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were the Levites; and there were no female teachers among them. In the apostolic age also, there were prophetesses. But these females were invested with extraordinary offices. They were not merely teachers; they predicted future events: and this high authority and commission with which they were clothed, commanded an affectionate and respectful attention from the church.

If any enter claims to the succession of such high offices, let us see also the succession of their gifts. Do any demand our faith and obedience as prophetesses now? Let us see the commanding proofs of their miraculous or prophetical powers? This is what the church demanded in every age; and this was unhesitatingly complied with by every true prophet. It is as reasonable now as in ancient times. Extraordinary claims can rest only on extraordinary proofs. Ordinary claims are supported by common proofs. The Friends have none of the apostolic powers to display. Their female prophets can not work miracles, no, nor predict. There is one species of proof within their reach, and we do rigidly demand that. The apostle Paul suggests it in the close of his famous discourse against female preachers. Having solemnly charged the females, in the name of his Lord, not to teach nor speak in the church, he adds these most memorable words: "If any man think himself a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write are the commandments of the Lord." Now then, if these female preachers are inspired by that Spirit, who spoke by Paul, I call on them to say that these are the commandments of the Lord which he uttered. Those females who are inspired by the Spirit of God, will devoutly obey the precept; and shaking off all the prejudices of the sect, and of their early education, they "will learn in all silence and submission." But those females who "will speak and teach in the church," have not only no evidence to approve themselves to the consciences of men, but they positively refuse to obey the Holy Ghost speaking by Paul. And hence there can be no difficulty in deciding what spirit has stirred up these female Korahs to this outrageous rebellion against the divine order of the house of God!

5. There existed in the church in primitive times the offices

of deaconesses, and female presbyters.* The necessity of these offices grew out of the peculiar manners of some eastern nations. In Judea the females were not strictly secluded from society: they were admitted to social intercourse in the presence of their parents and husbands; and hence they had access to the preaching of the gospel by the stated ministry. The case was very different with the females of the surrounding nations; these were strictly secluded; the ministers of the gospel had no access to them. Accordingly, recourse was had to the services of christian females of distinguished piety and rank in life. These taught the secluded females, and formed their morals.

St. Paul makes frequent allusions to this female office. In the following ages this office arose to such a rank of importance that females were set apart to it publicly by the usual solemn form of ordination, and the “laying on of the hands of the Presbytery.‡

But these females did not officiate in public; they did not teach men. They exercised their function in the retirements of the harem, and among females. And the office ceased with the custom and usage which created it. It never existed, by apostolical authority, in any country where females were not confined to the harem. Hence this office cannot be adduced as a precedent to establish a public female ministry in any country. It cannot be adduced as a precedent in any western nation, in our times.

If the eastern manners were, by some miraculous revolution of morals and customs, to prevail amongst us, and deprive us of the sweetest charms of society, the presence of the fair sex, by driving them into the harem, the church would then most certainly institute a female ministry for their salvation. But, even this would be yielded on this essential condition. The female ministry must discharge its offices in the harem-and in the harem only-where no man-not even a saint, durst enter, or look, were it even to save a woman's soul!

* Πρεσβυτίδες, &c.

In his epistle to the Philippians he names too distinguished females who "laboured with him in the Lord." Ch. iv. 3.

This is evident from the second canon of the council of Laodicea, quoted by Grotius in Pol. Synop. in Rom. xvi. 1.

6. It is also admitted that in certain circumstances females must become preachers. They may be thrown on a heathen shore; they may be carried captives among a savage people. It is unquestionably their duty in such cases, to preach the gospel of Christ to their fellow men. Such a thing has been done, and it has been stamped with the approbation of Heaven. The conversion of the Iberians was begun by a captive lady. By her pious instructions the Queen of the country was converted to the christian faith: their united labours brought the king over; and in process of time the leading men and the body of the people embraced christianity.* It is in such circumstances as these only, that the early doctors of the Reformed churches have admitted a female ministry to be possible, and even needful.†

These preliminary observations being made, we are now enabled to separate from the question all irrevalent matter. The question is this. Ought females, in the existing circumstances of the church, to be admitted into the holy ministry, or to discharge any pastoral duty?

Since the system of revelation is completed; and no alterations will ever be made in it; since, as the wiser Friends do admit, none of their prophets pretend to reveal truths unknown before; since there is now no necessity for the divine inspirations which guided the prophet of old; and since there is no evidence that revelations are vouchsafed to the Friends; we reject the proofless claims of the female preacher as arrogant and insufferable. And we hold the religious impulses by which they profess to be guided as the fraudful art of imposture; or at best, the wild reveries of fanaticism!

We cannot rank the female preacher by the side of the prophetesses who were sent by inspiration. They do not teach the same doctrine; they do not produce their testimony. We can

* Ruffin. Lib. x. cap. ii. Turret. tom. iii. p. 247.

† Luther, Calvin, Turretine, and others have distinctly admitted this. Barclay in quoting Luther as favouring their female ministry, (Apol. Prop. x. sect. 9, ad fin.) has done the Reformer a gross injury, which the society, as honest men, ought to repair. Luther alluded to particular cases, similar to what is quoted in the text. Barclay has applied to general and ordinary cases, what Luther expressed as to particular and extraordinary cases.

See Part ii. ch. 1.

not class them with the presbyters and deaconesses who taught secluded females. They come unblushingly before the public, and teach grave men! They are not content to become teachers of the heathen, when thrown on their wild shores; they thrust themselves into the crowded assemblies of our populous cities; they announce themselves to the public by a gazette, or a handbill extraordinary; and preach under the very eye of learning and piety! They refuse to confine prophecy to the singing of praise in a psalm. Their defective system has even ceased to acknowledge practically this species of prophecy.

Where then, shall we class this anomalous and singular species? They belong to nothing purely modern. They resemble those females, who, in days of yore, broke through good order, and the laws of heaven; usurped the prerogatives of men; and fired by wild fanaticism, poured forth their unmerciful rhapsodies, in measures more than human, and in cant utterly inimitable! Women that set law and discipline, and offices ecclesiastical, at defiance. Women, whom not even St. Paul-no, nor even the whole college of the apostles, could reduce to silence! Alas! then, for us! what can we do against the thunder-storm?

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The precept which prohibits the female from speaking and teaching in the church is a divine precept. And what claims our attention, none of the reasons brought to enforce it are taken from the condition of individuals, or of nations which might change. They are all taken from the moral fitness of things. First: "It is a shame for women to speak in the church." It is inconsistent with modesty-that amiable virtue, and loveliest ornament in the female character. Second: It is the special law of God recorded in the sacred volume, and engraven on every virtuous female's heart, that woman should be in subjection to man, as her superior, And, as teaching in public is an act of authority over them who are taught, female preaching is prohibited on the ground that " to teach in the church," is "to usurp authority over the man."*

These divine precepts are so pointed against this innovation, that they have galled the society to a degree which they are not willing to admit. And every writer has tried his ingenuity in

* 1 Tim. ii. 12.

turning aside the galling weapon. Some of the early, and indeed the best writers of the sect, have resorted to a singular exposition of the precepts which prohibit female preaching. Fox, Farnsworth-and after them Penn himself, insisted that the "woman" forbidden to teach, is not actually a woman—it is not the sex-it cannot be; it is the wisdom of the flesh, or man speaking in his fleshly spirit. And by the term "man" in the discourse of the apostle, is meant "Christ," the husband of his people. Hence carnal wisdom, or man speaking in his own spirit, is the woman that is forbidden to speak in the church.*

If this novel exposition be correct, the context must bear them out. Let us try the force of Penn's exposition thus.t "Every man," that is, Christ, "praying or prophesying having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman, "that is, carnal wisdom," who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head; for that is all one as if she, that is, carnal wisdom, were shaven." Verse 9. "The man," that means Christ," was not created for the woman," that is, for carnal wisdom; "but woman,” that is, carnal wisdom," was made for the man," that is, for Christ!!

The following quotation from the apostolic Constitutions, exhibits the sentiments of the primitive christians on this subject, and is at one with the spirit of the precepts above recited. "And let the women sit apart, observing silence. We do not permit women to teach in the church, but only to join in prayer and listen to the preacher. For our Lord and master Jesus Christ sent us twelve to teach the people and the nations. He sent no females to preach the gospel. This was not without design. For there were with us the mother of Jesus and her sisters. If it had been necessary that females should preach, he himself first would have enjoined them, as well as ourselves, to teach the people by preaching. But if man be the head of the woman, it is not just that the body should bear rule over the head."§

* Penn vol. ii. p. 134, &c.

† 1 Cor. xi. 4, 5.

This extravagance of Penn out-Origens Origen himself; and has absolutely no parallel, saving it be the unique exposition of Isai. viii. 1. By Gregory Nyss. Oper. Tom. ii. p. 135; and by Huet. Demonst. Evang. Prop. vii. sect. 15. "Ut uxor dicatur grandis liber, et stylus hominis eam partem notat, &c." See Ber. De Moore vol. i. p. 124. The learned know the rest.

§ 6 και οι γυναικες,” 66 2. T. λ. Apost. Const. Lib. ii. c. 57. Lib.iii. cap. 6. and Bern. De Moor Perp. com. in Markii Comp. vol. v. p. 437.

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