede the teaching of the Bible, a view that the sixteenth century Anabaptists took, which the Roman Catholic Church would adopt with its doctrines of sacred tradition and papal infallibility, and which is a central tenet of contemporary Episcopalianism as well as a view that a number of controversial charistmatic and Pentecostal figures have embraced in this and the last century. The historic Anglican position is summed up in these words, which come from the same homily. "... the proper office of the Holy Ghost is, not to institute and bring in new ordinances, contrary to his doctrine before taught, but to expound and declare those things which he had before taught, so that they might be well and truly understood."