[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.
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.
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