The Quakers believe that men, qualified in this manner, are really fit for the ministry, and are likely to be useful instruments in it.  For first, it becomes men to be changed themselves, before they can change others.  Those again, who have been thus changed, have the advantage of being able to state from living experience what God has done for them; [114] “what they have seen with their eyes; what they have looked upon; and what their hands have handled of the word of life.”  Men also, who, by means of God’s Holy Spirit, have escaped the pollutions of the world, are in a fit state to understand the mysteries of God, and to carry with them the seal of their own commission.  Thus men under sin can never discern spiritual things.  But “to the disciples of Christ,” and to the doers of his will, “it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Thus, when the Jews marvelled at Christ, saying [115] “How knoweth this man letters, (or the scriptures) having never learned?  Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me.  If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”  Such ministers also are considered as better qualified to reach the inward state of the people, and to “preach liberty to the captives” of sin, than those who have merely the advantage of school divinity, or of academical learning.  It is believed also of these, that they are capable of giving more solid and lasting instruction, when they deliver themselves at large:  for those, who preach rather from intellectual abilities and from the suggestions of human learning, than from the spiritual life and power which they find within themselves, may be said to forsake Christ, who is the “living fountain, and to hew out broken cisterns which hold no water,” either for themselves or for others.

[Footnote 114:  Coloss. 2. 6.]

[Footnote 115:  1 Tim. 6.20.21.]

This qualification for the ministry being allowed to be the true one, it will follow, the Quakers believe, and it was Luther’s belief also, that women may be equally qualified to become ministers of the Gospel, as the men.  For they believe that God has given his Holy Spirit, without exception, to all.  They dare not therefore limit its operations in the office of the ministry, more than in any other of the sacred offices which it may hold.  They dare not again say, that women cannot mortify the deeds of the flesh, or that they cannot be regenerated, and walk in newness of life.  If women therefore believe they have a call to the ministry, and undergo the purification necessarily connected with it, and preach in consequence, and preach effectively, they dare not, under these circumstances, refuse to accept their preaching, as the fruits of the spirit, merely because it comes through the medium of the female sex.