The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation

the long version

This book concludes that the authors of the Westminster Confession believed that God still directed people in all of life, but that immediate revelation which came from God had ceased now that the church had the completed Scriptures. Holding tenaciously to the unity of Word and Spirit, they affirmed that nothing can be added that alters the doctrines of the New Testament and no further revelation would be given to show the way of salvation other than what God intended to impart through His Son which is fully contained in Scripture, for all of life and for all history. However, they contended that another form of "mediate" revelation continues, i.e. revelation mediated by the Scriptures, not merely for a greater grammatical of contextual understanding of the Word, but as an application of the already revealed Word of God to the life of an individual, church, or nation. Thus dreams, visions, and spiritual gifts analogous to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit originally displayed by the apostles did not cease but continued as modalities as long as they did not contradict the Unity of the Word and the Spirit. Hence they distinguished between the Holy Spirit and "privates spirits' of individuals whose words do not accord with the Word of God, and whose pronouncements are not prophecy but mere opinions.