A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many useful questions and cases of conscience are…A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many usefull questions and cases of conscience are…

Object. 1. The Prophets, 1 Cor: 14 were not immediately inspired with prediction; for women that were so inspired, might deliver their prophecy in the Church, but there women ⟨p. 75⟩are forbidden to speak, vers: 34. Answ: 1. But where find we that women which were prophetesses, and immediately inspired, were allowed to deliver their prophecy in the Church. I suppose he had a respect to 1 Cor: 11. 5. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head covered, dishonoureth her head, which is meant of the public Assembly, for the Apostle is speaking of covering, or uncovering the head in the Church. But diverse Interpreters understand here by a woman, that prayeth or prophesieth, a woman that joineth as a hearer in the public Assembly, and so vers: 4. by a man that prayeth or prophesieth, a man that is a hearer, and joineth in the ordinances. So that the Geneva annotation upon verse 5. gives a good sense of that Text: That women which show themselves in public and ecclesiastical Assemblies, without the sign and token of their subjection, that is to sa•, uncovered, shame themselves. See more for th•s in Junius his annotations on the Arabic version in that place. •. If the Apostle by prophesying, 1 Cor: 11. 4. 5. Understand prophesying by immediate inspiration, then the Objection may be retorted and turned into an Argument against the Objectors: For the sense of the word prophesying in the 11. Chap: may give light to the word prophesying in the 14. Chap. 3. Peter Martyr, loc: come: eccles: 4. cap: 1. Is indeed of opinion, that women which were prophetesses, and extraordinarily inspired, might sp•ak in the Church, provided that their heads were covered, in token of feminine subjection, and that the forbidding of women to speak in the Church, extendeth to such, and so he reconcileth, 1 Cor. 14. 34. 1 Tim. 2. 13. with 2 Cor: 11. 5. I doubt his opinion in this particular is not well grounded, only so far I make use of it, that if 1 Cor: 11. 5. be meant of prophetesses, praying or prophesying in the Church, (which the Objector hath to prove). Then certainly the forbidding of women to speak in the Church, cannot be understood universally,