Chapter 6 Post-Reformation Sectarianism: Visionaries and “She-Preachers”

Chapter 6

Post-Reformation Sectarianism: Visionaries and “She-Preachers”

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw many significant changes in religious life. The seventeenth had clearly demonstrated that the Reformation spirit could not be easily contained, and a continuing fragmentation of Christianity continued in the decades (and centuries) following the first generation of Reformers. The decentralization of Protestantism invited the proliferation of religious groups, and as the fervency of the established churches and sectarian movements waned, the stage was set for awakenings and revivals. While the vast majority of people during this period remained in the established churches, the fluidity of religious ideas offered an outlet for those who wanted more freedom in religious belief and activity. Among those so inclined were women, and it is during this period that significant numbers of women, for the first time in history, became involved in dissenting religious movements—many of which were viewed as radical and outside the sphere of respectability. Here women were offered opportunities not available elsewhere in secular or religious life.

On the whole, however, the place of women in society and in the established churches changed little during the centuries following the Reformation. Although Elizabeth I of England had demonstrated how powerful and popular a female leader could be among her people, the attitudes toward women in general were slow to change. Elizabeth was succeeded by James I, and, according to Selma Williams, “The moment James had had the crown placed securely on his head, he gave notice that, in pointed contrast to Elizabeth, he would take every opportunity to trample women into permanent invisibility.” He instituted harsher penalties for witchcraft, making the “crime” punishable by hanging. As a result, many times more such executions occurred during the early years of his reign than in the final years of Elizabeth’s. To justify this slaughter, James reprinted Daemonologie, a tract he had written denouncing witchcraft as a pact with the Devil. He stated that witchcraft was particularly appealing to women because they were more susceptible to “the snares of the Devil as was ever well proved to be true by the Serpent’s deceiving of Eve at the beginning.” He concluded that there were twenty times as many female witches as there were male.¹

Likewise, James I opposed efforts to upgrade female education, and when he was advised to have his daughter study Latin, he refused, claiming that “to make women learned and foxes tame had the same effect: to make them more cunning.”²

This antifemale trend did not go unchallenged. When Joseph Swetnam published a tract in 1615, claiming that “women spring from the Devil” and entitled it The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women (that being the short title), it was quickly answered by an angry woman who wrote a tract entitled Esther hath hanged Haman; or, an answer to a lewd Pamphlet, entitled The Arraignment of Women. With the arraignment of lewd, idle, froward and unconstant men, and Husbands. But despite such isolated attempts by women to defend their sex, post-Elizabethan English society continued to be very confining for women.³

The Church of England

The Church of England reflected this general attitude toward women in society. Indeed, the behavior of women in every aspect of their lives was closely monitored by the church. This is illustrated by a 1620 document disclosing that

the Bishop of London called together all his clergy about this town and told them he had express commandment from the King to will them to inveigh vehemently and bitterly in their sermons against the insolency of our women and their wearing of broadbrimmed hats, pointed doublets, their hair cut short or shorn,…adding withal that if pulpit admonitions will not reform them he would proceed by another course.⁴

Admonishing women to shun any appearance of worldliness could have been justified in spiritual terms, but there were other instances when women were flagrantly disregarded by church leaders. William Laud is an example. He was installed as archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, and, according to Selma Williams, he “lost no love or sympathy for women.” He ignored the complaints of the pregnant Goody Taylor, who objected to the treacherous climb up the “lofty and bleak stairs” that was required to reach the elevated communion table. Even the support of some two dozen other women in the church failed to move the obstinate bishop, and women were forced to make the climb if they were to maintain their standing with God and with the church.⁵

Not surprisingly, active female involvement in the church, if not altogether banned, was generally viewed with contempt. Despite the lip service given to the “priesthood of the believers,” the Reformers had not opened the doors of ministry to women. For the most part, they clung tenaciously to the prejudices that had become ingrained in society throughout the centuries. There were very few advocates of women in ministry—either among the Reformers or among the Anabaptists and other sectarians. This mind-set continued in the established state churches during the centuries following the Reformation. The Anglican church in England and the Lutheran and Reformed churches on the Continent remained closed to the idea of women in clerical ministry.

The seventeenth-century Anglican position relating to women in ministry is expressed by John Bewick in his work An Antidote Against Lay-Preaching, published in 1642. Although the book dealt with more than the issue of women in ministry, it was this issue that the author seemed most concerned about. In reference to the Joel 2 passage that speaks of daughters prophesying, Bewick wrote, “That kind of prophesying which consists in interpreting Scripture, thence deducing Doctrinall and Practicall conclusions for the Instruction of others, (I am sure) cannot bee meant in this place; because in that kind of prophesying the daughters of God have no part nor fellowship with the sons of God; for God hath excluded them.”⁶

Lady Eleanor Davis

But despite such admonitions, the Church of England was not entirely free of “prophesying daughters.” The country’s most famous prophetess of this period was Lady Eleanor Davis, whose father was the Earl of Castlehaven. In 1625 she testified that she “heard early in the morning a Voice from Heaven, speaking as through a trumpet these words: ‘There is nineteen years and a half to the Judgment Day.’” For twenty-five years she attracted attention to her prophesies through writing and speaking. Her commentary on Daniel, which prophesied a dire end for Archbishop Laud and Charles I, was one of her most controversial writings, and it resulted in a prison term and a heavy fine. She was a colorful character, described variously as insane, hysterical, and eccentric, and she did not limit her protests to written and oral prophesies. One of her more notorious acts was her unlawful entry into the Lichfield Cathedral, during which time she desecrated the altar hangings and then defiantly situated herself on the episcopal throne, “declaring she was the Primate of all England.”⁷

Despite her reputation for the bizarre, Lady Eleanor published some forty widely circulated tracts and had multitudes of followers, including some in high places. One of those was Sir Edward Dering, a respected political figure; another was Peter du Moulin, an Anglican churchman, who at the time of her death spoke reverently of her as having been “favoured with some beam of divine knowledge of future things.” Her family honored her at death with an epitaph that credited her with having “in a woman’s body, a man’s spirit.”⁸

Jane Hawkins and Grace Cary

Another woman in the Church of England who created a controversy over her claims of divine guidance was Jane Hawkins. And although she was “a poor woman (and she but a pedlar),” she, too, had an impressive following. It was in 1629 that Hawkins, “having fallen into a rapture or ecstacy,” began prophesying the doom of the Church of England. Known as the “rhyming preacheress,” she attracted a crowd of some two hundred people who came to her bedside and marveled at her prophetic rhyming, which continued to flow out in a steady stream for three days and nights. Among those who witnessed this was the Reverend Tokey, his curate, and a “scholar,” who copied thousands of verses that came through her revelations. The Bishop, however, was not similarly affected by her prophecies—perhaps in part because they predicted his own fall from office. He took action against Tokey and his curate and turned Hawkins over to the civil authorities. Later Tokey, no doubt under pressure to be reinstated, submitted a written statement alleging Hawkins was an impostor and that he himself had been unwise in supporting her.⁹

Grace Cary, another controversial woman, made the king himself her target, following him around and calling out to him to institute religious reform or God would pour out His wrath on the church. Keith Thomas has suggested that the educational and religious restrictions placed on women during this period may have prompted women to engage in prophetic ministries. It was the only avenue of public expression open to them.¹⁰

Mary Penington

Yet, as visible as they were, the Lady Eleanors and Grace Carys were not typical of women in the post-Reformation era. Women, like men, struggled with doctrinal issues and how to live the Christian life. Their search for God was often a painful one that often led them outside the boundaries of the sanctioned spirituality of the Church of England. One woman who illustrates the struggle for a meaningful faith is Mary Penington (1616–1682). As a young girl growing up in the Church of England, she had an unusual interest in spiritual matters. In fact, she later recalled an occasion during her childhood when she became so concerned about her prayer life after her maid read her a sermon entitled “Pray Continually,” that she became very distraught. “When she had done reading, and all were gone out of the chamber, I shut the door, and in great distress I flung myself on the bed, and oppressedly cried out: ‘Lord, what is prayer?’”¹¹

Some time after this, while listening to a minister at a neighboring church, Mary related how her search to know God progressed: “When I came there, he prayed fervently (he was one called a Puritan) and with great power. Then I felt that was true prayer.” Yet she herself was unable to pray, and that led to further agony: “I mourned solely because I kneeled down morning after morning, and night after night, and had not a word to say. My distress was so great, that I feared I should perish in the night, because I had not prayed.” Mary continued going to the neighboring church and “refused to hear the priest” of her own parish. Soon she was able to pray, but was accused by her family of praying “with the spirit,” rejecting “godly men’s prayers,” and of being “proud and schismatic.”¹²

Following her marriage to a spiritually minded young man, Mary’s life continued to stabilize, but her husband’s death two years later left her alone with an infant daughter to raise in the faith. “I refused to have her sprinkled, which brought great reproach upon me; so I became a byword and a hissing among the people of my own rank in the world.” Family members pleaded with her, and ministers were “sent to persuade” her. Harassed on every side, Mary’s faith began to falter. “I was weary of prayers, and such like exercises, finding no peace therefrom; nor could I lift up my hands without doubting, nor call God Father. In this state, and for this cause, I gave over all manner of religious exercises in my family and in private, with much grief, for my delight was in being exercised about religion.” She became involved in “many excesses and vanities; as foolish mirth, carding, dancing, singing, and frequenting of music meetings.” Yet, “in the midst of all this,” she confessed, “my heart was constantly sad.”¹³

It was after her second marriage to a man in a “disconsolate condition” that Mary once again sought God. “And oh! the groans and cries in secret that were raised in me, that I might be visited of the Lord and come to the knowledge of His way.” She and her husband later joined the Quakers, and it was among these people that she found true spiritual happiness. Speaking of her spiritual condition, she wrote: “Sweet is this state, though low; for in it I receive my daily bread, and enjoy that which He handeth forth continually; and live not, but as He breaketh the breath of life upon me every moment.”¹⁴

The martyrdom of Catholic women under Cromwell’s reign in 1649. From Myles O’Reilly et al., Lives of the Irish Martyrs and Confessors (New York: James Sheehy, 1881), 283.

Roman Catholicism

During the post-Reformation period, after the pope and Roman Catholicism had been officially rejected in England, Catholics—both men and women—suffered persecution at the hands of Protestants. Under Cromwell’s reign particularly, Catholics were hounded from their homes, tortured, imprisoned, and in some instances put to death.

The attitudes of Roman Catholics toward women were in many ways similar to those of Anglicans. One of the reasons many Roman Catholic churchmen were fearful of female influence on religion was that they, like their medieval predecessors, believed women were easy prey to heresy, witchcraft, and demonism. “Women are easy to all persuasions,” wrote Sebastian Michaelis, a seventeenth-century Frenchman, “because of the natural simplicity of their sex,” causing them to be easy prey to the devil. Valderama, a Spanish Jesuit, agreed, claiming that women were “weaker, more curious, and more ignorant than men.”¹⁵

Bendetta Carlini

One of the women who was accused of being “easy prey to the devil” was Bendetta Carlini, who became the first abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God in Pescia, Italy, in 1619. Her story has recently been told by Judith C. Brown in Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. This account is based largely on the record of ecclesiastical investigations into her life and visionary claims. The first investigation related to her ecstatic experiences, which resulted in a wedding ceremony (with Jesus taking her as his bride) performed in the convent in front of all the nuns. She was initially removed as the abbess, but following the investigation she was reinstated. A second investigation some three years later, however, found her guilty. The testimony in this instance came mainly from a nun who had shared a cell with Bendetta. She told of how she and Bendetta had indulged in a sexual relationship for three years—though she had been assured by Bendetta that it was her guardian angel Splenditello living within Bendetta who was actually performing the sexual acts. Convinced that she was demon-possessed or deceived by the Devil, the investigators sentenced her to a life of solitary confinement within the convent—a prison sentence that lasted until her death, thirty-five years later.¹⁶

Mary Ward

Despite such accusations of demonic influence and such instances of indiscretion, there was a strong inclination among Catholic women to break out of their cloistered cells and become involved in the religious life of the community and in the affairs of the world. An example is Mary Ward, whose vision it was to give all English girls a good Catholic education. Not surprisingly, such a dream was not well received in Protestant England during the early seventeenth century. After being harassed by civil authorities, she fled to the Continent where she traveled extensively, establishing convents and schools for female education. But among Catholics there she encountered opposition as strong as she had met in England. Many Catholic clerics were highly suspicious of convent education that sought to prepare girls for a life in the world. She “was accused of wishing women to rival men in the ministry” whereas she had “in fact deliberately made the point that women could not and should not preach or administer the sacraments.”¹⁷

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

Another woman who rose above the characterization of her sex and who faced strong opposition in the area of education was Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651–95), of Mexico. As a teenager she joined a convent of Barefoot Carmelites but left after only a few months because she was unable to endure the schedule that allowed so little time for study. Two years later she entered the Convent of Saint Jerome, where she had ample time for study—particularly theology. For more than two decades she pored over theological and literary works, accumulating a library of some four thousand volumes—probably the largest in the New World—in Greek, Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese. She wrote theological poems and critiques of theological positions that she found untenable, but her major contribution was her translation of Jerome’s works from Latin into Spanish.¹⁸

For all her dedication and effort, Sor Juana received nothing but scorn and opposition from her male counterparts. Following the publication of Crisis of a Sermon—a harmless little work that defended Augustine, Chrysostom, and Aquinas against the attacks of Antonio Vieyra, a Portuguese Jesuit—she was admonished by her bishop to turn away from her studies: “You have wasted much time in the study of philosophers and poets; now is the time to perfect your means and improve your occupation.” Her reply, in the words of Anne Fremantle, “is one of the glories of early Latin-American Literature, and one of the most remarkable pieces of writing ever produced by a woman.” She began by giving her own testimony:

From the first ray of the light of reason that reached me, my inclination to letters was so strong, that no censure from others, of which I had plenty, nor any personal outside repressions, nor any considerations of my own were enough to prevent my following the natural impulse God put into me…I took orders because…the one consideration…was…to refuse any occupation that interfered with the liberty of my studies.¹⁹

From there she went on to make a noble defense of her rights as a female and of an individual’s freedom to think independently: “Am I not as free to dissent from Vieyra’s opinion as he is to dissent from mine? Is my understanding any less free than his? Is it a tenet of our holy Faith that we must believe with our eyes shut?”²⁰

In recalling the struggles she encountered with church officials, she later wrote, “There was a rouse of emulations and persecutions, so many that I cannot even count…I have been persecuted for my love of wisdom and literature…I have been persecuted through hate and malevolence.” When church authorities sought to curtail her studies, she defended her role and denounced the church’s prohibition on women’s studying theology.²¹ At the age of forty, Sor Juana turned away from her theological studies. Her decision was not prompted by her opponents, but rather by a deep mystical experience. In her effort to attain a oneness with God, she apparently could not justify something that gave her so much personal pleasure. She gave away her library and spent her few remaining years in contemplation. Very soon after that she died of the plague that struck the convent of Saint Jerome.²²

Madame Jeanne Guyon

A far more influential Roman Catholic woman during this period was the French mystic Madame Jeanne Guyon (1648–1717). Although faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, she, too, was condemned by church officials. She had a large following, however, and, like other Catholic mystics of this period, she had a significant influence on Protestants, among them John Wesley—especially in his early years. Of her Wesley wrote, “We may search many centuries before we find another woman who was such a pattern of true holiness.”²³ She, along with François Fenelon and Miguel de Molinos, was a leading spirit in a seventeenth-century movement known as Quietism, which emphasized a passive contemplation over and above an active religion of works.

Soon after her marriage as a teenager to a wealthy middle-aged nobleman, she realized that true happiness could be found only in devotion to God. It was then that she turned her back on Parisian society life and began reading devotional books and helping the needy. After the death of her husband, she dedicated herself entirely to Christian ministry. Because she had two small children, it was a difficult decision—one that was prompted by a priest who admonished her to “do what our Lord has made you know he desired of you,” after she had said her confession. She questioned his advice:

I answered him, “My Father, I am a widow, who has little children four and six years of age. What else could God require of me but to rear them?” He said to me, “I known nothing of it. You know whether God had made you recognize that he wished something of you. If it is so, there is nothing which should hinder you from doing his will. One must leave one’s children to do it.”²⁴

With that advice, she began her itinerant ministry through the towns of France and Switzerland sharing her insights on how to live a holy life.²⁵ Guyon’s ministry was largely one of personal evangelism, challenging people to live a holy life by placing their faith in Christ. “She did not appear as a preacher,” wrote her biographer. “Her efforts were private; and entirely consistent with the sense of decorum which adorns the female character.”²⁶ She reached out to all segments of society, and the response was gratifying. Indeed, her ministry gives a glimpse of the deep piety among certain Catholics during the post-Reformation period. She was overwhelmed by the spiritual hunger she found in the town of Thonon:

I have never in my life had so much consolation as in seeing in that little town so many good souls who vied with each other in giving themselves to God with their whole heart. There were young girls of twelve and thirteen years of age, who worked all day in silence in order to converse with God, and who had acquired a great habit of it. As they were poor girls, they joined in couples; and those who knew how to read, read out something to those who could not read. It was revival of the innocence of the early Christians.²⁷

Another individual who was seeking spiritual consolation was an impoverished “laundress,” the mother of five children, who by her own testimony “had formerly been without religion, and was a wicked person.” Her husband “seemed to have nothing left mentally but his angry dispositions, and nothing left physically but just strength enough in his unparalyzed arm to beat his suffering wife.” Despite her travail, she became “rich in faith”—so much so that many of the townspeople “were willing to receive instruction from her,” believing “God…had taught her inwardly by the Holy Ghost.” Her teaching and her extemporaneous prayers, however, soon attracted the attention of the church authorities. “They visited her; and, as her method of worship was somewhat out of Church order, they reproved her, and told her it was very bold in her to practice prayer in the manner she did. They said it was the business of priests to pray, and not of women. They commanded her to leave off prayer, in the methods in which she practiced it, and threatened her if she did not.” Church officials continued to harass her, but she held steadfast in her faith.²⁸

Guyon’s ministry extended to the more educated in society as well. When she was ill and needed to consult a physician (a friar specializing in medicine), she did not let the opportunity pass without witnessing to her faith:

I entered into conversation with him on the subject of religion. He acknowledged that he had known something of the power of religion, but that the religious life had been stifled by the multitude of his occupations. I endeavored to make him comprehend, that the love of God is not inconsistent with the duties of humanity…The conversation was greatly blessed to him. And he became afterwards a decided Christian.²⁹

Later she related, “This same worthy friar had occasion to bring to me some of his companions, and God took them all for himself.”³⁰ Guyon, likewise, sought opportunities to conduct personal evangelism among the nobility. In Paris she “formed a little association of ladies of rank, among whom were the Duchess of Beauvilliers, the Duchess of Bethune, and the Countess of Guiche, with whom she met from time to time for religious objects.” Through her dedication to the Lord, “some of the most distinguished ladies of the capital of France” began “recognizing the truths of religion, and rejoicing in the experimental power of piety.”³¹

Nor did Guyon overlook the convents or monasteries in her evangelism. She was the first woman ever to enter the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, previously off limits to the female sex. There “she proclaimed, not authoritatively or in any way inconsistent with female modesty and propriety, the indispensable necessity, not only of justification by faith, but of faith as the foundation of the whole inward Christian life.” Her ministry at nunneries was equally significant. On one occasion she met with a nun contemplating suicide because of her inability to “obtain reconciliation with God.” The solution to her problem, Guyon was convinced, was simply the gospel of Christ.

I endeavoured to explain to her that…she must no longer rely upon observances, or trust to personal merits, but must trust in Christ and resign herself to Him alone. God was pleased to bless these efforts…Submitting herself to God through Christ, and willing to leave all things in His hands in faith, she entered at once into the peace of Paradise. She was so much changed, that she became the admiration of the Religious Community. God’s presence was with her continually, and her spirit and power of prayer were wonderful.³²

Besides her work of personal evangelism, Guyon wrote some forty books, including a seven-hundredpage autobiography and a twenty-volume commentary on Scripture. Most of her writing was done at night, though she claimed she did not actually write the volumes, but rather that God wrote them through her. In her book Spiritual Torrents she taught the concept of the silence of the soul. “To her the Torrents are souls that issue from God and have no repose until they have returned and lost themselves in Him, never again to find themselves. But they lose neither their nature nor their reality, only their former condition of separation.”³³

Much of Jeanne Guyon’s autobiography tells of her sufferings while she was traveling around preaching holiness. These accounts include a variety of illnesses and close escapes from death, some of which are bizarre stories of self-inflicted pain. She put stones in her shoes; rolled in prickly, stinging nettles; sucked on bitter herbs; and pulled healthy teeth out of her mouth—all in an effort to achieve holiness. She was convinced that in her complete identification with God, she herself had actually ceased to exist—that her actions were really God’s actions and that it was impossible for her to do anything but God’s will. Although she herself practiced extreme asceticism, her efforts toward others were directed at relieving their suffering. Countless healing miracles were associated with her ministry.³⁴

It was her traveling preaching and healing ministry that brought her fame, but church leaders begrudged her increasing popularity. Her books were burned, her reputation was assailed, and finally she was arrested and sent to prison. The last two years of her seven-year imprisonment were spent in solitary confinement in the Bastille. But even following this long period of injustice, humiliation, and suffering, her response reflected her Quietist faith: “I found myself, I say, in a happiness equal to that of the Blessed…; nothing here below affected me; and neither at present do I see anything in heaven or in earth which can trouble me as regards myself.”³⁵

English Puritans

The Puritans, like their Anglican cousins, strongly opposed public ministries for women, except perhaps in unusual circumstances that indicated God’s special anointing. According to one Puritan divine, “it was permissible if women were ‘extraordinarily called thereunto, and have certain signs of their calling.’” Women’s inferior efforts to preach, according to a another Puritan writer brought shame on the ministerial profession—their participation making it “vile and despised.”³⁶

Nor should women seek to play the role of theologian. They were to rely entirely on their husbands in such matters. Such deep thought could render her mentally useless—so was the theory of Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He used the example of Mistress Hopkins, whose insanity he blamed on the fact that “she spent too much time in reading and writing.”³⁷ Writing about this same situation, Thomas Parker made the following assertion:

Her husband, being very loving and tender of her, was loath to grieve her; but he saw his error, when it was too late. For if she had attended her household affairs and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper to men, whose minds are strong, etc., she had kept her wits, and might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set her.³⁸

One of the strongest attacks against women in public ministry came from a Thomas Edwards, a London Puritan minister whose tract entitled “Gangraena” was published in 1646. In this tract he describes a women’s meeting that was attended by another minister: “In brief, there was such laughing, confusion, and disorder at the meeting, that the minister professed he never saw the like: he told me the confusions, horror, and disorder which he saw and heard there, was inexpressible, and so he left them, fearing lest the candles might have gone out and they have fallen to kill or mischief one another.”³⁹

Although women were not permitted to preach or play a significant roll in Puritan churches, they certainly were not excluded from Puritan religious life itself. Margo Todd wrote:

The importance of women…in Puritan theories of domestic conduct, as well as the exaltation of marriage and the household, obviously belies the thesis that Protestantism reduced the significance of women when it banned veneration of the Virgin and the saints (many of whom were female) and gave the father a semi-priestly role upon which the wife was dependent…The Puritans viewed men and women as spiritually equal, and equality was to be manifest in the marriage relationship.⁴⁰

This “equality,” however, did not grant the women equal authority, as is illustrated in an excerpt from a Puritan sermon:

The husband is also to understand, that as God created the woman, not of the head, and so equall in authoritie with her husband: so also he created her not of Adam’s foote that she should be trodden downe and despised, but he took her out of the ribbe, that she might walke joyntly with him, under the conduct and government of her head.⁴¹

Some historians have concluded that because the Puritans exalted the role of wife and mother and permitted women freedom of conscience along with formal education, they should be credited to a large extent for the faint signs of female liberation that were seen in the post-Reformation era. While other historians would rightly argue that the Renaissance humanists were the originators of modern egalitarian ideas, it was in many respects the Puritans who turned theory into practice and thus influenced society as a whole. The more radical sects that permitted women equality in ministry had little influence on society in general as regards women, and it can be argued that what influence they did have had a negative effect.

Nonconformists and English Civil War Sects

If there were tight controls on women among Anglicans, Catholics, and Puritans, the same cannot be said for the sectarian movements (the radical wing of Puritanism) of the English Civil War era. This growing free church movement was comprised of numerous sects that began to appear on the scene in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. According to Keith Thomas, “They were known by a variety of names—Brownists, Independents, Baptists, Millenarians, Familists, Quakers, Seekers, Ranters—and they represented a wide diversity of theological opinion.” They did, however, have some very important common-alities: “They believed in a pure Church, they made spiritual regeneration a condition of membership and insisted upon separation from a national church which contained ungodly elements.”⁴² And, like earlier sectarian groups, they entertained a much more open view of women in ministry.

The active role of women in sects in the mid-sixteenth century corresponds to a more active role women were taking in society in general. According to David Latt, “The events of the Civil Wars and the experiences of the Court in France during the Interregnum produced a liberalizing effect on attitudes about women’s active participation in the important areas of public life.” It was during this time that women started gaining recognition for literary achievements, though they continued to be ridiculed by a large and chauvinistic element in society that regarded them as “silly, pretentious, and misguided when they sought a more active or a more accomplished place for themselves in the world.”⁴³

English and Colonial Separatists

While there seems to have been an upsurge in female involvement in religious activities in the 1640s and 1650s, there is evidence that women were actively involved from the very early years of English nonconformity. The fear of religious schisms prompted London Aldermen and common councillors to send a petition to the House of Commons in 1646 reporting that in one parish alone there were “eleven private congregations and conventicles who deserted the parish churches and [had] tradesmen and women preachers.” Within weeks, several women preachers were taken into custody and others were ordered to appear before the Committee of Examinations of the House of Commons.⁴⁴

This was just one of many factors that disturbed Anglican churchmen. In 1568, an Anglican bishop claimed that a particular Separatist church in London was made up largely of women—and not only that, but lower-class women. In fact, there were a number of Separatist congregations where women made up a majority of the membership and some that were founded by women. An example is that of Dorothy Hazzard, the wife of an Anglican priest; she left her husband’s parish church to help establish a Separatist congregation that met in her home until the rapidly growing group (which numbered over one hundred and fifty in three years) was forced to move on. Such foundational work for women was generally accepted among the Separatists, but there were limitations to what a woman could do—particularly after the congregation was well established. Many Separatist congregations denied women a vote in church affairs and had strict regulations on women’s ministries.⁴⁵

Due to intense persecution in England, groups of Separatists fled to Holland, where it appears there was more leniency toward the ministry of women. Among the Separatists in Holland were the followers of Robert Browne, and in these circles there appeared to be a spirit of openness toward the ministry of women. The Brownists’ Conventicle (1641) states:

And in this our thanksgiving let us remember all the blessed pastors and professors, whether at Amsterdam or elsewhere; as also for our she-fellow labourers, our holy and good blessed women, who are not only able to talk on any text, but search into the deep sense of the Scripture, and preach both in their families and elsewhere.”⁴⁶

While there was no official position among Separatists relating to the role of women in the church, the view of John Robinson (1575–1625), a Puritan pastor who fled to Holland with other Separatists to avoid persecution, is representative of the nonconformist mind-set. In a treatise justifying his separatist position, he wrote what might have been taken as a very radical statement: “And hereupon also it followeth necessarily, that one faithful man, yea or woman either, may as truly, and effectually loose, and bind, both in heaven, and earth, as all the ministers in the world.” This “feminist” stance was quickly qualified, however, by specific restrictions on the female sex. “And for women, they are debarred by their sex, as from ordinary prophesying, so from any other dealing wherein they take authority over the man. I Cor. 14:34–35. I Tim. 2:11–12.”⁴⁷ But women were clearly not barred entirely from speaking or sharing in the worship. In the view of Robinson:

They may make profession of faith or confession of sin, say Amen to the church’s prayer, sing Psalms vocally, accuse a brother of sin, witness an accusation, or defend themselves being accused, yea in a case extraordinary, namely where no man will, I see not but a woman may reprove the Church, rather than suffer it to go on in apparent wickedness and communicate with it therein.⁴⁸

Puritans and Separatists who emigrated to America and became known as Congregationalists tended to be more restrictive toward women than Robinson was. Separatists generally sought to avoid any hint of “radicalism” that might be associated with certain of the sects. That generally included women preachers and in many instances women’s participation in church government. Some critics of Congregationalism were quick to point out the inconsistency of claiming a congregational form of government while denying a large segment (often a majority) of the congregation any voice in decision-making. They charged that such a system would inevitably lead to female participation and would not prevent female control.⁴⁹

Richard Mather (1596–1669), a prominent Congregationalist in New England, sought to counter the critics by taking a hard line against women’s participation in church affairs:

The rule is express and plain that women ought not to speak in the Church, but to be in silence…And therefore they ought not to vote in Church matters, besides voting imports some kind of government, and authority and power: now it is not government and authority, but subjection and obedience which belongs unto women…and so is the practice of women amongst us.⁵⁰

Yet there were occasional women “preachers” among the Separatists—though they apparently never served in established congregations. There were accounts of women preachers in the Netherlands as well as in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Indeed, Robert Baillie (1599–1662) charged that certain of the Separatists “permitted women to be leaders to their whole Churches, and chief pastors in Church actions of the highest nature.” As to specific examples, he cited only two: “We have good witness that a woman was the founder of Mr. Simpson’s Church at Rotterdam; that a woman, and that none of the best, led away Mr. Cotton, and with him great numbers of the best note in New England, towards the vilest errours.”⁵¹

Anne Hutchinson

The woman who allegedly led John Cotton and many others into “the vilest errours,” was Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643), the most well-known woman “preacher” in colonial New England. Anne’s controversial reputation preceded her to New England. In England she was known for her claims of personal revelations—“that she had never had any great thing done about her but it was revealed to her beforehand”—and for her outspoken criticism of certain Puritan ministers. It is not surprising that such traits were viewed with deep suspicion upon her arrival in the New World.⁵² In fact, so much suspicion surrounded her that her church membership was delayed. She was not admitted to the church at Boston until she had been brought before a hearing conducted by the governor and other colonial fathers to examine her and determine whether she was fit to be numbered among the elect.⁵³

In New England, Anne found a more open and tolerant spirit toward women—perhaps because, unlike Europe, where there were considerably more women than men, the ratio of men to women in New England was three to two, and the colonial fathers were anxious for more women to immigrate. Among other things,

wife beating was not allowed, nor were men permitted to treat their wives as servants; and both proscriptions were enforced on pain of jail or heavy fine. In church-related matters, too, women found greater liberties in the New World. Just before Anne’s arrival, John Cotton and his supporters waged a successful battle against the long tradition requiring women to wear veils.”⁵⁴

Such liberties only encouraged Anne to exercise her gifts of teaching and leadership freely and openly and to take an active part in the community.

For all the commotion Anne created in Boston in the year after her arrival, one would think that she had sought to take over the pulpit in the Boston church. In actuality, her activities were very mild—particularly by twentieth-century standards. Her ministry involved other women, and it began very slowly. Her first meetings were held once a week with about a half a dozen women. It was a social time as much as a time for learning practical household tips and for exchanging childcare advice, but even more it was a time to focus on spiritual matters and particularly on the Sunday sermon. Anne was a student of Scripture and she took it upon herself to explain the sermon in her own terms to the women in attendance. Such meetings were not uncommon among the Puritans—except when led by a woman.⁵⁵

So popular were these meetings that soon the large numbers of women who attended could no longer fit in Anne’s living room, and she had to hold extra meetings to accommodate them all. Her critics charged that she frequently had as many as sixty women in attendance. Almost immediately these gatherings were seen as a threat to male authority, but not all men held this view. In fact, her own pastor, John Cotton, whose sermons were the subject of her lectures, initially praised her:

Shee did much good in our Town, in womans meeting at Childbirth- Travells, wherein shee was not onley skillful and helpfull, but readily fell into good discourse with the women about their spiritual estates…By which means many of the women (and their husbands) were…brought to enquire more seriously after the Lord Jesus Christ.”⁵⁶

Although Anne’s activities on the surface might have appeared to be noncontroversial, there was an element of radicalism involved that simply could not be tolerated by the colonial church fathers. Anne was a thinker who was not averse to criticizing other ministers and challenging other women to think for themselves. This was viewed as highly dangerous. According to the Reverend Thomas Weld, Anne’s influence was similar to that of Eve’s in the Garden of Eden. In his eyes, it was her meetings that “began to raise sedition amongst us, to the endangering of the commonwealth.” The process began with the women, “the weaker to resist,” who were “more flexible, tender, and ready to yield.” That was serious enough, but worse still was that “as by an Eve” they might “catch their husbands also, which often proved too true amongst us.”⁵⁷

The fear that Anne would “catch their husbands” was a real concern for the Boston church leaders, not simply because women in general, by virtue of their female nature, were more prone to deceive, but because Anne in particular was spreading “heresy.” In many ways she was an unlikely candidate for heresy. Unlike some Quaker women who would later honor Boston with their presence, she did not abandon her husband and family and come alone into the enemy camp without any political and religious connections. Anne was the wife of the highly respected and well-to-do William Hutchinson and was the mother of fifteen children, ten of whom came to the New World with their parents. In England, she had been an ardent supporter of John Cotton, sometimes hearing several of his sermons and lectures each week. Although his views were suspect in England, he had quickly become the leading religious figure in Boston. Nor was Anne without important colonial political connections. One of her most loyal followers was Henry Vane, who served for a short time as governor of the Bay Colony.⁵⁸

Yet, despite her well-placed connections, Anne was banished from the Bay colony. Governor John Winthrop matter-of-factly summarized the account in his Journal:

The court also sent for Mrs. Hutchinson, and charged her with divers matters, as her keeping two public lectures every week in her house, whereto sixty or eighty persons did usually resort, and for reproaching most of the ministers…for not preaching a covenant of free grace, and that they had not the seal of the spirit, nor were able ministers of the New Testament; which were clearly proved against her, though she sought to shift it off. And, after many speeches to and fro, at last she was so full as she could not contain, but vented her revelations; amongst which this was one, that she had it revealed to her, that she should come into New England, and should here be persecuted, and that God would ruin us and our posterity, and the whole state, for the same. So the court proceeded and banished her; but, because it was winter, they committed her to a private house, where she was well provided, and her own friends and the elders permitted to go to her, but none else.⁵⁹

How could this middle-aged mother of fifteen be brought to trial, charged with subverting the townspeople, and banished from the colony? Was it because she was a woman—indeed a feminist—challenging the sex roles in society and in the church? There is little evidence of this, despite what some modern feminists scholars would contend. It is true that she was charged with having “rather been a husband than a wife, a preacher than a hearer, and a magistrate than a subject” and that she was told her behavior was not “fitting of your sex.”⁶⁰

But the real case against her had little to do with her sex. The drama that held Boston spellbound during the fall of 1637 was not a plot against feminism but an open battle against “heresy,” and the leading character who took her place on center stage before forty-nine inquisitors just happened to be a woman. The fact that she was a woman was used against her, but the central issues were doctrinal. And it is important to note that men were not immune from the very same charges. The Reverend John Cotton’s theology had come into question since his arrival in Boston, and the Reverend John Wheelwright (Anne’s brother-in-law) was disenfranchised and then banished from the colony before Anne received her sentence. His crime, like Anne’s, was that he challenged the doctrine of original sin and criticized other colonial ministers of preaching a covenant of works rather than a covenant of grace.⁶¹

Anne’s “heresy” was not particularly innovative, but according to Selma Williams,

she offered her own version of the Renaissance-inspired Covenant of Grace: each person’s actions to be guided by his or her own conscience and inner morality; each person to communicate directly with God, without need of outside supervision; life in the here-and-now to be stressed, afterlife deemphasized.⁶²

Such “antinomianism” was not surprisingly a threat to the Boston colonial establishment. And in Anne’s case, this covenant-of-grace theology was bolstered by her own revelations. She was accused of having “often boasted of the guidance of God’s spirit and that her revelations are as true as the Scriptures.”⁶³ How could such revelations be tolerated? “If they be allowed in one thing [they] must be admitted a rule in all things,” admonished Governor Winthrop, “for they being above reason and Scripture, they are not subject to controll.”⁶⁴ It was clear that Anne was a threat to any sort of religious uniformity in the Bay Colony.

Perhaps even more threatening than her theology and personal revelations was her popularity. According to Selma Williams, after only two years in Massachusetts, she “had the strongest constituency of any leader in the whole colony, and her Boston disciples were beginning to spread the word to the other thirteen towns.” Men as well as women, in large numbers, were captivated by her. Her followers were known as “the Hutchinsonian party or simply the “Hutchinsonians.”⁶⁵

These factors were all taken into consideration when Anne was summoned to court in the fall of 1637 and when she was brought before the church in the spring of the following year and publicly excommunicated. That this was a case of sex discrimination is a difficult position to sustain, and such a position to a degree denies the actual threat Anne was to the establishment apart from her sex. She was a very influential religious leader who was challenging the authority of Scripture and, maybe more importantly to the colonial Boston churchmen, the very core of the Puritan Calvinistic covenant theology.

Following her banishment, Anne and her family moved first to Rhode Island and then, after the death of her husband in 1642, to Long Island. To the relief of the Boston establishment, Anne left no cohesive movement behind, but she was not soon forgotten. Her detractors kept her name alive as a warning to others who might seek to follow the same course that she had followed. They went to great lengths to blacken her name. Following a painful miscarriage that she underwent while she was still under house arrest, a minister wrote that she had actually brought forth “30 monstrous births or thereabouts, at once, some of them bigger, some lesser, some of one shape, some of another; few of any perfect shape, none at all of them (as farre as I could ever learne) of humane shape.”⁶⁶

If the specter of giving birth to monsters was not warning enough, the news that reached Boston in September of 1643 certainly was. Anne and her children had been killed by Indians in their home on Long Island. The Reverend Thomas Weld had a ready and fitting explanation for the tragedy:

I never heard that the Indians in those parts did ever before this, commit the like outrage upon any one family, or families, and therefore God’s hand is the more apparently seene herein, to pick out this woeful woman, to make her and those belonging to her, an unheard of heavy example…Thus the Lord heard our groanes to heaven, and freed us from this great and sore affliction.”⁶⁷

Although Hutchinson’s “heresy” was not an issue of women’s rights per se, there clearly was an element of sexism involved in the lengthy controversy that was perpetuated even after her death. The stories of monster births were reminiscent of accusations made against other female “heretics” in history who were maliciously linked with witchcraft or demonic activity. Writes Donald Mathews, “The Antinomian debate was not, therefore, just a disagreement about theology, but a dispute concerning a social order maintained by strict rules of behavior associated with sex.”⁶⁸

Baptists

Another group of nonconformists were the English Baptists, who were sometimes difficult to distinguish from other English Separatists. John Smyth, “founder of the first identifiable Baptist church of modern history,” recognized the place of women in church ministry. In 1609, he wrote, “the Church hath power to Elect, approve & ordeyne her owne Elders, also: to elect, approve, & ordeyne her owne Deacons both men & women.”⁶⁹

Women preachers were not uncommon among the early Baptist congregations. They were unordained lay preachers, as were many of their male counterparts. Antonia Fraser writes that “women probably first began to preach in Holland in the 1630s in the Baptist churches, whose congregations had always included a large number of their sex.”⁷⁰

According to some contemporary observers, the Baptists, more than certain other Separatist sects, were open to the ministry of women. One such preacher was a Mrs. Attaway, (who is at times referred to as a Brownist) a “lace woman,” whom a contemporary Puritan critic referred to as “the mistress of all the she-preachers in Coleman St.”—that being the most prominent General Baptist Church in London. Thomas Lamb was the pastor and he apparently gave his blessing to her Tuesday afternoon meetings, which she began conducting in 1645. She was a vivacious woman, attracting large crowds who were frequently derided by sober churchmen for “laughing” and “lightness.” Regarding one of her meetings, it was reported that “there came a world of people, to the number of a thousand.”⁷¹

More commonly women preached in their own homes. Anne Hempstall, accused of preaching to “bibbing Gossips,” opened her home in Holborn, as did Mary Bilbrowe, the wife of a bricklayer from St. Giles-in-the-Fields. ⁷² But despite such opportunities for ministry, “it is clear that even among the Baptists,” writes Constance Coltman, “the number of women preachers was very small.”⁷³

Opposition to female preachers often consisted of ridicule and scorn, but that alone was generally not enough to silence them. Further action was frequently taken, and the first step usually involved reporting the indiscretion to authorities. A report given to the Right Hon. Lord Conway, dated July 25, 1653, illustrates how offended certain individuals were with women in public ministry:

Here is starting up an audacious virago (or feminine tub-preacher) who last Sunday held forth about two hours together within our late Queen’s Mass Chapel at Somerset House in the Strand, and has done so there and elsewhere, divers Sabbath days of late, who claps her Bible and thumps the pulpit cushion with almost as much confidence (I should have said impudence) as honest Hugh Peters himself.⁷⁴

The most significant role that women played in Baptist circles was in their foundational work in the development of churches. Many Baptist churches would not have survived without the active participation of women in the initial stages. Two well-known examples of such churches are John Smyth’s Baptist church, which sought religious freedom in the Netherlands, and the Baptist church at Bedford, where John Bunyan later served. The latter was started in 1650 by eight women and four men.⁷⁵

Fifth Monarchists

Another movement that was known for permitting women to have an active role in ministry was the radical millenarian group, known as the Fifth Monarchists. This group appeared in England in the mid-sixteenth century. This was a small but highly visible sect that expected to usher in the reign of Christ as the fifth monarchy (the previous four having been the Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires). Under the rule of Christ, this new kingdom would eliminate class and sex barriers. Women would enjoy complete equality. This hope for the imminent future attracted women to the movement and encouraged them to seek equality within the movement. They were supported in this effort by John Rogers, the founder and leader of the movement. He argued that “in the Church all the members, even sisters as well as brothers, have a right to all Church-affairs; and may not only implicitly but explicitly vote and offer or object, etc.” In defending this position, Rogers used not only biblical arguments, but also personal observations. He pointed to the “excellencies and abilities of some women surpassing men for piety and judgment,” qualities that to him were justification enough for women “to have equal liberty with them in Church-affairs.”⁷⁶

Despite Rogers’ strong support of women’s equality in the church and their “public liberty” to preach, women among the Fifth Monarchists, like women in other sects, faced opposition. Some, claiming divine revelation, publicly prophesied, but generally full equality in leadership positions was denied them.⁷⁷

One woman who did attain a place of recognition among the Fifth Monarchists was Mary Cary who wrote tracts in support of the movement. Though she referred to herself as a “minister,” she apparently did not have a congregation. She was rather a prophetess and practical theologian of sorts for the movement. She gave specific prophetic utterances as well as advice for everyday living. Among other things she denounced those in the movement who followed “fickle, nice, phantastical and foolish” fashions, making them “unsuitable to their high calling! as if they had not things of a higher nature to minde.” She was quick to speak her mind even when she did not agree with male leaders of the movement. Like Katherine Zell and other women of the Reformation, she spoke out for religious toleration. According to B. S. Capp, she “wished to tolerate papists and atheists, but this was condemned by Rogers, and by Canne.”⁷⁸

Another Fifth Monarchist woman to gain prominence was Anna Trapnel, “the most celebrated visionary” in the movement. Indeed, she believed that education and normal means of learning were unnecessary because “Christ’s Scholars…are perfected with learning from above.” On one occasion in 1654, she “fell into a trance lasting many days, during which time she uttered a torrent of divinely-inspired verse, prophesying that the Lord would ‘batter’ Cromwell and his friends.” Her utterances did not sit well with the religious establishment, and she was arrested for subversive activities. Like Mary Cary, she advocated toleration of other religious groups, and went so far as to speak to joint meetings held with Quakers, though the leaders of the respective movements shunned any such ecumenism.⁷⁹

French Prophets

Another sect that appeared in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was known as the Cevenols or Camisards. The term French Prophets was the designation given to them after they fled from France to England because of persecution. They were characterized by “enthusiasm” and prophetic gifts, and the basis for ministry was the Spirit’s empowering. Women thus conducted ministries alongside men.⁸⁰

Early in his ministry John Wesley had an interesting experience with a female member of this sect. He wrote in his Journal that he

went to a house where was one of those commonly called French prophets. After a time, she came in. She seemed about four or five and twenty, of an agreeable speech and behaviour. She asked, Why we came? I said, “to try the spirits, whether they be of God.” Presently after she leaned back in her chair, and seemed to have strong workings in her breast, with deep sighings intermixed. Her head, and hands, and, by turns, every part of her body, seemed also to be in a kind of convulsive motion. This continued about ten minutes, till (at six) she began to speak (though the workings, sighings and contortions of her body, were so intermixed with her words, that she seldom spoke half a sentence together) with a clear, strong voice, “Father, thy will, thy will be done. Thus saith the Lord, If any of you that is a father, his child ask bread, will he give him a stone? If he ask a fish, will he give him a scorpion? Ask bread of me, my children and I will give you bread. I will not, will not give you a scorpion. By this judge of what ye shall now hear.”⁸¹

In her role as a prophetess, the young woman spoke “as in the person of God, and mostly in scripture words.” She prophesied the imminent return of Christ and challenged her listeners to evangelize the world in preparation for his return. “She added, with many enforcements, that we must watch and pray, and take up our cross, and be still before God.” Some who were with Wesley were impressed with her, convinced that “she spoke by the spirit of God.” Wesley himself, however, was skeptical, believing “the motion might be either hysterical or artificial. And the same words, any person of a good understanding and well versed in the scriptures might have spoken.” His final judgment was to “let the matter alone; knowing this, that ‘if it be not of God, it will come to nought.’”⁸²

Quakers

Among the Civil War sects, it was the Quakers, or the Society of Friends, that most obviously demonstrated egalitarianism between the sexes. In fact, in the very early years rumors spread that this new sect was made up entirely of women. As with the other nonconformist groups, religion was personal and intense, and an individual’s relationship or communion with God—in this case the “inner light”—was not restricted by sex barriers.⁸³

George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, strongly defended the full involvement of women in ministry. In a doctrinal tract entitled “The Woman Learning in Silence, or the Mystery of the Woman’s Subjection to her Husband,” he clearly spelled out his views on female ministry, making frequent reference to the various Old and New Testament passages pertaining to women. Despite the title, which would indicate a restrictive role for women, Fox challenged those who would limit a woman’s ministry. To those who emphasized the apostle Paul’s restrictions, he responded by quoting the prophecy in the book of Joel that was repeated in the book of Acts and adding:

Here the prophet Joel was not against the daughters prophesying, nor the apostles were not against it, but said, “despise not prophesying” and saith the Lord…“Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” So you that persecute the daughters on whom the spirit of the Lord is poured, and believe them not, you are them that despise prophesying, and so have broken the apostles’ command…So be ashamed for ever, and let all your mouths be stopped for ever, that despise the spirit of prophecy in the daughters, and do cast them into prison, and do hinder the women-labourers in the gospel.⁸⁴

Fox’s first convert was Elizabeth Hooton, a Baptist preacher prior to her “convincement.” Her life vividly illustrates the courageous spirit among Quaker women. As a Quaker she believed all men and women were equal before God, and thus she did not hesitate to challenge a priest on doctrinal matters or to refuse to kneel before King Charles II. Such behavior was not looked upon lightly, and on several occasions she was beaten and imprisoned in England, but she still refused to curtail her activities. Following the visit of her fellow Quaker Mary Fisher to Boston, during which time she was publicly whipped, Hooton herself booked passage. The Boston authorities refused to allow the ship to dock, so Hooton and her companion were taken to Virginia. “From there the two resolute women, advanced in years and unaccustomed to the perils of the wilderness, proceeded to walk toward New England.” They eventually were able to secure passage on a small boat, and arrived in Boston, only to be “banished a two days’ journey into the wilderness escorted by armed men on horseback.”⁸⁵

With no other alternative, Hooton returned to England, denouncing the Boston religious establishment—the “Independents who fled from the bishops formerly, which have behaved themselves worse than the bishops did to them by many degries.” But she was so determined to make her mark on the Bay Colony that she personally petitioned the king for a land permit in Boston so that she could build a home and thus have a Quaker in residence right in the middle of the enemy camp. Although the king granted her request, the Boston authorities paid no heed, and arrested her as soon as she arrived. She was once again beaten severely and banished from the town. To her, it was just another trial of her faith to endure: “So they put me on a horse & carried me into ye wildernesse many miles, where was many wild beasts both beares & wolves & many deep waters where I waded through…but ye Lord delivered me.”⁸⁶ She later journeyed to Jamaica, where she served as a missionary.

Another Quaker woman who displayed the courage of her convictions in the face of Bostonian bigotry was Mary Dyer. She and her husband immigrated to the Bay Colony in the 1630s, at which time they were considered fully orthodox and were received into membership in the Boston church. Soon after that, however, Mary became acquainted with Anne Hutchinson, and from that time on her life was never the same. She was described by Governor Winthrop as “a very proper and fair woman…notoriously infected with Mrs. Hutchinson’s errors, and very censorious and troublesome (she being a very proud spirit, and much addicted to revelations).” So loyal was she to Anne Hutchinson, that on the day Anne was excommunicated from the Boston church, Mary made a public protest by leaving her seat and walking out of the church with her.⁸⁷

It was while she was visiting in England in 1652 that she joined with the Quakers. She returned to Massachusetts a few years later publicly professing her faith, despite laws forbidding Quakers entry into the colony. On two occasions she was banished from the colony, but she returned each time and continued to testify of her faith publicly. In 1659 she was convicted by the General Court in Boston and sentenced to be hanged along with two Quaker men. The magistrates, however, could not bring themselves to hang a woman—even in Boston—and, after receiving an appeal from her family, they stayed her sentence. But they waited until the very last moment to do so: “She stept up the Ladder and had her Coats tied about her feet, and the Rope put about her neck, with her face covered, and as the Hangman was ready to turn her off, they cryed out to stop, for she was reprieved.”⁸⁸

Most individuals would have greeted such a stay of sentence with at least a sigh of relief, but not Mary Dyer: “She was not forward to come down, but stood still saying she was there willing to suffer as her Brethren did; unlesse they would null their wicked Law, she had no freedom to accept their reprieve.”⁸⁹

Mary was not given the choice of rejecting the reprieve. She was brought down from the gallows and forced to leave the town. But she was determined that the “wicked law” be repealed, and so she returned to Boston the following spring—presumably believing that sacrificing her life would indeed change the law. Again she was sentenced to die, and on May 31, 1660, she was hanged in Boston. An observation made by General Atherton, one of her strongest opponents, was a fitting epitaph: “Mary Dyer did hang as a flag for others to take example by.”⁹⁰

Mary had believed that her death would create such an outcry among the people of New England that the magistrates would be forced to repeal their “wicked law.” Her death did stir up controversy, but not enough to prevent the beatings of Elizabeth Hooten and her companion in Boston not long after Mary’s death and certainly not enough to stave off the impending “witch” executions that would send shock waves through Salem only three decades later.

The courage of the early Quaker women was a significant factor in determining their place within the movement. But the opposition they faced, particularly from outside the organization, indicated a need to articulate the biblical basis for an active female role in ministry.

It was Margaret Fell (1614–1702) who did more than any Quaker woman to raise the status of women in that organization. When she was first introduced to the Friends, she was in her late thirties, the mother of nine children, and the wife of Judge Thomas Fell, the patriarch of Swarthmore Hall. She and eight of her children soon joined the Friends. Thomas remained outside the movement, but he did not prevent his wife from opening their spacious home for Quaker meetings and refugee lodging.⁹¹ Following her husband’s death, Margaret became more active in the movement. Her persuasive writing combined with her own personal example had a profound influence on the society. She traveled widely among Quaker groups and obtained a personal audience with Charles II, seeking to persuade him to demonstrate greater leniency with Quakers who were being persecuted. She herself was brought to trial along with Fox for conducting religious meetings at Swarthmore Hall and for refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance. She was found guilty and was imprisoned for four years; two years after her release she was arrested and tried again.⁹²

A fascinating report by Margaret Fell of a court trial in 1664 tells of the terrible prison conditions the Quakers were subjected to. As Fell was stepping down from the witness stand, the judge recalled her and questioned her about a letter she had previously written to him. In that letter she had complained, “Your prisons…are bad and [it] rains in, and are not fit for people to lie in.” She acknowledged the complaint, and then made a bold impromptu challenge to the judge: “If you were to lie in it yourselves you would think it hard, but your mind is only in cruelty to commit others, as William Kirby here hath done, who hath committed ten of our friends, and put them in a cold room where there was nothing but bare boards to lie on.”⁹³

In 1669, after eleven years of widowhood, Margaret married George Fox. It was a marriage of common interest but little togetherness. “They lived missionary lives, preaching and traveling, were more often separated than not, and were frequently, though never together, in prison.”⁹⁴ She was ten years older than he and lived for more than another decade after he died.

The most enduring legacy that Fell left to the Quakers was her writing. She was an outstanding apologist for the movement during the early years, and her policy positions became an integral part of Quaker belief. In 1660, she wrote a “Declaration and an Information,” that officially set forth the Quaker position on pacifism. She also responded in print to critics of Quakerism, seeking to show that the movement was not a bizarre or seditious sect that was dangerous to society. But the writing that is most often associated with her is Women’s Speaking Justified by the Scriptures, first published in 1666. Here again her influence on Quaker belief was enormous. Fox himself had written against restricting women in ministry a decade earlier, but he “had not fully developed the argument in favor of women preaching; that remained for Margaret Fell to do.”⁹⁵

Fell’s pamphlet, which is fewer than twenty pages in length, is packed full of Scripture references from Genesis to Revelation relating to women in ministry. If there is any theme that is carried through her argument justifying women’s speaking, it is that the “Spirit is poured upon all flesh, both Sons and Daughters.” This was the Magna Carta for Quaker women—the biblical promise that women were equal to men in witness through the power and authority of the indwelling Spirit—and Fell was quick to take the offensive against the “dark priests, that are so mad against women’s speaking.” For her there was no room for accommodation. The opposition to women in ministry came from nowhere other than hell itself:

But all this opposing and gain-saying of women’s speaking, hath arisen out of the bottomless pit, and the spirit of darkness that hath spoken for these many hundred years together in this night of apostacy, since the revelations have ceased and been hid, and so that spirit hath limited and bound all up within its bond and compass, and so would suffer none to speak, but such as that spirit of darkness, approved of, man or woman.⁹⁶

Among the many passages that Margaret quoted to defend the female role in spiritual matters was Genesis 21. Here she emphasized God’s command to Abraham: “In all that Sarah hath said to thee, hearken to her voice.” What Sarah had to say to Abraham, Fell argued, was in the realm of spiritual matters, and this she maintained should be seen as a natural way for God to instruct his people.⁹⁷

As much as Margaret Fell argued for the right of women to preach and speak at public meetings, such activity involved only a small percentage of Quaker women. But another activity—attending women’s meetings—did involve all the women and was almost as controversial as preaching. Despite the fact that these women were involved in the traditional female activities involving deeds of charity, the very fact that they were meeting without the supervision of a man drew heavy criticism. Fox rebuked his critics (including fellow

The Title Page of Margaret Fell’s Defense of Women in Ministry, Women’s Speaking Justified (London, 1667).

Quakers): “And now, you that stumble at women’s meetings, had not your women many vain meetings before they were convinced, and you were not then offended at them, when they met to satisfy the flesh…And why should they not now meet in their conversion, in the Lord’s power and spirit, to do his business…?”⁹⁸

Fell’s writings and concerns extended far beyond the women’s issue. She felt a personal responsibility to keep the movement pure, and this concern deepened after Fox’s death. During the final years of the seventeenth century she was enveloped in a controversy over the legalism that had penetrated the Society of Friends. She denounced the inroads of this “silly poor gospel.” She lamented that the quarterly meetings were no longer a time for people “to be admonished and instructed in the truth,” but rather had turned into a forum for “private persons to take upon them to make orders, and say this must be done and the other must not be done.” “Away with these whimsical narrow imaginations,” she wrote, “and let the Spirit of God which he hath given us lead us and guide us: and let us stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.”⁹⁹

Few segments of society have faced more intense religious persecution than did Quaker women of the seventeenth century. Their struggle to live peaceably in a bigoted society was continually frustrated by the two marks that condemned them—their sectarianism and their sex. Women who dared to preach were not only criticized and reproved with Bible verses but were also slandered, and this slander was often riveted with sexual slurs. At one time when a complaint that two women had been preaching was brought before the mayor of Cambridge, England, in 1653, he ordered the women to appear before him. “He asked their names [and] their husbands’ names. They told him: they had no husband but Jesus Christ and [that] he sent them. Upon this the Mayor grew angry, called them whores and issued his warrant to the constable to whip them at the Market-Cross till the blood ran down their bodies,” an order that was forthwith carried out.¹⁰⁰

This kind of sexism, however, was not directed only to Quaker women. Palela Volkman has found in her research that women who joined any of the sects in the late seventeenth century were more likely than men to be viewed as highly emotional, immoral, or even insane.¹⁰¹

It was to be expected that there would be opposition to women in ministry from outside the Society of Friends and other sects. But there was opposition from within as well. According to Keith Thomas, the effort to make the woman’s role an equal one met with “serious opposition from within the Society of Friends itself. The Women’s Meetings developed only slowly and even at the beginning of the eighteenth century women did not really enjoy completely equal status…“¹⁰²

Charismatic Phenomena

One of the strong objections to sectarianism in the post-Reformation era was the charismata and emotional fervor so often attached to it. Such behavior and activity resulted in ridicule as much as it did in amazement. One Suzannah Pearson allegedly attempted to bring a deceased man back to life. Jane Holmes was said to have some sort of religious fever that turned her into “a wild eyrie spirit, which…kicked against reproof, and would not come to judgment.” Another, Sarah Wight, allegedly fasted for fifty-three days. Still others, like Anna Trapnel, “were gifted with an almost endless capacity for the composition of ecstatic religious verse.”¹⁰³

Were women of this period more prone to ecstatic religious experiences than men? It would be difficult to make such a determination, but it is clear from the record of history that charismatic religion was not exclusively a woman’s domain. Men also reported visions and trances, and, like women, used such experiences to authenticate their ministry. But women generally received more attention. Critics emphasized their ecstasies to discredit them in ministry or conversely to discredit ecstatic religion.

American Pietism and Revivalism

The attitude toward women on the American scene by the time of the First Great Awakening had changed considerably since the seventeenth century when Anne Hutchinson and Quaker women were banished from the Bay Colony and the cause of Mistress Hopkins’ insanity was judged to be her interest in intellectual subjects. Cotton Mather, an eighteenth-century Puritan divine, represents this change in thinking. He made a point of counteracting sexism in the church and society. He was certainly no feminist, but he accorded far more respect to women than did most of his Puritan forebears. He lamented that “whole Volumes have been written, to disgrace the Sex,” and thus part of his mission was to correct that falsehood and to teach women how they “may recover [their] Impaired Reputations.” One such work was his Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion, in which he wrote, “If any Men are so wicked (and some Sects of men have been so) as to deny your being rational Creatures, the best Means to confute them, will be by proving your selves religious ones.”¹⁰⁴

Not only did Mather lament that volumes had been written against women, but also that the contributions of women had been virtually ignored. “He explored the theme of women’s invisibility centuries before it was recognized as a problem for historians.” In a booklet entitled Bethiah, he featured the “People, who make no Noise at all in the World; People hardly Known to be in the World; Persons of the Female Sex.” Recognition of women was also demonstrated in his preaching—particularly in funeral sermons eulogizing women. It was partly due to his vantage point as a minister that Mather so highly respected women. He could not overlook the fact, as perhaps other ministers had, that the majority of his most faithful parishioners were women. He warned single women that “it were better to have no Husband, than to have such a Buzzard as could be caught by any Cassandras.” Yet, his position on marriage and ministry was very traditional.¹⁰⁵

It is in that sense that his views had an impact on American revivalism. Women would be seen as a necessary ingredient for revival, but their presence—though not invisible—would remain behind the scenes. There were exceptions, however, when women were permitted to have a more visible public ministry—particularly when they were perceived to have divine sanction. An example is the case of Mary Reed of New Hampshire, who in 1742 claimed, along with others, to see visions. Nicholas Gilman, the local minister, acknowledged the spiritual validity of the experiences by adding “a word of Exhortation to the People” after Reed had “declared in Publick the close of Her last Vision.”¹⁰⁶

Jonathan and Sarah Edwards

The influence of Cotton Mather and others paved the way for Jonathan Edwards and other revivalists of the First Great Awakening who were conscious of the indispensible role women played in community-wide evangelistic efforts. No doubt because of this factor, revivalism like sectarianism, generally offered women a more meaningful role than did the established churches. Like his Puritan forebears, Jonathan Edwards found no place for women in a public preaching or teaching ministry. Yet he did seem more open to the idea of women’s expressing themselves on spiritual and theological issues than many of his New England predecessors had. This can be seen in the ministry of Sarah Edwards, his wife. Although Sarah did not aspire to a ministry role beyond that of pastor’s wife, her role in the Great Awakening has been characterized as “hardly inferior to that occupied by her husband.”¹⁰⁷ Indeed, she had a profound influence on her husband that tempered his fear of religious ecstasy. “Mrs Edwards was a mystic devotee, and it was her religious experience which convinced her husband against his will that intimate communion with the Divine could possibly overpower the human body.”¹⁰⁸

Sarah Edwards had been inclined toward spiritual values since her childhood. When she was thirteen, Edwards, who would wait several years to marry her, already recognized the depth of her faith. He wrote that God

comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him…She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure;…She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her.”¹⁰⁹

Like most revivalists, Edwards found that the majority of converts were female. Many of them were in their teens or even younger. In fact, on one occasion he related the story of a four-year-old girl’s conversion. She went into a closet where she pleaded with God for salvation: “she continued exceedingly crying, and wreathing her body to and fro, like one in anguish of spirit…till at length she suddenly ceased crying and began to smile…From this time there appeared a very remarkable abiding change in the child.”¹¹⁰

In his pastoral and revival ministry, Edwards made no distinction between men and women and their involvement in personal evangelism. Indeed, he urged women to speak boldly of their faith:

‘Tis beautiful in private Christians, though they are women and children, to be bold in professing the faith of Christ, and in the practice of all religion, and in owning God’s hand in the work of his power and grace, without any fear of men, though they should be reproached as fools and madmen, and frowned upon by great men, and cast off by parents and all the world. But for private Christians, women and others, to instruct, rebuke and exhort, with a like sort of boldness as becomes a minister when preaching, is not beautiful.¹¹¹

Dinah Hardenbergh

Among the Reformed Pietists in the Middle Colonies were some women who played an active role—perhaps most notably Dinah Hardenbergh (1725–1807). She was first married to John Frelinghuysen, a minister who, like his well-known father, Theodore, served in the Raritan Valley. John died only a few years after they were married, and she then married a young student (thirteen years her junior) who had come to study under her late husband. “Both husband and wife were forceful leaders in the church, sharing piety and learning. They supported each other in the work of the ministry. Between her husband’s morning and afternoon services, Dinah would gather with the women to further expound the texts and elaborate on matters of doctrine.”¹¹²

One of Dinah’s priorities in the ministry was to be an example in ‘sanctification.” She corresponded regularly with people concerning spiritual matters, and she kept a spiritual diary that strengthened her own spiritual life and helped her minister more effectively to others. Her diary reflects the depth of pietist spirituality and describes her own experience of sanctification:

It was the beginning of the year 1747. Midnight had passed; and I continued in earnest wrestlings, and drew near with a renewed dedication of myself to God, yielding myself unreservedly to Him and His ways and His service and His people. It was my inmost desire that I might receive larger measures of the renewing grace of the Holy Ghost—that my old and sinful nature might be more fully broken, the depravity of my heart subdued and the precious image of the Lord Jesus be more fully transferred to and impressed upon me, and all things became more and more new.¹¹³

In her later years, Dinah’s ministry extended far beyond that of women’s work. Her counsel was eagerly sought by ministers. “She wrote to them humbly, yet as a bishop in her concern for the church…She was a pastor to pastors.”¹¹⁴

The Wesleyan Revival

The evangelical revival in England that corresponded with the First Great Awakening in the Colonies gave birth to a “sectarian” movement that resembled in some ways the earlier Civil War sects. Although early Methodism was loyal to the Church of England, it focused on the individual’s personal relationship with God and sent out its own itinerant preachers to unify the movement. Women played a vital part in organizing the movement on a grassroots level, particularly as class organizers and leaders, and as time passed their ministry became more and more public and official. Yet the influence of women in general in Wesleyanism was behind the scenes and was far greater than their positions of leadership would indicate.

Susanna Wesley

The first woman who had a major impact on the movement was, of course, Susanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles. She left a profound spiritual influence on her children. Yet, she was outside the Wesleyan movement, and, in fact, had chosen as a young woman to turn away from the nonconformist teachings of her parents. Indeed, she was a remarkably independent young woman. “Before she was thirteen years of age she had carefully sifted the tenets of her father’s belief. She had weighed them in the balance against the doctrines of the Established Church and had decided in favor of the Church.”¹¹⁵

Susanna Wesley Prior to Her Marriage to the Reverend Samuel Wesley. From John Wesley the Methodist: A Plain Account of His Life and Work by a Methodist Preacher (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1903), 17.

Susanna’s proclivity for independent thinking did not subside with her marriage to Samuel Wesley. With a spirit of independence like hers, he had turned away from the views of his father, who was a Dissenting minister, but that, it seems, was where their similarities ended. Susanna was an aggressive, organized, and strong-willed woman who was patient with her children and tolerant of other people’s views. Samuel, on the other hand, lacked that iron will, had difficulty getting along with people, was inept in money management and business affairs, and was often stubborn and intolerant in his interpersonal relationships. This last trait manifested itself in his parish and the community as well as in the home. As an Anglican priest, Samuel continually encountered difficulties with his parishioners. He “was a strict disciplinarian where his parishioners were concerned. He minced no words in his preaching, and tact was never one of his virtues.” It is no exaggeration to say that his presence was deeply resented in the community. He and his family were harassed by his own parishioners. “They burned his flax crop, taunted the Wesley children, pried the hinges off the rectory doors. They stabbed his cows so that they gave no milk and once even tried to cut off the legs of the house dog.” During the local elections of 1705, the situation became even worse. The Wesley home was surrounded by angry armed townspeople. Soon after that Samuel was arrested for failure to pay a debt to one of his parishioners and was confined to debtors prison.¹¹⁶

Even before this humiliating incident, however, Samuel had been away from his parish for an extended period of time. His departure was occasioned by a family dispute—specifically a political disagreement between him and Susanna. Susanna, who viewed the Stuarts as the only legitimate line of royalty, considered William of Orange a usurper of the throne. This personal political conviction suddenly became ensnarled with the issue of wifely submission when Susanna refused one evening to say “Amen” to her husband’s prayer for King William III. In Samuel’s mind, his wife had overstepped her bounds—a defiance that required drastic action. “We must part,” he demanded, “for if we have two Kings, we must have two beds.”¹¹⁷

Susanna later recalled the incident. After calling her to his study, “he immediately kneeled down and imprecated the divine vengeance upon himself and all his posterity if ever he touched me more or came into a bed with me before I had begged God’s pardon and his, for not saying amen to the prayer for the King.” Following that Samuel left home, and after that Susanna wrote a letter expressing her concern for the children who had been abandoned by their father, but confessed her true feelings about the situation: “I am more easy in the thoughts of parting because I think we are not likely to live happily together.” Furthermore, she was firmly convinced that the fault lay with him not herself: “I have unsuccessfully represented to him the unlawfulness and unreasonableness of his Oath; that the Man in that case has no more power over his own body than the Woman over hers; that since I am willing to let him quietly enjoy his opinions, he ought not to deprive me of my little liberty of conscience.”¹¹⁸

Samuel returned home after the death of King William III. The political difference that had separated them had been removed, and it was during that period of reconciliation that John Wesley was conceived. The practical and philosophical differences between them, however, continued throughout their married life. One very significant disagreement came years later when John had written to them expressing his desire to become ordained and get involved in the ministry. Samuel advised him to do further study first. Susanna strongly disagreed. “Mr. Wesley differs with me, and would engage you, I believe, in critical learning…I earnestly pray God avert that great evil from you of engaging in trifling studies to the neglect of such as are absolutely necessary. I dare advise nothing; God Almighty direct and bless you.”¹¹⁹

Susanna’s influence went far beyond her family and the home. In later years, John referred to her as “a preacher of righteousness”—and for good reason. He quoted a letter she had written to Samuel when he was away during the winter of 1711–12. While she recognized that because she was a woman and “also mistress of a large family…, the superior charge of souls” was his responsibility, yet in his absence she felt obligated to serve as a spiritual guide. Initially her involvement was confined to her own family and the children in her neighborhood, but that quickly changed—though not through a concerted effort on her part: “Other people’s coming and joining with us was merely accidental. One lad told his parents: They first desired to be admitted; then others that heard of it, begged leave also: So our company increased to about thirty; and it seldom exceeded forty last winter.” Her initial passivity, however, turned into a zealous passion to affect spiritual growth among the people who had sought her out. And what about the sex barriers? “Though I am not a man, nor a Minister, yet if my heart were sincerely devoted to God, and I was inspired with a true zeal for his glory, I might do somewhat more than I do.”¹²⁰

Still Susanna, aware of a woman’s place, kept the meetings confined to her home, but she could not prevent the spontaneous growth that followed. “With those few neighbours that then came to me, I discoursed more freely and affectionately. I chose the best and most awakening sermons we have. And I spent somewhat more time with them in such exercises, without being careful about the success of my undertaking. Since this, our company increased every night; for I dare deny none that ask admittance.” This defensive tone was apparently necessary. As a woman, she had to make it clear that she was not overtly seeking a congregation to listen to her renditions of “awakening sermons.” Growth continued to the point where she could say: “Last Sunday I believe we had above two hundred. And yet many went away, for want of room to stand.”¹²¹

Perhaps it is not surprising that Samuel questioned his wife’s activities. He certainly had never experienced such popularity among his parishioners. At any rate, Susanna felt obliged to answer his concerns for his own reputation with strong convictions of her own:

I cannot conceive why any should reflect upon you, because your wife endeavours to draw people to church, and to restrain them from profaning the Lord’s day, by reading to them, and other persuasions. For my part, I value no censure upon this account…As to its looking particular, I grant it does. And so does almost any thing that is serious, or that may in any way advance the glory of God, or the salvation of souls.¹²²

Yet, she had her own reservations “because of [her] sex.” “I doubt if it is proper for me to present the prayers of the people to God. Last Sunday I would fain have dismissed them before prayers; but they begged so earnestly to stay, I durst not deny them.” Indeed, she would have gladly had a man read the sermon, but none were literate enough to do so. Clearly she, like so many women before and after her, was not making a stand for women’s rights, but rather simply felt compelled to preach the gospel.¹²³

Mrs. Turner

Another woman who had a significant influence on Methodism even before the movement was born was a certain Mrs. Turner. It was this woman who served as a catalyst for the conversion of Charles Wesley on May 21, 1738, just three days before John’s heart-warming experience at Aldersgate Street. Charles recorded in his journal that Mrs. Turner challenged him with the words, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth arise, and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities.” Although Charles was initially taken aback by the apparent audacity of this woman, he heeded her words and later “became convinced that indeed God had used her to effect his own conversion.”¹²⁴

Lady Salina Huntingdon. From I. Wesley Bready, This Freedom—Whence? (New York: American Tract Society, 1942), 65.

Lady Selina, Countess of Huntingdon

Still another area of influence of women in early Methodism related to patronage and protection, and the most noted example of this was Lady Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. Her wealth and influence helped establish Methodists on a secure footing and provided a measure of safety to itinerant preachers who were often hounded by officials. “When Welsh Methodists found themselves harried, arrested, and heavily fined for what were called ‘illegal’ religious meetings, it was through her that an investigation was undertaken that resulted in the return of the fines and full liberty for the Methodists’ preaching.”¹²⁵

One of the greatest contributions Lady Selina made to Methodism was her sponsorship of itinerant Methodist preachers. She opened her estates to various preachers, including both Wesley and Whitefield, and then invited her friends among the nobility to attend the meetings. She also sponsored the Trevecca School for training preachers. These young preachers often became part of what was known as the “Huntingdon Connection,” by their ministry in chapels that were provided by her. Indeed, during the decades of the 1760s and 1770s she built more than twenty chapels for her preachers.¹²⁶

As the chief administrator of the “connection,” Lady Selina served essentially as a bishop. She was in charge of the pastoral training, pastoral assignments, and finances and was the general overseer of the work, often traveling from chapel to chapel to ensure continuity in the ministry. She was a student of the Bible and very aware of doctrinal issues, and she did not hesitate to take a strong stand when she believed the issue warranted it, such as in the case of the Calvinist-Arminian struggle that plagued Methodism for decades. She took a strong Calvinistic stand with Whitefield and others and removed the Arminians from her college at Trevecca. Yet, she worked very hard to keep the peace with Wesley and the Arminian faction.¹²⁷

John Wesley

Despite the dependency of John Wesley and other Methodist leaders on Lady Selina and other wealthy women, Wesley initially took a very conservative stand on the place of women in ministry. In a letter to Thomas Whitehead written in 1748, he spelled out some of the differences “between Quakerism and Christianity,” denouncing the Quaker practice of allowing women to preach to a church assembly.¹²⁸

This hard-line position was beginning to weaken, however, by 1754, when he published his Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament. In commenting on 1 Corinthians, he qualified the admonition that “women be silent in the churches” with a significant loophole—“unless they are under an extraordinary impulse of the Spirit.”¹²⁹

Wesley had a very practical bent, and his initial reservations about women preaching were modified when he observed the effectiveness of their ministry. The change, however, came slowly. Women had always been permitted to speak in small informal groups—bands or classes, but as those groups grew—sometimes as a direct result of an effective female leader, the situation became more complicated. He was forced to grapple with some practical issues—one in particular that has often arisen in church history, namely, what constitutes the difference between “exhorting” or “testifying” and “preaching”?

One reason that women played such an important role in early Methodism was that they, according to Earl Kent Brown, “made up a majority of the early Methodists—perhaps a rather substantial majority. Moreover, Mr. Wesley’s letters to those women strongly urged that they be active within the societies.” The encouragement of women to be active on a lay level not surprisingly was an impetus for them to seek even more responsible roles. This inevitably involved a public ministry that called for public speaking—a daring act for an eighteenth-century woman. Women often went to great lengths to make their public speaking as unoffensive as possible.

To avoid giving possible offense, some, like Margaret Davidson, were careful never to “presume to stand up as an exhorter, lest any should take an occasion to say I assumed the character of a preacher, which might have hurt the cause of God.” Similarly, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher customarily did her speaking from the steps leading to the pulpit in the society chapels rather than from the pulpit itself.¹³⁰

Wesley’s reserved permission for women to minister in public forums was accompanied by advice that was aimed to make their presence more tolerable. To Sarah Mallet he wrote: “Never scream. Never speak above the natural pitch of your voice; it is disgustful to the hearers. It gives them pain not pleasure.” In 1761 when he received word from Sarah Crosby that crowds approaching two hundred people were coming out to her class meetings and wanting her to speak to them, he suggested that she preface her comments with the statement, “‘You lay me under a great difficulty. The Methodists do not allow of women preachers; neither do I take upon me any such character. But I will just nakedly tell you what is in my heart.’ This will in great measure obviate the grand objection.” Interestingly, only months later, he encouraged a woman to speak, without such an introduction: “If a few more persons come in when you are meeting…enlarge for a few minutes…with a short exhortation.”¹³¹

So, as practical considerations took precedence, the rule that applied to women allowed them to “exhort” but not to “preach.” This is clearly seen in Wesley’s advice to Sarah Crosby in 1769:

In public you may properly enough intermix short exhortations with prayer; but keep as far from what is called preaching as you can: therefore never take a text; never speak in a continued discourse without some break, about four or five minutes. Tell the people, “We shall have another prayer-meeting at such a time and place.”¹³²

Despite such warnings, women did “preach” from texts. Sarah Mallet is an example, and her own testimony reveals her style: “My way of preaching from the first is to take a text and divide it, and speak from the different heads.” So, as women continued to “preach” sometimes from texts and often in front of large groups, Wesley’s position continued to evolve—partly as a reaction to the criticism he and the women leaders were confronting. By the 1770s his line of defense had changed:

I think the strength of the cause rests there—on your having an extraordinary call. So I am persuaded has every one of our lay preachers…The whole work of God called Methodism is an extraordinary dispensation of His providence. Therefore I do not wonder if several things occur therein which do not fall under the ordinary rules of discipline. St. Paul’s ordinary rule was, “I permit not a woman to speak in the congregation.” Yet in extraordinary cases he made a few exceptions; at Corinth in particular.¹³³

The “Call” to Ministry

The emotionalism that was often characteristic of Methodism allowed for phenomena that could be termed an “extraordinary call,” and indeed women justified their ministry by what they perceived to be a response to God’s supernatural direction in their lives. Generally this would consist of no more than what might be considered a traditional “call” to the ministry—a personal sense of God singling out an individual for his service. On occasion, however, the “call” to women, as with men, had a more sensational twist. Sarah Mallet is an example. She considered herself “no friend of women’s preaching,” despite the fact that from an early age she sensed God was calling her to preach. Finally, “she began to have ‘fits,’ or trances, during which she would see herself before congregations, praying and preaching. Over the course of several years, Mallet experienced about eighteen such episodes, until she finally told God she would preach.¹³⁴

Such charismatic “calls” were ridiculed by churchmen. One such “call” was described in a tract entitled “A Discoverie of Six women preachers.” The anonymous author shows his obvious contempt for one Anne Hempstall, a Baptist, who “called an assembly of her bibbing gossips together, whose thoughts were bent more upon the strong water bottle, than upon the uses or doctrines which their holy sister intended to expound unto them.” The author goes on to recreate Anne’s testimony of a miraculous call: “Beloved sisters, this last night I dreamed a strange dream, moreover me thought I saw a vision, in which Anna the Prophetess was presented unto my view…I could conceive no interpretation of my dream but this, that I should imitate godly Anna, by preaching unto you, as she prophesied to others.”¹³⁵

Although the accuracy of this testimony is questionable, what is most significant is the fact that in the eyes of many men, women were not even permitted to have a ministry to other women—even an evangelistic ministry, as this apparently was, if indeed the women who attended were more interested in drinking than hearing the Word of God.

The “call” was not the only defense for female Methodist preachers. Their success convinced many women that God was truly working through their labors, and Scripture itself was used as a defense of their position. In a letter to Wesley, one women preacher pointed to 1 Corinthians 11:5, which refers to women prophesying and praying, and insisted that the passages in the Epistles that seemed to place a ban on women’s fulfilling that role referred to women’s usurping authority over their husbands or meddling in church disciplinary affairs.¹³⁶

Wesley eventually became so convinced of the rightness of women’s ministry that he openly encouraged women to preach, despite the opposition he knew they would face. Sarah Mallet recalled that he had advised her “to let the voice of the people be to me the voice of God;—and where I was sent for, to go, for the Lord had called me thither.” She was quick to point out, however, that “the voice of the people was not the voice of some preachers.” How did she stand against the opposing preachers, then? “Mr. Wesley soon made this easy by sending me a note from the Conference.”¹³⁷

Sarah Crosby

Some of the early Methodist women actually became itinerant preachers. Sarah Crosby, the best known of these, traveled until her health no longer allowed it. Four meetings a day, the first beginning at 5 A.M., with many hours of travel in a carriage or on horseback in between, was not unusual. “In one year, itinerating out of Leeds, she traveled 960 miles, held 120 public services, led 600 classes and private meetings, and wrote 116 letters.”¹³⁸

For more than twenty years Crosby continued her itinerant work before she retired from active ministry. But even then her interest in Methodism and particularly women’s work did not wane. While living in Leeds during the last decade of the eighteenth century, she headed several classes and bands, and she served as the matriarch of a group of women preachers, referred to as “the female brethren.”¹³⁹

Her success and the success of other women preachers was closely related to the support and backing of Wesley. Although Wesley believed in his later years that opposition to women in ministry had decreased, such was not the case. Indeed, the opportunities for woman to publicly minister quickly declined following his death. According to Earl Kent Brown, “Antifeminist prejudice hardened in the decades following Mr. Wesley’s death, and nineteenth-century Methodism would be far less liberal on this matter than Mr. Wesley had been.”¹⁴⁰

Continental Pietism

There is little evidence that indicates that any women had leadership roles in German Pietism. Unlike Wesleyanism, German Pietism never made a clean break from the state church, and the leaders placed great stress on education and ordination credentials. Women may have had a very important behind-the-scenes role, but apparently they had no public ministry.

Moravians

The Moravians, led by Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, were made up of refugees from different parts of Europe and of different theological backgrounds and were more mystical and sectarian than were the German Pietists. Here again, the men were firmly in control of leadership positions, but women, nevertheless, had an extraordinary influence—particularly in the area of doctrine and practice. A case in point is that of Anna Nitchmann, who later became Zinzendorf’s second wife. Even before she became his wife she had a powerful ideological influence on him and the movement in the area of mysticism. Indeed, it was a fanatical mysticism that led to grave problems in the sect. She herself had developed a gruesome obsession with the death of Christ, and years before her marriage to the Count, she wrote a circular letter to a number of Moravian churches that included such expressions as, “Like a poor little worm, I desire to withdraw myself into his wounds.”¹⁴¹

So contagious was her brand of mysticism that an “Order of Little Fools” was organized, and Zinzendorf encouraged the Moravians to behave like children and to imagine themselves as “little fish swimming in the bed of blood” or “little bees who suck the wounds of Christ.” This morbid form of mysticism had a negative fall-out on the movement. The more introspective the Moravians became in their personal identification with Christ’s suffering and death, the less they cared about evangelistic and humanitarian efforts. They regarded their mystical ecstasy rather than Christian ministry as evidence of true spirituality, and the world-wide Moravian missionary endeavor suffered. After a time, however, Zinzendorf recognized that the church had become “greatly degenerated,” and he steered his followers back to a more stable course.¹⁴²

Two Centuries of Losses and Gains

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provided women with more opportunities for ministry than they had previously enjoyed, but only if they were willing to defy male leadership in the institutionalized churches or be associated with sectarian movements and endure the scorn of respectable society. During this period, perhaps more than any previous period in history, women claimed divine sanction on their ministry. Indeed, charismata played an important part in giving many of these women a wide hearing and also in giving them self-confidence. There was a boldness and audacity that so often characterized female ministry during this period. Women “preachers” in both the Protestant and Catholic traditions during the post-Reformation period claimed supernatural and direct authority from God with little or no regard for the established church. Unlike Protestant women of the Reformation, who generally behaved in a manner that was more socially suitable for women, sectarian Protestant women—particularly Quakers—openly defied their opponents. Indeed, they sought out opportunities to challenge authorities and proclaim their right to preach.

But even when women such as Margaret Fell sought to open the door for women through carefully reasoned scriptural arguments, there was no room for debate in theological circles. Women were admonished to keep silent in the churches, and the vast majority did.

Women themselves, it should be pointed out, often objected to the idea of other women’s involvement in public ministry, and they often depreciated their own abilities and talents on the basis of sex. Elizabeth Warren, a well-known author of the mid-sixteenth century, is an example. She betrayed her feelings of low self-esteem in her efforts to downplay the validity of her writing. Conscious of her “mentall and sex-deficiency,” which made her more susceptible to heresy, she “urged obedience to all whom God had placed in lawful authority.”¹⁴³

Yet, there were encouraging signs for women, especially with the advent of Methodism and the visibility of prominent society women and itinerant female preachers. But even in the case of Methodism, women’s ministry was not looked on as natural. It was regarded an “extraordinary” measure that God allowed for launching a particular movement. And, whatever gains that were made quickly evaporated as Methodism became more a part of institutionalized Christianity.

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