"Woman: Her Place and Work in the Church of Christ."

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3959, 6 September 1881, Page 3

"Woman: Her Place and Work in the Church of Christ."

A SeBMON BY THE BEY. V. LtTBH. Dtlivered in . Bt. (xeorqe's . Church, Thames, v" '' itltr September, 1881. ■ : (Concluded from our last.) But, in reality, over and above the work which women can most usefully aud legitimately do in private, and of which I shall speak presently, there is a part womeu may take in the Church itself, viz., singing psalms and iiymns, uncl spiritual songs, and thus indirectly teach aud exhort one another; and this is no violent straining of the word " prophesying," seeing we find it used in this sense in connection with the singers in the Temple,.for in the 24th of Chronicles we read that it w^b'so of the sons of Asaph, " that they should prophesy with harp, with psalteries, and with cymbals." But I have lived long enough to have, found out thai^ say what you will, many people are apt to take their interpretation of Scripture to be Scripture ; and any other person's interpretation, if it differ from their rowh',("'nof'Scripture. Hence the necessity of falling back on the Church's interpretation as final and authoritative. Now, it has been so genernl a custom of the Church to forbid women preaching in

public assemblies of Christians, that any interpretation of Scripture which does not agree with that custom must be incorrect.'lt is bertain that in , the early Church, whenever .women attempted to breakthrough the silence imposed upon them, it was at once suppressed; St. j Paul, as. we have seen, rebuked the over eager self assertion of certain women in the Church at Corinth ; and Tertullian, speaking on this point, says, "A. woman is not permitted to speak in the Church." And in another treatise he alludes, as though in surprise, to some women ',' who dare to speak." St. Chrysostom, in his exposition of St. * Paul's Epistje, commenting on the silence to be observed by women in the Church, says;. "If to them that have the gifts it is not permitted to speak inconsiderately, nor when they will, and this though they be moved by the Spirif,' much les-s to those women who prate idly, and to no purpose." And St. Cbrjspstcin.'.'.,-ends his comment on this chapter by . stating that "all other Churches held this law, and thereby checked any disturbance by consideration; of the novelty of the thing, and he [ advised the Corinthians to do likewise, to the end that all things in tbe public service of fcbe Gburcb. might be done decently",, and in order. One of our most eminent theologians;' Richard Hook' r—called the *' learned and judicious Divine "—in his sth Book of his Ecclesiastical Polity,., doth deny "that women may be called to bear or publicly f take upon >tbem to execute offices of ecclesiastical order;'' and again he sayi,' ''Seeing they neither did or could receive ordination, to make them ecclesiastical persons were absurd." It were as well also to bear in mind that the early; Church had women set apart as deaconesses; and yet these deaconesses did not preach, did not usurp tbe office of public teacher in the Church,- but found ample scope for•" prophesying "in house to house visiting, in the training of Christ's little ones, in nursing the sick,,in. feeding the famished, •clothing the naked, visiting the poor; in short, in being, not in name only, but in very deed, "sisters of mercy." In the Bible instances of female devotedness and piety are abundant; but their good works were done, as it were, in privacy, without ostentation, without publicity,: : Jochebed and Miriam risking their lives to save the child Moses; Ruth giving up friends and country for the God of Israel; Hannah depriving herself of her son Samuel, that he might he more entirely devoted to God's service ; but not to be tedious, it will suffice to remind you of that pious " sisterhood " who, during the sojourn of our blessed, Lord here on earth, followed Him, ministering of their substance to His wants. And in these holy .women, serving and attending upon our Lord, we have an illustrious example of the true piace and work of women influenced by the Holy Spirit in the Church of, .Christ. I say, in our Lord's attached attendants, we have an example of the* place and work for women in all subsequent ages, for do not the services of these devoted women point what can be and what should be the services of women to Him who, though

now absent, is still present in the membesp,of His body, the Church? And, if this;,be so, there is a most ample sphere oflegitimate usefulness Ho women who have energy, activity, and the love of souls, and are animated with a praiseworthy wish to serve God and benefit their fellow creatures^ They can do as Dorcas did, be full of good works and alms deeds; or as Priscilla did, teach more carefully those who need instruction in the way of God ; doing all for the love of Christ, as did those holy women who followed Him in Gallilee and ministered unto Him. But when, instead of being thus unobtruBively useful — when, 1 instead of the modesty and shamefastness, on which St. Peter and St. Paul lay so much stress, we find a woman seeking the notoriety of the platform and advertising her intended preachings, and when this, or any ap-, proach to thisj becomes'a settled purpose of a woman's life, then, as it sets at nought not only an apostolic law, but breaks, through a custom of the Church universal,rsuch women must .find that they have not raised themselves to the level of roan, but lowered themselves Tbelowiixe level of true womanhood, for, as St. viirysostom; speaking of such, says: "But if any say how can this be a, abame to the wonlanj if she mount up to the'glory of a man, we make this answer, she dotji not mount up, but rather falls from her,-proper, honour, since not to abide within our own limits and the laws ordained of God, but to go beyond, is not an addition, but a diminution." Before I conclude, I jwould say a few words on two remarks which a certain member of the Church made in connection with Mrs Hampson's mission. One was, that he considered it; as a.proof of God's sanctj.qn,,tp her; public \ preaching that such multitudes flocked together to hear her preach. But, a multitude of listeners does not necessarily bespeak the growth' of piety : and may not the fact of such numbers running greedily after .the novelty of a female preacher be butthe fulfilling of St. Paul's prediction that in the latter days men will, after their own .lusts, heap to themselves teachers having, itching ears, like the Athenians of old, vho delighted in nothing so much as to (hear somethingnew. The other remark was this V Thai-ihe immense good resulting from ber preaching is a proof of Ood's blessing; But the value of thegood •dove depends.ou its coutinuance. It' it be 'like the goodness of Ephraim—as a morn* ing cloud and. as the early dew: short|ied T avid trausieut—tlieo it is of little

value, and not by the blessing of God. The transient hysterical crying. th^> snd . den emotional transport, the tnmpor.u-y excitement sure to arise from bi'insj in the [ midst of an excited crowd, more or less sighing and groaning—all this result, I think nothing of: it is all pvanescant. in its nature, " passing away " as a morning cloud or the early dew. But even ndmitting that much permanent good has resulted from the impassioned eloquence of this female preacher, this question arises: Since the Holy Scripture has forbidden woman to preach, is if lawful to do wrong that good may come? Whs it right for those Christians at Rome to preach Christ of envy and strife—i.c . to. preach merely in the hope to vpx Paul and add affliction to his bonds P It is true St. Paul rejoiced insl.adof fooling vexed, but that was no justification for their wrong doing in the first instance. And if God was pleased to bless the preaching of those, in the early Church, who preached from a wrong motive, or is pleased to bless the preaching of a woman in these latter days, who. in so doing, disobeys ? While it magnifies the goodne«s of God in over ruling wrong doing for the purposes of His mercy, it does not, and cannot, justify any one deliberately to disobey a plain Law of Scripture : a law which has been observed everywhere, in all ages, and in all branches of the Church Universal. I have already detained you too long. I will not therefore enlarge, as I well might, on the unfeminine, the unlovely method of these last days, which forsaking the place and the province God himself assigned to woman—the way of privacy, the unobtrusive charities of home, the acts which shun notoriety, the distaste for. popular applause—is acting as if some Gospel had been discovered, which inculcated a diametrically opposite course. But I simply add tbat holding these, opinions 1 have this evening expressed, I could not conscienciously encourage any woman in preaching and teaching publicly in the Church, for I hold with St.-Paul, '-We have no such custom, neither the Churches of God;"