B. B. Warfield critiques claims of miraculous divine healing and other supernatural gifts in the post-apostolic church. He argues that true miracles ceased with the close of the apostolic age, and he debunks purported signs and wonders from the patristic era through his own time. Warfield maintains that while God still is at work in the world, He now acts through providential means rather than through immediate, miraculous intervention.

Born in 1851, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield held the Charles Hodge Chair at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1887 until his death in 1921. After his funeral, friend and colleague J. Gresham Machen wrote, "It seemed to me that the old Princeton — a great institution it was — died when Dr. Warfield was carried out."