XPost: alt.bible, alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox, aus.religion.christian   
   XPost: england.religion.christian, hk.soc.religion.christianity   
   From: jnhickling@ntlworld.com   
      
   "As the woman had so wilfully sought the gratification of her flesh, when   
   the Lord God passed sentence upon her He made it the ground of her   
   punishment. "I will," said He, "greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy   
   conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children: and thy desire shall   
   be subject to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."   
      
   This being her   
   portion as the consequence of sin, the reverse would have been her   
   condition, so long as her animal nature should have continued unchanged, if   
   she had remained obedient.   
      
   She would have brought forth children without   
   pain and would have had fewer of them; nor would she have been deprived of   
   that equality she enjoyed in the garden, and consequently she would have   
   escaped that degradation she has experienced in all the countries of the   
   world. The punishment, however, was not inflicted simply as an individual   
   sorrow.   
      
   The pain was personal, and the subjection likewise; but the   
   multiplication of woman's conception became necessary from the altered   
   circumstances of things, which were then being constituted for the ensuing   
   seven thousand years. In the war divinely instituted between the seeds of   
   the serpent and the woman, there would be a great loss of life.   
      
   The   
   population of the world would be greatly thinned; besides which great havoc   
   would be made by pestilence, famine, and the ordinary diseases of the flesh.   
      
   To compensate this waste, and still to maintain an increase, so that the   
   earth might be filled, necessitated that part of woman's punishment involved   
   in the multiplication of the conception, which is a great domestic calamity   
   under the serpent-dominion of sin.   
      
   We hear much in some parts of the world of the political rights and equality   
   of women with men, and of their preaching and teaching in public assemblies.   
      
   We need wonder at nothing which emanates from the unenlightened thinking of   
   sinful flesh. There is no absurdity too monstrous to be sanctified by   
   unspiritualized animal intellect. Men do not think according to God's   
   thinking, and therefore it is they run into the most unscriptural conceits;   
   among which may be enumerated the political and social equality of women.   
      
   Trained to usefulness, of cultivated intellect, and with moral sentiments   
   purified and ennobled by the nurture and admonition of the Lord's truth,   
   women are "helps meet" for the Elohim, and much too good for men of ordinary   
   stamp.   
      
   The sex is susceptible of this exaltation; though I despair of   
   witnessing it in many instances till "the age to come." But even women of   
   this excellency of mind and disposition, were it possible for such to do so,   
   would be guilty of indiscretion, presumption, and rebellion against God's   
   law, in assuming equality of rank, equality of rights, and authority over   
   man, which is implied in teaching and preaching.   
      
   It is the old ambition of   
   the sex to be equal to the gods; but in taking steps to attain it, they   
   involved themselves in subjection to men. Preaching and lecturing women are   
   but species of actresses, who exhibit upon the boards for the amusement of   
   sinful and foolish men. They aim at an equality for which they are not   
   physically constituted, they degrade themselves by the exhibition, and, in   
   proportion as they rise in assurance, they sink in all that really adorns a   
   woman.   
      
   The law, which forms a part of the foundation of the world, says to the   
   woman, "He shall reign over thee." The nature of this subjection is well   
   exhibited in the Mosaic law (Numb. xxx. 3-I5). A daughter being yet in her   
   youth in her father's house, could only make a vow subject to his will. If   
   he held his peace, and said nothing for or against, she was bound by her   
   word; but if when he heard it, he disallowed it, she was not bound to   
   perform, and the Lord forgave the failure of the vow. The same law applied   
   to a wife.   
      
   A widow, or divorced woman, were both bound to fulfil, unless   
   their husbands had made them void before separation. If not, being subject   
   to God, they had no release. This throws light upon the apostle's   
   instructions concerning women. "They are commanded to be under obedience, as   
   also saith the law."   
      
   And "Iet 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."   
      
   The reason he gives for imposing silence and   
   subjection is remarkable.   
      
   He adduces the priority of Adam's formation, and   
   the unhappy consequences of Eve's talkativeness and leadership in   
   transgression; as it is written, "Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam   
   was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression   
   first" (1 Tim. ii. 11-14).   
      
   And then, as to their public ministrations, he   
   says, "Let women keep silence in the congregations; for it is not permitted   
   unto them to speak, but to be under obedience, as saith the law. And if they   
   will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame   
   for women to speak in the congregation" (1 Cor. xiv. 34-35).   
      
   It is true that   
   in another place the apostle says, "let the aged women be teachers of good   
   things;" but then this teaching is not to be in the congregation, or in the   
   brazen attitude of a public oratrix. They are to exercise their gift of   
   teaching privately among their own sex, "that they may teach the young women   
   to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet,   
   chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word   
   of God (which they profess) be not blasphemed" (Tit. ii. 4-5).   
      
   Christian   
   women should not copy after the God-aspiring Eve, but after Sarah, the   
   faithful mother of Israel, who submitted herself in all things to Abraham,   
   "calling him lord" (Gen. xviii. 12).   
      
   Nor should their obedience be   
   restricted to Christian husbands only. They should also obey them "without   
   the word;" that is, those who have not submitted to it, in order that they   
   may be won over to the faith when they behold the chaste and respectful   
   behaviour of their wives, produced by a belief of the truth (1 Pet. iii.   
   1-6).   
      
   Such are the statutory provisions enacted in the world's constitution at the   
   beginning, with respect to the position of women in the body, social and   
   political. Any attempt to alter the arrangement is rebellion against God,   
   and usurpation of the rights of men to whom God has subjected them. Their   
   wisdom is to be quiet; and to make their influence felt by their excellent   
   qualities.   
      
   They will then rule in the hearts of their rulers, and so,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)