1.03. Hear the Words of the Wise
Chapter Three:
Hear the Words of the Wise “Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise.” Proverbs 22:17 The Shakers In an effort to show that the “signs and wonders” of the charismatic movement are not new phenomena, proponents of the movement frequently attempt to link the manifestations of today with allegedly similar manifestations in history. One group with which the Third Wave claims particularly close affinity is the Shakers. This is an interesting assertion given that the Shakers were a radical fringe sect that bore little, if any, resemblance to orthodox Christianity. A small branch of radical English Quakers, the Shakers (also known as the “Shaking Quakers”) were founded in 1758 by a woman named Ann Lee. The sect was characterized by the practice of ecstatic utterances in worship; a belief in rabid millennialism, and a lifestyle of extreme piety.57 Interestingly, the Shakers felt a spiritual connection with the Montanists, considering them to have been the “forerunners of a new ‘dispensation.’“58 In their worship services, the Shakers did not engage in preaching, prayer or other regular form. Rather: every one acts for himself, and almost every one different from the other: one will stand with his arms extended, acting over odd postures, which they call signs; another will be dancing, and some times hopping on one leg about the floor; another will fall to turning round, so swift, that if it be a woman, her clothes will be so filled with the wind, as though they were kept out by a hoop; another will be prostrate on the floor. . . some groaning most dismally; some trembling extremely; others acting as though all their nerves were convulsed; others swinging their arms, with all vigor, as though they were turning a wheel, etc.59
Worship services were not only characterized by singing and dancing, shaking and shouting, however. They also contained “speaking with new tongues and prophesying, with all those various gifts of the Holy Ghost known in the primitive Church.”60 As one observer wrote: At other times some were shaking and trembling, others singing words out of the Psalms in whining, canting tomes (but not in rhyme), while others were speaking in what they called ‘the unknown tongue,’ -- to me an unintelligible jargon, mere gibberish and perfect nonsense.61
Eventually, the meetings were so intense that Lee was imprisoned for profanement of the Sabbath. While in prison, she had a series of visions in which she claimed to have conversed with Christ.62 Presumably, as a result of her “conversations” with Christ, she subsequently believed and taught that she was “the female aspect of God’s dual nature as the second incarnation of Christ.” She told her followers that “It is not I that speak, it is Christ who dwells in me.”63
Due to persecution in England, Lee and a small group of Shakers emigrated to America in 1774. They settled in isolated villages “away from the evils of the world,” and established “Millennial Laws,” which mandated an extreme separation of the sexes, even to the extent of dividing men, women and children into their own “families” and making men and women “leave through separate doors.” Property was owned communally. The distinctive craftsmanship of “Shaker furniture” is a result of the sect’s commitment to “a life of perfection.” A “revival” in the 1780’s brought increased numbers into the Shaker community. Yet the sect reached its height of popularity during the Second Great Awakening, when there were between 18-21 Shaker villages and between 4,000 and 6,000 members. The sect eventually dwindled as a result of its celebacy beliefs; currently, only nine Shakers remain in two small towns in New England.64 The Disappearance of Spiritual Ecstasy From Orthodoxy In Charismatic Chaos, John MacArthur observed:
[S]ince the canon of Scripture was completed, no genuine revival or orthodox movement has ever been led by people whose authority is based in any way on private revelations from God. Many groups have claimed to receive new revelation, but all of them have been fanatical, heretical, cultic, or fraudulent.65
MacArthur makes an important point. Between the demise of the Montanists in the fourth century and the American Great Awakenings in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, only a few instances of ecstatic utterances are recorded, and these were either by isolated individuals such as Quaker George Fox or among heretical sects such as the Shakers or the French Prophets.66 Andrews, who chronicled the Shakers, has noted the “little essential difference” among that group, Mormon Joseph Smith, and other sects who manifested “mystical experiences” and “physical phenomena of worship.”67 For the person who values history, this is most significant. For if the charismatic claim that its manifestations of spiritual ecstasy are from God is true, one wonders why those manifestations were limited to fringe groups and heretical sects from the close of the canon to the First Great Awakening. The usual charismatic explanation is that “[t]he Holy Spirit continued in control until the close of the first century, when He was largely rejected and His position as leader usurped by man” so that “[t]he missionary movement halted” and “[t]he dark ages ensued.”68 Indeed, one Pentecostal leader maintained that the signs and wonders of the New Testament era ceased because “the Church did not maintain its purity.”69 This is a serious charge. Unfortunately, it also is an irresponsible one. Over 60 years ago, Colgate University educator George Cutten undertook an extensive survey of whether tongues were present in the sub-apostolic age, and he concluded that “in the ancient church at least, the church of the fathers, there was not one well-attested instance of any person who exercised speaking in tongues or even pretended to exercise it.”70 In the fourth century, Chrysostom observed that tongue speaking had even ceased among fringe sects (presumably Montanists).71 Moreover, the two greatest Christian thinkers of all time (after the apostle Paul), Augustine and Martin Luther, never spoke in tongues or engaged in prophetic utterances. Nor did lesser lights such as Athanasus, Anselm, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Calvin, Beza, or Zwingli.
Even if we limit the discussion to Baptists, our own tradition is replete with godly men who rejected the notion that God’s special revelation continues apart from Scripture. Indeed, Baptists have been in the forefront of defending, not only the authority of the Bible, but also its sufficiency. This was the view of the Anabaptists, from which, to some degree, Baptists trace their roots. For example, in 1524, Balthasar Hubmaier, an early Anabaptist leader, wrote Eighteen Dissertations Concerning the Entire Christian Life and of What It Consists, in which he declared that “All teachings that are not of God are in vain and shall be rooted up. Here perish the disciples of Aristotle, as well as the Thomists, the Scotists, Bonaventure, and Occam, and all teaching that does not proceed from God’s Word.”72 This was certainly the view of the Particular Baptists (who were Calvinistic in theology). Articles seven and eight of the Baptist Confession of 1644 state: The Rule of this Knowledge, Faith and Obedience, concerning the worship and service of God, and all other Christian duties, is not man’s inventions, opinions, devices, lawes, constitutions, or traditions unwritten whatsoever, but only the word of God contained in the Canonical Scriptures. In this written Word God hath plainly revealed whatsoever he hath thought needful for us to know, believe, and acknowledge, touching the Nature and Office of Christ, in whom all the promises are Yea and Amen to the praise of God.73 The Second London Confession of 1689 states that “the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient . . . rule of all saving Knowledge, Faith and Obedience” and “those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people [dreams, visions, etc.] being now ceased.”74 It emphatically declares that the “whole Counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own Glory, Man’s Salvation, Faith and Life is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture; unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new Revelation of the Spirit, or traditions of men.”75 John Gill repeated this precept in his confession which states that Scripture is “the only rule of faith and practice.”76 Scripture contains “the whole of God’s will and pleasure toward us.”77 The cessation of special revelation was even the view of the General Baptists (who were Arminian in theology). Thomas Helwys stated in Article 23 of his confession that Scripture serves “onelie” as “our direction in al [sp] things whatsoever.”78 Helwys’ successor, John Murton, similarly was of the view that Scripture is our sole authority in all matters of faith, conduct, worship, and doctrine.79
American Baptists also vigorously upheld the notion of the sufficiency of Scripture. Roger Williams said that the Bible is the “square rule” that determines “all knowledge of God and of ourselves.”80 John Broadus, a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor, wrote:
14. What authority has the Bible for us? The Bible is our only and all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. . . 81
Finally, an introductory statement to the 1925 Southern Baptist Faith and Message declared: “That the sole authority for faith and practice among Baptists is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”82 Are we to conclude that these great men of God “did not maintain [their] purity?” That they “rejected” the Holy Spirit and His position as “leader”? My answer is a resounding “no.” It seems to me that Rene Pache got it right when he said:
If ‘miraculous’ gifts (healing, miracles, prophecy, tongues) have been absent at certain times, the probable cause has lain not always in man’s unbelief, but in the will of God. If it were otherwise, why should the Spirit unceasingly give certain gifts. . . while failing to bestow others?83 In order to walk with the wise and learn from the past, the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture must be reaffirmed.