Against this doctrine of the Quakers, that a female ministry is allowable under the Gospel dispensation, an objection has been started from the following words of the Apostle Paul:  [116] “Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak”—­“and if they will learn any thing, let them ask their Husbands at home.” but the Quakers conceive, that this charge of the Apostle has no allusion to preaching.  In these early times, when the Gospel doctrines were new, and people were eager to understand them, some of the women, in the warmth of their feelings, interrupted the service of the church, by asking such questions as occurred to them on the subject of this new religion.  These are they whom the Apostle desires to be silent, and to reserve their questions till they should return home.  And that this was the case is evident, they conceive, from the meaning of the words, which the Apostle uses upon this occasion.  For the word in the Greek tongue, which is translated “speak,” does not mean to preach or to pray, but to speak as in common discourse.  And the words, which immediately follow this, do not relate to any evangelical instruction, which these women were desirous of communicating publicly, but which they were desirous of receiving themselves from others.

[Footnote 116:  1 Cor. 14.34.35.]

That the words quoted do not relate to praying or preaching is also equally obvious, in the opinion of the Quakers; for if they had related to these offices of the church, the word “prophesy” had been used instead of the word “speak.”  Add to which that the Apostle, in the same epistle in which the preaching of women is considered to be forbidden, gives them a rule to which he expects them to conform, when they should either prophesy or pray:  but to give women a rule to be observed during their preaching, and to forbid them to preach at the some time, is an absurdity too great to be fixed upon the most ordinary person, and much more upon an inspired Apostle.

That the objection has no foundation, the Quakers believe again, from the consideration that the ministry of women, in the days of the Apostles, is recognized in the New Testament, and is recognized also, in some instances, as an acceptable service.

Of the hundred and twenty persons who were assembled on the day of pentecost, it is said by St. Luke that [117] some were women.  That these received the Holy Spirit as well as the men, and that they received it also for the purpose of prophesying or preaching, is obvious from the same Evangelist.  For first, he says, that “all were filled with the Holy Ghost.”  And secondly, he says, that Peter stood up, and observed concerning the circumstance of inspiration having been given to the women upon this occasion, that Joel’s prophecy was then fulfilled, in which were to be found these words:  “And it shall come to pass in the hist days, that your sons and your daughters shall prophesy—­and on my servants and handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit; and they shall prophesy.”