A Sincere and Constant Love - Work of Margaret Fell

Declaration to King and Parliament

The second of Fell's works included in the book is also from 1660, A Declaration and an Information from Us, The People Called Quakers, to the Present Governors, The King and Both Houses of Parliament, and All Whom It May Concern. Thirteen other prominent Friends, including George Fox, signed a statement to "subscribe and witness to the truth of this" declaration. That Margaret Fell was the person to write this important declaration demonstrates her importance to the movement.

Coming after the restoration of the king, a time of great suffering for Friends, the declaration explains the movement's principles and pleads for religious freedom. It is noteworthy as the first public declaration of the Friends' peace testimony, coming several months before the widely quoted January 1661 declaration. She sets forth the Quaker concept of the Lamb's War, a spiritual war with evil, and states that Friends "bear our testimony against all strife, wars, and contentions that come from the lusts that war in the members..."

Women's Speaking

Perhaps the best known of Margaret Fell's pamphlets is Women's Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures, All Such as Speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus And How Women Were the First That Preached the Tidings of the Resurrection of Jesus, and Were Sent by Christ's Own Command Before He Ascended to the Father (John 20:17), published in 1666 during her four-year imprisonment. "Feminist historians have recognized it as a key document, one of the first by a woman, in the evolution of woman's vision as an equal partner with man." (p. 57)

It is not a full-blown feminist tract by modern standards, but it is a quite vigorous defense of women's spiritual equality and justifies women being active in the public ministry. It remains an important work today, when numerous churches continue to restrict the ministry of women. It is a very careful exegesis of scripture, highlighting the difference between women under the Law and women of the New Creation under Christ. Fell is a particularly appropriate person to write this tract, as her life and ministry ably demonstrates how powerfully the Lord can work in public ministry through a woman.

Some Ranters Principles Answered

The last doctrinal work of Fell which Wallace presents is actually the earliest to be published, 1656. It is a vehement tract attacking the blasphemy

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