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Subsection
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Order of Contents
Miracles
Cessation of Gift of Miracles
. Articles
. Books
. Quotes
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On Miracles
Articles
1500’s
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – The Common Places… (London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 1
ch. 9. ‘Of Miracles, & the Definition & Difference of Them’, pp. 62-72
‘Whether it be lawful for the godly to desire miracles, and why there be none in this our age’ 69
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1600’s
Perkins, William – ‘Satan is Incapable of True Miracles’ in The Damned Art of Witchcraft in Works (RHB), vol. 9, pp. 312-16
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On the Cessation of Gift of Miracles
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Articles
1500’s
Luther, Martin – pp. 206-8 on Mk. 16:16-17 in ‘Day of Christ’s Ascension into Heaven’, 2nd Sermon, on Mk. 16:14-20 in The Precious & Sacred Writings of Martin Luther… ed. John N. Lenker (Minneapolis, MN: Lutherans in All Lands Co., 1907), vol. 12, Church Postil, Gospels: Pentecost or Missionary Sermons, vol. 3
“The apostles did not always exercise it, but only made use of it [the power of miracles] to prove the Word of God, to confirm it by the miracles; as it is written here in the text: ‘And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word by the signs that followed. [Mk. 16:20]’
But since the Gospel has now been spread abroad, and made known to all the world, there is no need of working miracles as in the apostles’ times.” – p. 207
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – ‘Whether it be lawful for the godly to desire miracles, and why there be none in this our age’ in ch. 9. ‘Of Miracles, & the Definition & Difference of Them’ in The Common Places… (London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 1, pp. 69-72
“For these things [Mk. 16:17-20] are not absolutely and without exception, but in some respect the tokens of faith belonging to that primitive Church until the gospel were made more manifest. For miracles were as trumpets and open criers whereby the gospel was commended.
For even as the law of Moses procured to itself credit, through the manifold miracles showed upon mount Sinai and in the wilderness, which afterward ceased when they were come to the land of promise: so in like manner miracles are now also taken away, seeing the gospel is spread throughout the world.
And therefore the promise which Christ would have to be written in the gospel of Mark belonged not to all times; whereof it is not our part either to complain or find any fault, because that we hear that the Holy Ghost distributes to everyone as He will, who nevertheless, for great considerations Him moving, does not impart to all men gifts and graces alike.
For if they should happen to all alike, they would soon grow out of estimation, whereas God has determined to make store of them. Moreover, He would that charity should grow and increase, which is then exercised when one man does help another, which thing would not have taken place if all men had been endued with like gifts.” – pp. 71-72
Calvin, John – ‘Commentary on Mk. 16:17-18: Cessation of the Miraculous Gifts’ (d. 1564) 6 paragraphs at Purely Presbyterian Appended are Calvin quotes from his commentaries on Acts 2:38 and James 5:14.
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1600’s
Perkins, William – pp. 232-39 of ch. 7, section 3 of A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft... (Cambridge: Legge, 1610)
“…the ordinary power of working them is ceased: for it was only given to the apostles in the primitive Church, as a means to confirm the doctrine of the Gospel to unbelievers, that never heard of Christ before. So Paul says, ‘Strange tongues’ (that is, the gift of speaking strange languages, without ordinary teaching) ‘are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not,’ 1 Cor. 14:22. And for the same end were all
extraordinary gifts then given.
Howbeit the Papists stand stiffly in defending the continuance of these gifts.” – pp. 232-34
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Baxter, Richard
Question 162, ‘May we not look for miracles hereafter?’ in A Christian Directory: a Sum of Practical Theology and Cases of Conscience (1673), pt. 3, Christian Ecclesiastics
pp. 11-45 of The Unreasonableness of Infidelity, Manifested in Four Discourses (London, 1655)
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1800’s
Newman, John Henry – Essay 1, ‘The Miracles of Scripture’ (1824) 93 pp.
This was when Newman was a protestant. On this work, see Warfield, pp. 54-55
Atwater, Lyman – ‘Miracles & their Counterfeits’ in The Biblical Repertory & Princeton Review (1856), p. 255 ff.
Atwater was an old-school presbyterian.
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1900’s
Stewart, Angus – ‘Eight Facts Regarding Biblical Healings’
Excellent.
Pine, Leonard – ‘The Gift of Healing in the Scriptural Record’ (2007) 7 pp. in the Western Reformed Seminary Journal
Schwertley, Brian – ‘Miracles-Healings’
Zaspel, Fred – ‘The Gifts of Miracles & Healings Today?’
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Books
1800’s
Abbott, Edwin – Philomythus: an Antidote Against Credulity; a Discussion of Cardinal Newman’s Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles (1891) 360 pp. ToC
See Warfield, pp. 60-61.
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1900’s
Warfield, B.B. – Counterfeit Miracles (1918) 320 pp. The most important section of the book is ch. 1.
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Order of Quotes
Early & Medieval Church
Lactantius
Chrysostom
Augustine
Theodoret
Gregory the Great
After the Reformation
Calvin
Owen
Edwards
Whitefield
Hodge
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Quotes
Early Church
Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325)
The Divine Institutes, bk. 4, ch. 21 in ANF 7:123
“But the disciples, being dispersed through the provinces, everywhere laid the foundations of the Church, themselves also in the name of their divine Master doing many and almost incredible miracles; for at His departure He had endowed them with power and strength, by which the system of their new announcement might be founded and confirmed.”
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Chrysostom (c. 347 – 407)
On 1st Corinthians, Homily 29, on 12:1-2 in NPNF1 12:168
“This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity has produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more?
…Well, what did happen then? Whoever was baptized he straightway spake with tongues and not with tongues only, but many also prophesied, and some also performed many other wonderful works.”
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Augustine
Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Homily 6, on 1 Jn. 3:19-4:3, section 10 in NPNF1 7:497-98
“In the earliest times, “the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed: and they spake with tongues,” which they had not learned, “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” These were signs adapted to the time. For there behooved to be that betokening of the Holy Spirit in all tongues, to show that the Gospel of God was to run through all tongues over the whole earth. That thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away.
In the laying on of hands now, that persons may receive the Holy Ghost, do we look that they should speak with tongues? Or when we laid the hand on these infants, did each one of you look to see whether they would speak with tongues, and, when he saw that they did not speak with tongues, was any of you so wrong-minded as to say, These have not received the Holy Ghost; for, had they received, they would speak with tongues as was the case in those times? If then the witness of the presence of the Holy Ghost be not now given through these miracles, by what is it given, by what does one get to know that he has received the Holy Ghost? Let him question his own heart. If he love his brother, the Spirit of God dwelleth in him.”
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Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393 – c. 458/466)
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 240.43, on 1 Cor. 12:1, 7. Cited in ed. Gerald Bray, I-II Corinthians in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament VII (IVP, 2006), p. 117
“In former times those who accepted the divine preaching and who were baptized for their salvation were given visible signs of the grace of the Holy Spirit at work in them. Some spoke in tongues which they did not know and which nobody had taught them, while others performed miracles or prophesied. These Corinthians also did these things, but they did not use the gifts as they should have done. They were more interested in showing off than in using them for the edification of the church…
Even in our time grace is given to those who are deemed worthy of holy baptism, but it may not take the same form as it did in those days.”
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Gregory the Great
Homily 29 on the Gospels, on the Ascension, May 24, 591
“4. The text continues: ‘And these are the signs that will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, they will speak new tongues, they will take snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly beverage, it will not will do them any harm. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will be healed.’ [Mk. 16:17]
That, my brethren, you do not do; does that mean you do not believe? No, of course! These signs were necessary at the beginning of the Church. Faith, in order to grow, had to be nourished. We, too, when planting trees, pour water on them until we have found that they have resumed; but once their roots are fixed in the ground, we stop watering them. Hence Paul’s words: ‘Languages are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers.’ (1 Cor 14:22)”
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John Calvin
Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 21 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), vol. 2, bk. 4
ch. 3, section 8, p. 1061
“But in the letter to the Romans [12:7-8] and in the first letter to the Corinthians [12:28], he lists others [other offices besides those of the Word], as powers [miracles], the gift of healing, interpretation, government, and caring for the poor. Two of these I omit as being temporary, for it is not worthwhile to tarry over them. But two of them are permanent: government [ruling elders] and caring for the poor [deacons].”
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ch. 19, sections 18-19, p. 1467
“But that gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the new preaching of the gospel marvelous forever.
Therefore, even if we grant to the full that anointing was a sacrament of those powers which were then administered by the hands of the apostles, it now has nothing to do with us, to whom the administering of such powers has not been committed.
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Therefore, they make themselves ridiculous when they boast that they are endowed with the gift of healing. The Lord is indeed present with his people in every age; and He heals their weaknesses as often as necessary, no less than of old; still He does not put forth these manifest powers, nor dispense miracles through the apostles’ hands. For that was a temporary gift, and also quickly perished partly on account of men’s ungratefulness.”
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John Owen
The Works of John Owen ed. William H. Goold (NY: Robert Carter, 1852), 4:518
“That they [spiritual gifts] are not communicated unto any by a sudden afflatus or extraordinary infusion, as were the gifts of miracles and tongues, which were bestowed on the apostles and many of the first converts. That dispensation of the Spirit is long since ceased, and where it is now pretended unto by any, it may justly be suspected as an enthusiastic delusion; for as the end of those gifts, which in their own nature exceed the whole power of all our faculties, is ceased, so is their communication, and the manner of it also.”
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Jonathan Edwards
‘Love More Excellent than the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit’ on 1 Cor. 13:1-2
“The extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, such as the gift of tongues, of miracles, of prophecy, etc., are called extraordinary, because cause they are such as are not given in the ordinary course of God’s providence. They are not bestowed in the way of God’s ordinary providential dealing with his children, but only on extraordinary occasions, as they were bestowed on the prophets and apostles to enable them to reveal the mind and will of God before the canon of Scripture was complete, and so on the primitive Church, in order to the founding and establishing of it in the world.
But since the canon of the Scripture has been completed, and the Christian Church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased.”
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John Whitefield
Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield: the Life & Times… (Banner of Truth, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 348-49
“But, alas! what need is there of miracles, such as healing sick bodies and restoring sight to blind eyes, when we see greater miracles done every day by the power of God’s Word? Do not the spiritually blind now see?…
And if we have the thing already which such miracles were only intended to introduce, why should we tempt God in requiring further signs?”
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Charles Hodge
An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (NY: Robert Carter, 1860), on 1 Cor. 12:28, p. 263
“Secondly, every office necessarily supposes the corresponding gift. No man could be an apostle without the gift of infalibility; nor a prophet without the gift of inspiration; nor a healer of diseases without the gift of healing. Man may appoint men to offices for which they have not the necessary gifts, but God never does, any more than he ordains the foot to see or the hand to hear. If any man, therefore, claims to be an apostle, or prophet, or worker of miracles, without the corresponding gift, he is a false pretender. In the early church, as now, there were many false apostles, i.e. those who claimed the honor and authority of the office without its gifts.
Thirdly, the fact that any office existed in the apostolic church is no evidence that it was intended to be permanent. In that age there was a plenitude of spiritual manifestations and endowments demanded for the organization and propagation of the church, which is no longer required. We have no longer prophets, nor workers of miracles, nor gifts of tongues. The only evidence that an office was intended to be permanent is the continuance of the gift of which it was the organ, and the command to appoint to the office those who are found to possess the gift.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1 Abbr.
section 2, tract 5
I. Of the Nature of a Miracle, of Displaying Things & Portents
. Appendix: On Terrifying Panic
1. On the Essence & Cause of a Miracle
[2. is Skipped]
3. Of Miracles in Particular
Appendices:
On the Girl of Aurelia
On Faith & the Gift of Miracles
On Faith & the Gift of Miracles
section 2, tract 5
2. Of the Charismatic Gifts in Specific (of Miracles, Healings, Exorcism, Prophecy, Languages & Interpretation)
Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht: Waesberg, 1655), vol. 2
61. ‘Of Miracles’, 1st part, pp. 964-79
62. 2nd part, pp. 979-84
63. Appendix: ‘On the Faith of Miracles’, pp. 984-93
64. 3rd part, pp. 993-1012
65. 4th part, pp. 1012-31
66. Appendix: ‘On the Girl of Aurelia’, pp. 1031-36
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72. ‘A Narration of the Wonderful Acts of the Spirit ad Posonium Gestae‘ [an RC book from 1643, on WorldCat & GB, including accounts of the Virgin Mary appearing from Purgatory], pp. 1141-93
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Related Pages
Expositions of the Miracles of Christ
On the Nature of the Prophets in 1 Cor. 14 & Expositing the Scriptures as “Prophesying”