Reformation
Presbyterian
Reformed doctrine with a government of its own, and the body whose confession states the cessationist position this corpus has been asserting for years without citing.
In its own terms
What this body is doing
Carried here for two reasons the rest of the chart needs. It is the clearest case of a body defined by polity rather than by doctrine — its confession is the one Westminster later wrote for England, and what distinguishes it is a graded system of courts in which no office is superior to the presbytery. And it is where the cessationist position is on the record.
Westminster's first chapter says that those former ways in which God revealed his will are now ceased, in the course of arguing that scripture is therefore sufficient. That sentence is doing work all over this section: it is the answer to the charismata question from which the whole left-hand side of the chart follows, and until now the corpus described the position without pointing at a text that states it.
Where it stands in the tree
Descent
Separated from
Reformed · 1560Not a separation from Geneva but a settlement of it: the Scots parliament adopting a Reformed confession and a government by elders in graded courts rather than by bishops.
The same questions asked of every body
What it holds
Are the gifts still given?
Described from a text the corpus holdsCeased. The former ways of revealing are over and scripture is sufficient.
Westminster I.i, arguing for the sufficiency of scripture, states that those former ways of God's revealing his will are now ceased — the clause the later cessationist argument is built on.
Who may act?
Not established here. The first thing a rite settles, usually in its opening rubric, and the sharpest divide between an office and a gift.
What counts as evidence?
Not established here. Where a tradition decides it is dealing with a spirit rather than an illness, a grief, or nothing at all.
Where is the spirit?
Not established here. All four inherit gospel scenes in which spirits are in people. What each adds beyond that is the largest difference between them.
Whom do the words address?
Not established here. A formal difference a reader can check by counting clauses rather than by weighing tone.
What restraint is written in?
Not established here. Every one of these traditions knows the practice can harm. What each does about that is what popular accounts leave out.
What closes the matter?
Not established here. Whether the encounter ends, and who declares it, separates a rite from an ongoing practice.
This page records what a body holds and where that is written down. It takes no position on whether any of it is true, and nothing here is instruction — the rites are described by what they contain, never as something to follow.