## 1. Life and works



Fell's long life spanned the reigns of six English monarchs
and some of the most dramatic political events in English history,
including the Civil Wars of 1642-51 and the Glorious Revolution of
1688-89. Fell (nee Askew) was born at Marsh Grange,
Dalton-in-Furness, in Lancashire, England, in 1614, and she died in
1702. At the age of seventeen, she married the barrister Thomas Fell
(c. 1598-1658) and together they had nine children. In 1652,
upon his return home, Thomas Fell was greeted by neighbors who warned
him that his wife had been bewitched by a travelling preacher. This
preacher was George Fox (1624-91), a charismatic religious dissenter
and first-generation leader of the Society of Friends (also known as
Quakers). Upon hearing Fox speak at her local church, Margaret Fell
testified that



> 
> 
> It pleased the Lord so to open my understanding Imediately in the
> time of G Fs [George Fox's] declaration. That I saw perfectly
> Just then that wee were all wrong, & that we were but Theives,
> that had stollen the scriptures. which caused me to shed many tears.
> And I satt down in my pew & wept all the while ... (Glines
> 2003, 430).
> 
> 
> 




From that day forward, Margaret Fell was a convert to Quakerism.
Despite his initial reservations, Thomas Fell was supportive of his
wife's conversion, and the Fell family home of Swarthmoor Hall
became a popular meeting place for Friends. In these early years, while
Thomas Fell was chief magistrate of the area, the northern Quakers seem
to have avoided persecution. Though Margaret Fell eventually suffered
imprisonment for her beliefs, she remained a woman of considerable
wealth and social status throughout her life.




Together with Fox and William Penn (1644-1718), Fell is now regarded
as one of the founders of Quakerism. She helped to sustain the movement
through her large correspondence with other Friends on a range of
personal and religio-political topics. She travelled widely and spent
extended periods in London petitioning the political authorities on
behalf of persecuted Quakers; she personally addressed not only Oliver
Cromwell but also Charles II and James II. And on at least three
occasions, she spent periods in prison for holding Quaker meetings at
her house and for refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance. Fell married
George Fox in 1669, eleven years after her first husband's death,
and she was subsequently known as Margaret Fox. Together they were
active organizers of the separate Quaker women's meetings, first
officially begun in 1671.




Not long after her conversion, Fell began to express her Quaker
beliefs in print, starting with *False Prophets, Antichrists,
Deceivers* in 1655. She was the author (or co-author) of at least
23 works in total, mostly in the form of short pamphlets. Some of her
more substantial works--including *A Call to the Universall
Seed of God* (1665), *Womens Speaking Justified* (1666;
second edition, 1667), and *A Touch-Stone: or, A Perfect Tryal by
the Scriptures* (1667)--were written during the period of her
imprisonment in Lancaster Castle (1664-68). Following her death,
several of her works were collected together and published as *A
Brief Collection of Remarkable Passages and Occurrences* (1710).
Despite its 535 pages, this collection is nevertheless incomplete and
includes only a small sample of letters. Her works are now available in
their original form in online databases such as *Early English Books
Online*, or in selective modern anthologies such as Wallace (1992),
Booy (2004), and Garman et al. (1996). Elsa F. Glines has
published 164 of Fell's surviving letters in her collection
*The Letters of Margaret Fell* (2003).


## 2. Quaker thought and practice




Fell's views about female spiritual authority are best
understood in the context of her wider religious beliefs. Above all,
Fell embraces the Quaker notion that every human being has the
"Light of Christ" within them and that this light is the
Second Coming of Christ in the flesh (cf. Bruyneel 2010, 6-7;
Bruyneel 2015, 107-8; Donawerth and Lush 2018,
11-13). According to the Quaker philosophy, all human beings are
capable of attaining salvation provided that they turn their minds to
the divine light. This universalism concerning salvation, and the
Quaker view that everyone is capable of discerning fundamental
religious truths for themselves, had notable implications for early
Quaker practice. The Quakers believe that Christ is equally manifest
in everyone and that God is "no respecter of persons"
(Acts 10:34). From early on, the Quakers enacted this belief by taking
a collaborative approach to prayer meetings. They did not appoint a
single authoritarian preacher, "set up to teach them, it may be
thirty or forty years together" (Fell 1667b, 86), but rather
members would wait in silence till someone felt the light stir
within. A guiding principle, Fell says, was that no-one should
"strive for Mastery" but everyone should "esteem
others better than themselves" (Fell 1710, 55). In their
day-to-day interactions with social superiors, Quaker men would not
remove their hats, and Quaker women would not curtsey. They refused to
take oaths (such as the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy) and they
did not use deferential titles. This lack of outward submission led
some critics to accuse Quakers of "levelling all
conditions" and ignoring social hierarchies between magistrates
and people, husbands and wives, and masters and servants (Collier
1657, 12).




Despite her anti-authoritarian beliefs, however, Fell was no
advocate of active resistance to political authority. She was, in fact,
one of the first writers to articulate the Quaker philosophy of peace
and non-resistance. In a letter to Charles II, dated 1660, she declares
that the Quakers aspire



> 
> 
> 
> to live peaceably with all men, And not to Act any thing against the
> King nor the peace of the Nation, by any plotts, contrivances,
> insurrections, or carnall weapons to hurt or destroy either him or the
> Nation thereby, but to be obedient unto all just & lawfull
> Commands. (Glines 2003, 280)
> 
> 
> 




Fell emphasizes that although Friends cannot in good conscience take
an oath, "in Substance they perform that, which is true
Allegiance to the King" (Fell 1710, 29-30). They express their
allegiance by opposition to resistance and through denial of the
Pope's authority (Fell 1710, 31). In none of her works does Fell
call for the subject's right to rebel against tyrannical or
irreligious political leaders.




In the early years of the movement, Quakers also dressed plainly and
without ostentation. This practice was an outcome of focusing on the
"Inner-Man" rather than outer appearances (Fell 1660f, 20).
In one of her last "Epistle to Friends" (1698), Fell
sternly warns against the dangers of leading young Friends into
"the observation of outward things". The outward form does
not make a true Christian, but rather the inner person:
"It's the Spirit," she says, "that gives
Life" (Fell 1710, 535).


### 2.1 Doctrine of the light




This emphasis on the inward rather than the outward person lies at
the heart of Fell's egalitarian views about spiritual authority.
According to Quaker philosophy, the spirit of Christ is "in the
inward parts", it is "the Law of God written in the
heart" or the "Candle of the Lord in you" (Fell 1710,
35, 49). The light of Christ is divinely or supernaturally implanted in every individual's conscience;
it is not a natural human capacity, such as reason or rational judgment
(cf. Apetrei 2009, 134). By participating in this light, human beings
partake in "a living, pure, eternal, immortal Principle"
(Fell 1710, 92). Through the inner light, they come to learn God's
will and law--the light "makes the will of God
manifest" (Fell 1710, 50). They learn moral truths, such as
"to doe to all men as ye would they should doe to you", and
that "thou shalt not steal" and "thou shalt not
kill" (Fell 1656a, 2, 24). The light enables human beings to
recognize sin and to make considered moral judgments in matters of
justice and equity. And the light reproaches the individual for
straying from the righteous path: it "will reprove, this teacheth
in secret, and is alwayes present, when you are upon your Beds"
(Fell 1656c, 7).




But while the light is undoubtedly divine or supernatural in nature,
according to Fell, it is still up to the individual to direct her mind
to the light in order to attain redemption. Above all, personal
salvation depends upon the mind discerning the light within and then
diligently keeping to it. The individual must engage in constant mental
effort, she must "consider seriously" and "come to
search and examine" her beliefs for herself (Fell 1656b, 1,
14).




Fell reiterates these points in several tracts addressed to the Jews
of Europe, including *For Manasseth Ben Israel* (1656), *A
Loving Salutation* (c. 1656-57) and *A Call unto the Seed
of Israel* (1668). In the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell contemplated
readmitting the Jews to England for the first time since their
expulsion in the thirteenth century. In her writings, Fell welcomes
the return of the Jews, but only on the condition that they convert to
Christianity. As a millenarian thinker, she believes that the
conversion of the Jews signals the fulfilment of biblical prophecies
foretelling "the last days" and the second coming of
Christ (cf. Gardiner 1994; Guibbory 2000). Fell thus appeals to the
Jews to turn from their "outward worship" and to
acknowledge the divine light within them. In *Manasseth Ben
Israel*, Fell calls on them to "therefore cease from your
abomination, and turne to the living God" (Fell 1656c,
4). "If ever you come to know the true and living God,"
she says, "you must hearken to this Prophet which calls your
minds to within, for by this doth the living God teach his People
himselfe" (5). In *A Loving Salutation,* Fell likewise
urges the Jews to "hearken diligently" (Fell 1656a, 3):
"Incline your eare, and come unto me, hear, and your souls shall
live" (3), and "thine eyes shall see thy teacher, and thy
eares shall heare a voice behind thee" (6). With such exhortations, Fell emphasizes
that living in the light requires certain activity on part of the
moral agent, and not just the mere passive reception of the power and
spirit of God. While everyone has the divine light within their
conscience, they can only know the truths that the light
reveals--and attain salvation--by actively hearkening to the
light: "if ye desire this inheritance," she says to the
Jews, "turn your minds into the light" (8).




In these and other writings, Fell promotes a certain critical
attitude toward customary ways of practising and thinking about
religion. The path to God, she says, "leads out of the world, out
of the worlds ways, fashions, and customs, and this makes a separation
from the world" (Fell 1710, 65). The individual must learn to
rely on her own independent faculty of moral judgement or her
conscience. Both Jews and Gentiles are urged to "let
that in your Consciences (which is of God) which respects no Person,
Read and Examine those Scriptures" (Fell 1710, 65).




In the 1650s, Fell arranged to have *Manasseth Ben Israel*
and *A Loving Salutation* translated into Hebrew, in a bid to
reach a Jewish audience. There is some evidence that Baruch Spinoza
was the anonymous translator of *A Loving Salutation* (cf. Fell
1987), and that he may have adapted some of Fell's arguments in
his *Theological-Political Treatise* (cf. Clausen-Brown
2019).


### 2.2 Anti-clericalism and anti-authoritarianism




Fell's anti-clericalism (her opposition to the professional
clergy) is typical of Quaker texts of the period. In her view, the
light is the only teacher or spiritual guide that anyone requires for
salvation. The divine law is not written in paper and ink but rather
with the spirit of the living God. Fell says that "Though ye may
get all the words of the whole Scripture in your brains and
comprehension, so long as ye deny the light, and turn your minds from
the light, and seek to know these things without you, ye shall never
know them" (Fell 1656b, 3). The light of Christ makes everyone
capable of interpreting scripture for themselves, without the need for
an education in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. This claim is made most
forcefully in *A Touch-Stone: or, A Perfect Tryal by the
Scriptures,* in which Fell says that preachers of the light need
not be "Learned Men, such as have been at *Oxford* or
*Cambridge*" (Fell 1667b, 18). The apostles, after all,
did not have degrees from prestigious universities, yet no one doubts
that they taught the word of God.




On these grounds, Fell rails against those who have "set up
Schooles of Learning, as they call them; and educated youth up in that
darkness, and kept them studying and divining in their brains, till
many have studied themselves out of their Wits" (Fell 1667b,
38-39). She encourages suspicion toward human religious authority and
urges readers to question their ministers. "Try your
Teachers," she says, and do not "bow to mens wills and
worships contrary to the command of *Christ Jesus*" (Fell
1655, 1; 1660b, 3). If ministers are not in the light, then they do not
speak the word of God. Hence, no matter how well-educated or elevated
in rank our ministers might be, we must not take their word on trust.
"Fear ye not the reproaches of men," she says,
"neither be ye afraid of their revilings" (Fell 1668, 6).
On the whole, it is always better for the individual to offend other
human beings rather than God himself.




Fell maintains that most university-educated interpreters of
scripture invariably lead others away from God to their own inventions
and imaginations. She says that



> 
> 
> 
> The first thing that I except against in matter and form of their
> Worship: *Viz.* All sorts of Preachers and Teachers that are out
> of Christ and his Apostles Spirit, Doctrine and Rule, is the taking a
> part or portion of Scripture for a Text, and adding to thereto their
> own Inventions, which they study out of their own brain, and also
> bringing other Authors, who have done the like, many of them not
> Christians but Heathens. (Fell 1667b, 21)
> 
> 
> 




This anti-learning bent distances Fell from later religious
feminists, such as Mary Astell, who called for the higher education of
women in her *Serious Proposal to the Ladies* (1694). For
Astell, women can attain wisdom and virtue only if they are taught to
improve their natural reasoning skills through the study of religion
and philosophy. In her plea for a female academy, she cites the works
of Rene Descartes, Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, and Henry
More, as exemplary philosophical-theological texts. For Fell, however,
religious worship is about the individual directing herself to the
light and keeping to it; it does not consist in a dependence or
reliance upon others' words and meanings. Such worship can be
performed by anyone, anywhere, at any time.


### 2.3 Liberty of conscience




In some of her writings, Fell provides religio-political defences of
liberty of conscience (freedom of religious belief and worship) for
Quakers. In a direct appeal to Charles II, Fell calls upon the king



> 
> 
> 
> to a Consideration, according to Reason, Righteousness, and Equity,
> concerning us, as a People, to maintain our just Liberties and Rights,
> as he is engaged by Promise, to defend us from Wrongs, Injuries, and
> Violence, done to us by Military and Merciless Men. (Fell 1710, 28)
> 
> 
> 




By "liberty" here Fell means freedom from coercion and
persecution for one's religious beliefs and practices. She
laments "That the State should pretend Love to the Truth, and yet
suffer such things to be of Force, that all Bloody Persecutors may have
their Wills, so far as the Lord gives them Power, upon those that live
in the Truth" (Fell 1710, 43). Using gender-inclusive language,
she calls on the authorities to respect the rights of "free-born
*English* men and women" (Fell 1664, 1). Unlike her fellow
Quaker William Penn (who anticipates the tolerationist views of John
Locke), Fell does not offer detailed arguments for liberty of
conscience based on pragmatic, political, or epistemological
principles. She does point out, however, that "to use Violence
and Cruelty, is absolutely contrary to the Doctrine and Command of
Christ" (Fell 1667b, 45). She calls upon the political
authorities to exemplify the Christian virtues in their treatment of
religious dissenters.


## 3. Quaker feminism




As we have seen, Quaker preaching is not preaching in the
traditional sense of exhortation on scripture: "For it was not
*Christ* nor the *Apostles* Practice to take others
Records & Writings that had been spoken from others,"
Fell says, "*but they spoke as the spirit gave them
utterance*" (Fell 1660f, 4). In Fell's view, women can
justifiably preach because true preaching does not require the
traditional book-learning of men, it requires only the light of Christ
within. In their arguments, Fell and other Quaker authors repeatedly
invoke biblical quotations in support of the spiritual authority of
women, such as the claims that "there is neither male nor female:
for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28), and that
"it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour
out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy" (Acts 2:17, quoting Joel 2:28). For many Quakers, the
rise of the female preacher, like the conversion of the Jews, would be
a realization of millennial expectations about Christ's second
coming. In arguing thus, they were challenging widespread opposition to
women's preaching at the time.


### 3.1 Arguments against women's preaching




Critics of women's preaching typically appealed to the natural
inferiority of the female sex, the biblical tale of Eve's
transgression, and Pauline injunctions against women speaking in
church. In the anonymous *A Spirit moving in the Women
Preachers* (1646), the author asserts that women preachers
transgress not only the rules of nature but also of modesty, divinity,
discretion, and civility. On these grounds, the author concludes that
women preachers cannot possibly be moved by the spirit of God but must
partake in the spirit of darkness, ignorance, and gross error. To
support his point, the author notes that the Serpent approached Eve
first, because he knew that women were "the silly and weaker
Sex" and "naturally apt unto all mischiefe"
(Anonymous 1646, 2). In his *Antichrist in Man* (1655), Joshuah
Miller explicitly takes issue with the Quaker practice of permitting
women to speak in church by citing two New Testament passages that
seemingly forbid women's spiritual leadership: 1 Corinthians
14:34, "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is
not permitted unto them to speak", and 1 Timothy 2:11-12,
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer
not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in
silence". He asks:



> 
> 
> 
> What monstrous Doctrine is this? to suffer Women to be Preachers by
> way of authority, condemned as against nature *Isaiah* 3.12. I
> *Cor*. 14. 34, 35. 1 *Tim*. 2. 12. 14. This opinion was
> first held by the Pepuzians, that women might Preach, because they
> wickedly affirmed Christ assumed the form of a woman, and not of a man.
> In *France,* they allow not a woman to bee a ruler over the
> affairs of mens goods: But with us some women will be rulers over, and
> directers of mens consciences; for so amongst the Quakers, women
> commonly teach as well as men. (Miller 1655, 27)
> 
> 
> 




Miller's reference to the "monstrous Doctrine" of
women preachers calls to mind the arguments of Protestant reformer John
Knox (c. 1514-1572) a generation before. In his 1558 work, *The
First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of
Women,* Knox urges his readers to rebel against female authority.
He points out that it is repugnant to nature that the weak shall lead
the strong, or that the foolish and mad shall govern the "sober
of mind" (Knox 1558, 9). Nature informs us that women are
physically frail, mentally feeble, and generally lacking in the
necessary leadership virtues. Knox supports this view with reference to
scriptural claims that it is a virtue for women to be submissive and
subject to men. As part of the legacy of Eve's transgression, he
points out, the Bible states that man shall be lord and governor over
woman (Genesis 3:16). He also observes that the apostle Paul (again, in
Timothy and Corinthians) deprives women of "all power and
authoritie, to speake, to reason, to interprete, or to teache, but
principallie to rule or to judge in the assemblie of men" (Knox
1558, 16).


### 3.2 Precursors to *Womens Speaking Justified*




There are several early Quaker texts that challenge these nature and
scripture-based arguments against women's spiritual authority. In
doing so, the authors continue a tradition that began in the fifteenth
century with the *querelle des femmes*, an ongoing debate about
the moral and intellectual status of women in continental Europe (cf.
Kelly 1984, 68). In this debate, defenders of women protest against the
contempt and defamation of women in the works of their male-biased
peers. To support their cause, they repeatedly cite scriptural
arguments for women's spiritual equality with men and put forward
long lists of female worthies. The Quakers partake in this tradition by
explicitly addressing the subject of women's natural or
divinely-ordained subordination to men, as well as those problematic
biblical passages about Eve's transgression and women
"learning in silence".




In one of the earliest defences, *A Woman Forbidden to Speak*
(1654), Richard Farnworth sidesteps common criticisms of women's
preaching by pointing out that natural women are not permitted to speak
at prayer meetings, for "nothing must speak in the Church in God
but the Holy Ghost" (Farnworth 1654, 3). If the spirit of God is
manifest in a woman, however, then that woman ought to be permitted to
speak--because she speaks with spiritual rather than carnal
wisdom. As precedents, he cites the examples of Deborah in the book of
Judges, the prophesying daughters of Philip, the woman named Phebe who
was commended to be "a Servant or Minister to the Church"
(7), and other women who labored with Christ in the Gospel. Far from
being forbidden to speak, these women were received into the church and
"saluted with an holy kiss in the Lord" (7).




In *The Woman Learning in Silence* (1656), George Fox
likewise challenges those who would limit the spirit of God to
"learned men, old books, and authors" (Fox 1656, 4). He
goes further than Farnworth by arguing that those who prevent women
from speaking in church stop Christ himself from speaking. To
substantiate his point, he provides a list of exemplary females from
the Bible, including the daughters of Philip, Hannah (or Anna) the
Prophetess, Priscilla "an instructer", Phebe, Mary
Magdalene, and other "women-labourers in the Gospel". These
historical women provide proof that the light of Christ is the same in
the male and the female--to suggest otherwise is to defy scripture
and to place limits on the divine power. And "Who is it that dare
limit the holy One of Israel?" and "who is it that dares
stop Christs mouth? that now is come to reign in his sons &
daughters" (5).




In *To the Priests and People of England* (1655), the Quaker
women Priscilla Cotton and Mary Cole also argue in favor of the
spiritual equality of men and women. In this work, written during a
period of imprisonment in Exeter gaol, Cotton and Cole explicitly
address the Pauline injunctions to "Let your women keep silence
in the churches" and "Let the woman learn in silence with
all subjection". They reinterpret these texts to make them
consistent with other passages that imply that it *is*
permissible for women to speak or prophesy. Cotton and Cole say



> 
> 
> thou tellest the people, Women must not speak in the Church, whereas
> it is not spoke onely of a Female, for we are all one both male and
> female in Christ Jesus, but it's weakness that is the woman by
> the Scriptures forbidden, for else thou puttest the Scriptures at a
> difference in themselves ... for the Scriptures do say, that all
> the Church may prophesie one by one, and that women were in the Church,
> as well as men, do thou judge; and the Scripture saith, that a woman
> may not prophesie with her head uncovered, lest she dishonour her head
> (Cotton & Cole 1655,6-7).
> 
> 
> 




Their point is that the Bible endorses a woman's capacity for
equal spiritual authority and her entitlement to speak in church and to
prophesy. In light of these endorsements, they say, a different
interpretation must be given to those injunctions that suggest women
must not speak. Instead we must interpret "woman" to mean
"weakness", and accept that womanliness can be a property
of both males and females. As an example, they highlight 1 Corinthians
11:4-5, the warning that "Every man praying or prophesying,
having *his* head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every
woman that prayeth or prophesieth with *her* head uncovered,
dishonoureth her head". According to Cotton and Cole, this
passage might be re-interpreted in a positive light. Both males and
females may speak in church, but if they speak then they "must be
covered with the covering of the Spirit"--they must be in
the light, as it were. If they are not in the light, then they speak as
"women" regardless of their actual gender: they speak, that
is, with a lack of authority or with carnal weakness rather than
spiritual strength.




Similar arguments can be found in Sarah Blackborow's *Just
and Equall Ballance Discovered* (1660), Fox's *Concerning
Sons and Daughters* (1661), Dorothy White's *A Call from
God out of Egypt* (1662), Katherine Evans' *A
Brief Discovery of God's Eternal Truth* (1663), and
Fell's own work, *A Call to the Universal Seed*.


### 3.3 Arguments of *Womens Speaking Justified*




In light of these earlier defences, Fell's *Womens Speaking
Justified* appears to be rather unoriginal in terms of content. But Trevett
claims that "it is special in the thoroughness of that appeal to
Biblical precedent, in its sometimes cautious, but often spirited, case
for women, in its criticism of Church and clergy, and in its
optimism" (Trevett 1991, 54). In this work--first published
in 1666, and then with a new postscript in 1667--Fell brings
together many of the different argumentative strategies used in the
aforementioned Quaker texts. She reinterprets key scriptural passages,
she provides numerous examples of biblical women speakers, she draws
out the egalitarian implications of the doctrine of the light, and she
appeals to anti-clerical and anti-authoritarian Quaker principles. In
short, she presents one of the "most comprehensively
argued" Quaker defences of female preaching in her time (Trevett
1991, 54). There is also evidence that Fell first formulated her arguments as early as 1652, prior to other Quaker defences of women (cf. Bruyneel 2010, 148; Donawerth and Lush 2018, 48).


#### 3.3.1 Spiritual equality




Fell's primary concern is to establish "how God himself
hath manifested his Will and Mind concerning women, and unto
women" (Fell 1667c, 3). Toward this end, she examines significant
passages about women in both the Old and New Testaments. In the
beginning (in Genesis 1:27), she notes, God joined male and female
together in his own image and made no distinction between the sexes: he
"put no such difference between Male and Female as men would
make" (Fell 1667c, 3). Following the fall, this spiritual
equality between the sexes was compromised. The Serpent approached Eve,
discerning that she was "more inclinable" to listen to him;
and then, together with Adam, she was "tempted into the
transgression and disobedience" (3, 4). But when Eve tells God
the truth about the temptation and confesses her sin, God passes
sentence on the Serpent: "I will put enmity between thee and the
Woman," he says, "and between thy Seed and her Seed"
(4). In Fell's view, these words (from Genesis 3:15) foretell the
special role that women would play in the restoration of humankind. The
"Seed of the Woman" refers to Christ himself, who is the
Son of God "*made of a woman*", the Virgin Mary (4).
Those who prevent the Seed (or the inner light) of the Woman from
speaking, Fell says, prevent the message of Christ:



> 
> 
> Those that speak against the Power of the Lord, and the Spirit of
> the Lord speaking in a woman, simply, by reason of her Sex, or because
> she is a Woman, not regarding the Seed, and Spirit, and Power that
> speaks in her; such speak against Christ, and his Church, and are of
> the Seed of the Serpent, wherein lodgeth enmity. (5)
> 
> 
> 




In Fell's view, the coming of Christ returns the spiritual
standing of men and women to that of "the first Creation".
Once again, the sexes are on an equal footing because they each have
the spirit or the light of Christ manifest within them: his
"Spirit is poured upon all flesh, both Sons and Daughters"
(12). Following the redemption, the "Lord hath manifested himself
and his Power, without respect of Persons" (12), and
"Christ in the Male and in the Female is one" (13).




Fell thus severely criticizes those men or "blind
Priests" who "pervert the Apostles Words, and corrupt his
intent" by "contemning and despising" women in order
to prevent them from speaking in church (10, 14). To prevent a woman
from speaking is to limit the power of Christ "whose Power and
Spirit is infinite, that is pouring it upon all flesh" (12). She
sees the priests' tendency as part of a larger tendency of
"the spirit of Darkness" (i.e. the state-sanctioned church)
to prevent both Quaker men and women from spreading the message of God.
Fell foretells of a new age dawning "which brings freedom and
liberty" (11), and in which all those who are in the spirit of
the Lord (men as well as women) can speak freely, without prejudice and
persecution. In this sense, her book is (implicitly, at least) a
continuation of her fight for liberty of conscience and the rights of
"free-born *English* men and women" in her other
works (Fell 1664, 1; cf. also Skwire 2015).


#### 3.3.2 Biblical exempla




To validate her claims, Fell appeals to biblical examples of good
and wise women, such as the woman of Samaria, Martha and Mary (the
sisters of Lazarus), and the woman who poured precious ointment on
Christ's head, as well as Priscilla, Deborah, Huldah, Sarah, Anna
the Prophetess, Miriam, Elizabeth, Mary, Ruth, Rachel, Leah, the Queen
of Sheba, Esther (or Hester), Judith, the wise woman of Abel, and the
daughters of Philip. These women provide historical proof that God gave
his spirit to women as well as men. But Fell singles out Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary (mother of James)--the women who first
delivered the news of Christ's resurrection to the
apostles--for special mention. If these women had not exhibited
the virtues of love and loyalty to Christ, Fell says, then "what
had become of the Redemption of the whole body of Mankind?" (Fell
1667c, 7). In essence, she offers a pragmatic argument for permitting
women to speak in church. If the apostles had not listened to women,
then the restitution of humanity would never have come about. Women
clearly have a special providential role to play in spreading the word
of the Lord. If ministers do not permit women to speak in church, then
terrible consequences might follow.


#### 3.3.3 Scriptural exegesis




In light of Fell's points about women's spiritual
equality with men and their special role in redemptive history, she
advises her readers to re-interpret or re-contextualize those common
injunctions against women's speaking in the Bible. She begins
with 1 Corinthians 14:34, "Let your women keep silence in the
churches". In a passage preceding this statement, Fell points
out, "the Man is commanded to keep silence as well as the woman,
when they are in confusion and out of order" (8). The
apostle's words apply only to those women who are in
"strife, confusion and malice in their speaking"
(9)--those women who were "under the Law, and in that
Transgression as *Eve* was" (8). But his words do not
apply to those women who have the "Everlasting Gospel to preach,
and upon whom the Promise of the Lord is fulfilled"
(9)--they do not apply to those who have turned to the light.




In "A further Addition" to the main text, Fell extends
her analysis to 1 Timothy 2:11, "Let Women learn in silence, with
all subjection". Her argument proceeds by way of simple *modus
tollens*. If this injunction applied to all women, she says, then
no woman would be permitted to speak. But the apostle *does*
permit women to speak--he explicitly mentions the four virgin
daughters of Philip (Acts 21:9), who were respected as prophets.
"And was it not prophesied in *Joel* 2. that *Hand
maids should Propesie* [sic]? And are not Hand-maids
women?" (14). Therefore, some women must be permitted to speak.
To explain the apostle's command to silence, Fell suggests that
"here you ought to make a distinction what sort of Women are
forbidden to speak" (13). The reader ought to distinguish between
those women who are mere "*busie-bodies, and
tatlers*" (13) and those women who have the spirit of the
Lord. We might also consider the idea that a woman's
"husband" in this passage is in fact Christ himself, and
that if a woman learns from this Husband, then she ought to be
permitted to speak (17).




In a "Postscript" to the 1667 edition, Fell once again
addresses those "dark Priests" who are "so mad
against Womens Speaking" (18). She refers to the example of
Deborah (Judges 5), a woman leader who sung and praised God in
"glorious triumphing expressions" (18). Fell points out the
hypocrisy of those priests who forbid women to preach and yet include
the words of Deborah in their sermons. She scorns those who "make
a Trade of Womens words to get money by, and take Texts, and Preach
Sermons upon Womens words; and still cry out, Women must not speak,
Women must be Silent" (16). These priests are being blatantly
contradictory: they allow that women can speak the word of God, and yet
they deny that women can speak the word of God.




At this point, it might also be noted that Fell's works were
often intended to be read aloud, and so we must be aware of a certain
performative aspect to *Womens Speaking*. The author's
argument achieves its greatest force when it is spoken or performed.
This is because the very act of saying the words establishes the
conclusion of Fell's argument--the idea that women are
capable of speaking the word of the Lord. The onus then falls on her
critics to point out where she speaks in ignorance. But given that she
repeats the same scriptural passages that they themselves use (her
arguments rely on premises they would accept), then there would appear
to be little comeback.


## 4. Other Quaker defences of women's preaching




Fell's arguments are echoed in the works of later Quaker
women. In 1683, Elizabeth Bathurst published *The Sayings of
Women* (1683), the only other seventeenth-century tract after
Fell's to be "exclusively devoted to the vindication of
women's speaking" (Apetrei 2010, 174). Like *Womens
Speaking*, this work is more than just a collection of quotations
from the Bible: it is intended to show that, following Christ's
restitution of humanity, women once again share a spiritual equality
with men. In the "Postscript" to this work, Bathurst
contrasts the state of women after the fall with the state of women
following Christ's redemption. She points out that "*As
by Woman came in the Transgression and Degeneration; So by
Woman also came the Reconciliation and Restoration,* to wit,
*Christ*, who came of the Woman's Seed" (Bathurst
1683, 24). Like Fell, Bathurst highlights the fact that women play a
special role in redemptive history and, with the coming of Christ,
"*Male and Female are made all one*" (24).




Other Quaker women who assert the spiritual equality of men and
women include Anne Docwra in her *Epistle of Love* (1683),
Dorcas Dole in *Once more a Warning* (1683), and an anonymous
author in "A Seventeenth-Century Quaker Women's
Declaration" (*c.* 1675-80), a piece that may have been
the work of Fell's daughter, Sarah (Speizman & Kronick,
1975).


## 5. Criticisms of Quaker defences of women




Modern critics identify several problems with describing Quaker
defences of women as "feminist". They point to the fact
that, despite their affirmations of spiritual equality, the Quakers
still uphold a negative conception of sexual difference, they suggest
that women preachers must typically transcend or efface their female
sexuality, and they do not call for wider socio-political changes for
women.


### 5.1 Denigration of natural women




In some Quaker texts, "woman" or
"womanliness" is redefined to mean weakness and carnal
wisdom by contrast with strength and spiritual wisdom. In *To The
Priests and People*, Cotton and Cole identify womanliness with
weakness, vanity, shame, and dishonor. They insult the priests who
visit them in prison by saying that "you your selves are the
women, that are forbidden to speak in the Church" (Cotton
& Cole 1655, 7-8). In response, Gill (2005) notes that



> 
> 
> there is a problem with accusing enemies with possessing
> 'feminine' weakness. Such an argument retains categories of
> gender difference, thereby assigning them continued significance.
> Masculine characteristics remain preferable to those associated with
> women. (52; cf. also Trevett 1991, 50).
> 
> 
> 




In short, these Quaker writers continue to perpetuate a male-biased
tradition in Western religion according to which femaleness is
symbolically coded as inferior, imperfect, and "less
divine" than maleness (cf. Tuana 1993). They implicitly accept
the prejudices of their misogynist critics, such as Joshuah Miller and
John Knox, who maintain that women are physically weak and mentally
feeble by nature.




Another, closely related, problem is that in some Quaker texts
natural women themselves are not permitted to preach the word of the
Lord. Smith (1982) points out that "Women functioned as the
vessels for Christ's teaching, not as speakers for
themselves" (70). Women are permitted to speak only insofar as
they are instruments or bearers of the light. According to Gill, the
Quaker women "seem to be attempting to divorce spirituality from
physicality, claiming the message should be attended to rather than the
person delivering it" (Gill 2005, 42). But this separation
between the spiritual and the physical is problematic. Spiritually
speaking, the body of the female preacher is simply irrelevant to the
delivery of the message; while physically speaking, the female preacher
still represents all that which is despicable and unworthy of God. In
sum, it would appear that the early Quaker defenders of women's
preaching either ignore or denigrate a woman's sexed body.


### 5.2 Limitations to egalitarianism




Other critics (Smith 1982; Broad & Green 2009) point out
that the Quakers' egalitarian approach to female ministry is
built upon a purely religious conception of what makes all human beings
equal. The problem is that this spiritual equality does not
automatically translate into political equality for women in a more
general sense. Smith (1982) notes that Fell's defence of
women's speaking did not "include a questioning of other
aspects of sexual hierarchy" (96). In response to 1 Timothy
2:11-12 ("I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority
over the man"), Fell writes that



> 
> 
> Here the Apostle speaks particularly to a Woman in Relation to her
> Husband, to be in subjection to him, and not to teach, nor usurp
> authority over him, and therefore he mentions *Adam* and
> *Eve*: But let it be strained to the utmost, as the opposers of
> Womens Speaking would have it, that is, That they should not preach nor
> speak in the Church, of which there is nothing here. (Fell 1667, 9)
> 
> 
> 




Here Fell implicitly accepts the husband's authority over the
wife's within marriage. Her stand on women's preaching is
not meant to challenge hierarchical relations within the marital
institution, it challenges only women's subordinate position in
the church. Smith sees this as a pattern in sectarian women's
texts of the seventeenth-century:



> 
> 
> 
> Most female religious writers simply ignored political or feminist
> topics. Even Margaret Fell Fox, one of the most forceful supporters of
> women's being able to speak in Quaker meetings, argued in
> *Women's Speaking Justified* ... that they should
> never speak in a way that would usurp authority over men. For the large
> majority of women writing religious tracts during the seventeenth
> century, the question of women's rights simply never arose.
> (Smith 1982, 70)
> 
> 
> 




Along the same lines, Broad and Green (2009, 172-79) point out that
there is no necessary inference from the Quaker theory of spiritual
equality to the view that women as well as men ought to have equal
access to social goods, such as education. The Quakers' arguments
do not logically lead to equal education for women, because women do
not require an education in order to attain salvation or to be in the
spirit of the Lord. Their arguments do not logically lead to equal
employment opportunities or full political participation for women
either, because it is only necessary that women be active and employed
in religious matters. In short, the Quaker theory of sexual equality
does not amount to a fully articulated feminist theory of political
equality.


### 5.3 Response to criticisms




Nevertheless, the charge of denigrating the female sex cannot be
levelled at Margaret Fell herself. Feroli (2006, 149-50) highlights the
fact that Fell's arguments in favour of women's preaching
do not efface the significance of the female body. In *Womens
Speaking Justified*, Fell supports her case for female spiritual
authority by appealing to the Virgin Mary's vital role in
salvation history. By virtue of her maternal power, Fell emphasizes,
Mary gave birth to the "Seed of the Woman": "the holy
Ghost came upon her, and the holy thing that was born of her, was
called *the Son of God*", and Christ was "*made
of a woman*" (Fell 1667c, 12, 4). Here Fell upholds a
positive conception of sexual difference, according to which the female
body is integral (rather than irrelevant) to the bringing of
Christ's message. In addition, Fell also valorizes the women who
spread the message of Christ's resurrection. These women exhibit
admirable character traits or virtues, such as love and
loyalty to Christ: their hearts were "united and knit unto him in
love", and they "could not depart as the men did, but sat
watching and waiting, and weeping about the Sepulchre" (7). The
woman who pours ointment on Christ's head also demonstrates that
she "knew more of the secret Power and Wisdom of God, then his
Disciples did" (5). In such instances, women are not required to
transcend or efface their natural womanhood in order to be admirable,
and they are not mere vessels for the message of Christ--they have
their virtues regardless, as natural women. Hence Feroli says that
Fell's text "not only affirms the theological point that
women may speak in the church but also attempts to change general
perceptions of women's abilities" (Feroli 2006, 151). Her
text challenges negative stereotypes of women as mentally and morally
inferior to men.




More generally, it might be noted that when the Quakers defend a
woman's right to speak with religious authority, they are also
(implicitly, at least) defending a natural woman's ability to
choose freely to live in the light. In her millenarian "calls to
the Jews", *For Manasseth Ben Israel* and *A Loving
Salutation*, Fell emphasizes that while the spirit of the Lord
might be divinely implanted, turning to the light requires a certain
capacity for discernment, a firm resolution of will, and a natural
bravery and courage on the part of the individual. First,
"hearkening diligently" to the inner light requires the
subject actively to discern what is necessary for her salvation. An
individual must be capable of understanding or recognising what is her
true good, such as "Eternall peace" (Fell 1656c, 5) or the
divine "Inheritance" (Fell 1656a, 8). Second, hearkening
requires that the subject show due attention to the voice of the Lord
within, by an exercise of free will: the individual must will herself
to "turn" her eyes or "incline" her ears (Fell
1656a, 3). And third, hearkening requires strength of moral
character--not only because the light reproaches the individual
with her own sin, but because turning to the light may require
contradicting one's spiritual teachers.  The light
"lets you see the thoughts of your hearts, that they are vaine,
which light lets you see when you doe amisse, when you tell a lye, when
you doe wrong to any man" (Fell 1656a, 2). This knowledge will
"rip you up and lay you open ... and make all the deceit of
your heart appear" (Fell 1656c, 7). The individual must be brave
and steadfast to face up to such sinfulness. She must also reflect
critically on what she may have been taught to believe by family and
friends, especially those conventions concerning outward worship and
outward appearances. In short, by affirming that women preachers can be
in the light, Fell implicitly affirms that natural women are capable of
asserting their intellect and will in order to attain salvation, even
if that means defying their fathers, husbands, or other male spiritual
guides.


## 6. Conclusion: Fell's place in history of feminism




In this last respect, Fell and her fellow Quakers anticipate the
ideas and arguments of later seventeenth-century feminists, such as
Mary Astell and Damaris Masham. These later women build on the basic
Protestant insight that a woman's salvation depends upon herself
alone and her own independent capacity for reflection on her beliefs.
They call on women to avoid blind obedience to human religious
authority and they assert a woman's capacity to discern moral and
religious truths for herself. But their arguments are also based on an
egalitarian concept of reason--or the idea that men and women have
the same natural capacity for rational judgment--and not the idea
that women are spiritually equal to men by virtue of a supernatural
light. It is reason, according to Astell and Masham, that is the
"Candle of the Lord" in all human beings. They therefore
emphasize that in order to attain everlasting happiness through virtue,
women must be properly educated in order to improve their rational
faculties. In later centuries, these part-secular, part-religious ideas
about reason and education would evolve into calls for social and
political equality for women.




Margaret Fell is not an advocate of an egalitarian concept of reason
or a supporter of equal educational opportunities for women. Her
arguments in favour of female preaching rest on a principle of
spiritual equality, or the idea that both men and women have the
supernatural light of Christ within them. But for Fell, the ability to
hearken to that light implicitly requires that women possess a natural
capacity to discern the truth for themselves, to exercise strength of
will, and to exhibit moral virtue or excellence of character. In these
respects, Fell's arguments for female preaching contain an
implicit feminist challenge to negative perceptions about women's
moral and intellectual abilities in her time. On these grounds, we
might conclude that her writings constitute something of a bridge
between the *querelle des femmes* of the late-medieval period
and the later feminist arguments of figures such as Astell and
Masham.