1 Cor.14. 39.

derate Speaking that the Apostle defign'd to prohibit, for fays he, if they will learn any Thing let them afk their Husbands at Home. It is evident by this, that it was not Preaching or Prophefying in the Church which the Apostle faid was a Shame to Women, but an inquifitive and troublesome Speaking in Time of Worship. We therefore are of Opinion, that the Apoftle's reprehending and enjoining fuch Womento keep filence in theChurches, is no more a forbidding WOMEN indu'd with the Gift of Prophefy, to exercife that Gift in the Church, than his reprehending the Men for an unneceffary and indifcreet Ufe of the Gift of Tongues, is a forbidding them to exercise that Gift: For 'tis plain the Aim of the Apostle was, that all Things might be done orderly and without Confufion in the Church, and with fuch Counfel and Advice he clofes that Part of his Epiftle, wherein he fets forth the Design and Use of spiritual Gifts, faying, Wherefore, Brethren, covet to Prophefy, and forbid not to speak with Tongues. Let all Things be done decently and in Order.

In this Senfe Theophilact a Bishop of the Greek Church, took thefe Words of the Apostle. v. 34• Let your Women keep Silence in the Church, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but to be under Obedience, as also faith the Law • The Apostle,

ડે

*

6

fays

* Επειδή πάντα καλῶς διετάξατο, κὶ τὰ περὶ τῶν γλωσ σῶν καὶ ταὶ περὶ τῶν προφητῶν, ἵνα μὴ πολλοι προφητεύωσι, και σύγχυσις καὶ ἀκαταςασία ἐκ τῖτε εη. νῦν κὶ ἢ ἀπὸ τῶν γυα ναικῶν θόρυβον κατασέλλει, καὶ φησιν ὅτι σιγάτωσαν. &c. Ἐπειδὴ ἐκεινῶι ἴσως ἐνεκαλλωπίζοντο ταῖς δῆθεν πνευματι καὶς ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ ὁμιλιάις, αυτὸς τουναντίον φησὶν, ὅτι ἀδοξία 'esiv auTaïs nai arguin T8To. Theoph. Comment.

~

Thefe Words of Theophilact plainly show that he took the Apoftle's Injunction to Silence, to belong to Women that made a

Tumult

fays he, having order'd that all Things fhould ⚫ be done decently, as well about the Speaking with Tongues as Prophefying, that many fhould not prophefie together and thereby beget Confufion and Disorder, he then appeafes the Tumult of the Women, saying, Let • the Women keep Silence in the Church, and if they • will learn any Thing, let them afk their Husbands • at Home: For 'tis a Shame for Women to speak in the Church. For tho' fome of them might • think it a becoming Thing in them to hold fpiritual Difcourfes together in the Church, yet this he fays was unbecoming and a Shame to them. In this Senfe alfo the judicious Author before cited has taken the Apoftle's Words, Why, I apply, fays Locke, this Prohibition of Speaking only to Reafoning and purely voluntary Dif courfe, but fuppofe a Liberty left Women to speak, where they had an immediate Impulse and • Revelation from the Spirit of God, vid. ch. xi. 3. In the Synagogue it was ufual for any Man, that had a Mind, to demand of the Teacher a farther Explication of what he said: But this ⚫ was not permitted to the Women.

6

ap

Now, as we take both Theophila and John. Locke, to have given the right and true Sense and Meaning of the Apoftle's Words, whereby it pears, it was only voluntary Difcourfe and afking Questions in the Church, which the Apostle forbid the Women, fo is it alfo agreeable with the Order and Practice of the People call'd Quakers, who allow not their Women to hold Difcourfe and afk Questions in their Meetings for Worship, but

require

Tumult (Jópußov) in the Church; aud that the Word λaxes ought to be taken in this Place for unnecessary ant inconfiderate Speaking, which is very apt to beget a Tumult and Disturbance in a Publick Affembly.

require that all be filent and not speak in the Affembly, till God is pleas'd by his Spirit to influence and move upon the Heart of any one to Pray or Preach in the Congregation.

We think therefore, that for any to affert that the Apostle Paul has forbid Women to Pray or Preach in the Congregation or Church, or to declare what is immediately reveal'd to them by the Spirit of God, is to make him not only contradict himself in one and the fame Epistle, but also to oppofe and fruftrate the very End and Defign of God's pouring out of his Spirit upon Daughters and Handmaidens, as it was prophefied he should in the Latter Days. For to what Purpose should Women have the Gift of Prophesy, if they were always to keep Silence in the Churches, and never to exercise their Gift? And, as J. Locke has well obferv'd, where could be a fitter Place for them to utter their Prophefies in than the Affemblies?

CAN it be reafonably thought, that the Apostle would himself have forbidden the four Daughters of Philip to have utter'd their Prophefies in the

*

Church?

* Pool in his Annotations on thefe Words, Let your Wo men keep Silence in the Churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, &c. fays, This Rule muft be restrained to ordinary Prophesyings: For certainly, if the Spirit of Prophecy came upon a Woman in the Church; fhe might speak. Anna, who was a Prophetess in the Temple, gave Thanks to the Lord, and fpake of him to all them that looked for Redemp tion in Ifrael: And I cannot tell how Philip's Daughters prophefied, if they did not peak in the Presence of Many. Acts xxi. 9.

• Grotius (on 1 Cor. xi. 5.) fays, In the Old Teftament were • Women who were Propheteffes, as Miriam the Sifter of Mofes, Exod. xv. 20. Deborah, Judg. iv. 4. The Wife of Ifaiab, Chap, viii. 3. Huldab, 2 Kings xxii. 14. So alfo in the New Teftament, as the Daughters of Philip, Acts xxi. 19.

And

Church? Or that by the Words above objected, he intended to enjoin fuch Women to keep Silence

in

And others afterward. Thefs us'd to utter holy Prophecies even publickly (etiam publicè Prophetias facras exponere) C as appears from the forecited Places of the Old Teftament. • Wherefore Paul's forbidding Women to exercise the Gift of Teaching in Ch. xiv. 34. is to be understood with an Ex'ception, unless they have a fpecial Command of God.

Eftius, a Papift, alfo acknowledges in hisCommentaries on I Cor. xi. 5. that Women did fometimes Prophefie in the Pub Lick Affembly, (oftendit hic locus Mulieres prophet alle in Conventu publico) but he is lamentably puzzl'd to reconcile this Place with Ch. xiv. 34. and has several weak and groundlefs Conjectures about it. And,

One filetanus of the fame Communion, who writ himself Decanus Bruxellenfis, Dean of Bruffels, publifhed at Antwer in the Year 1608. a Book intitl'd, Bafilii Seleuticiae in fauri Epifcopi de vitâ ac Miraculis D. THECLAE Virginis Martyris Iconienfis Libri duo, and finding a Paffage in this Book where it is faid, that Thecla converted Tryphena (a Lady of High Rank) and her Family to Chrift, by a Sermon which The preached on Faith, he trys hard to reconcile her Teaching with the Apoftle's Injunctions 1 Cor. xiv. 34. and 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12. For when he had cited the Words of the Apoftle, and also these Words of the 4th Counsel of Carthage, Mulier quamvis dota & fan&ta viros in Conventu docere non praeJumat, that is, Let not a Woman tho' fhe be Learned and Holy, prefume to teach Men in an Affembly, he then endeavour'd to reconcile Thecla's Teaching to those Prohibitions in this Manner. There was, fays he, fo great a Harvest at that Time, especially amongst the Gentiles, and the Labour⚫ers being but few, or fcarcely any, fhe ftudied with all her Might to bring thofe, who by Reafon of the Ignorance ⚫ of former Times had lain in great Darkness, to the Light ⚫ of the Gospel then juft beginning to dawn a little; fo that this Fact of Thecla's does not oppofe the above cited Injunctions of the Apoftle; For the Mind of Paul is not fo to be taken, as if he had forbid all Divine Difcourfe, and all • Manner of Teaching by a Woman, but only that which was in the Church when Men were prefent, who may and ought to fubject the Woman, and fo thefeWords fufficiently declare, Let them be in Subjection, but to whom should

they

in the Churches, of whom he writ in these Terms, Phil. 4.3. I intreat thee, true Yoke-fellow, help thofe Women which

1 Tim. ii. il, 12.

• Man.

they be subject if there were no Men? Likewise these Words of the Apoftle, If they will learn any Thing, let them Cor.14.34. ask of their Husbands at Home; and alfo thefe, Let the Womin learn in Silence with all Subjection; and laftly these, But 1 fuffer not a Woman to teach, nor to ufurp Authority over the From all these Paffages we may gather, that Women are not to exercise the Gift of Teaching where Men are prefent, and can fupply their Places: Therefore The cla taught, but it was where Men were abfent, (Docuit ergo Thecla; fed ubi viri deeffent; docuit non ex Autoritate; fed ex Charitate; ad haec docuit, non fuopte impulsu, sed Pauli Inftigatione juffu: docuit denique eo Succeffu, quem multiplici Infidelium ad Fidem Converfione Deus gratum fibi effe manifeftè oftendit) She taught not by Authority, but out of Charity: She taught not of her own Motion, but by the Inftigation and Command of Paul, and he taught with fuch Succefs, that fhe manifeftly fhow'd herself to be acceptable to God, by the great Number of Infidels which were converted by her Teaching. Thus we eafily reconcile what has been faid by Tertullian and Epiphanius, and the 4th Connfel of Carthage, which feem'd otherwise to be ftrong against a Woman's Teaching. Nor has Thecla only enter'd the Field of Teaching, for Martha the Teacher of the People of Marseilles did the fame; and fo did that Catharine who converted fifty Philofophers to the Truth of the Gospel by her Teaching and Difputing.

We fee by this, when God has made ufe of Women for the Converfion of a People to the Light of the Gospel, as he has fometimes done, what Conjectures and Shifts learned Men are fain to make, to reconcile their Teaching to the Words of the Apoftle Paul, which rightly taken, are no Manner of Prohibition to Women's exercifing their Gift of Teaching or Preaching, not only in an Affembly where the Men are abfent, as this Author allows, but alfo in Affemblics where Men are prefent, whenever it shall please God to influence

* Atque hoc pacto facilè etiam conciliamus Tertulliani, Epiphanii, & Concilii Carthaginentis quarti, vim, alioqui ut videbatur, huic rei facien tes Sententias. Neque verò fola Thecla hunc docendi Campum ingressa eft : fecit & Martha Maffilienfium Magiftra: fecit Catherina, quinquaginta Philofophis docendo difputandoque ad Evangelicam Veritatem adductis,