By admitting the impropriety of women’s preaching, etc., we condemn that most useful body of people called Methodists; both that part of them which allows women may be endowed with authority from on high to preach, as well as that part of them which totally denies as all such authority, seeing the whole body of them allow and approve of women’s speaking to edification and comfort. Witness their love feasts, class and band meetings; they are all religious services; and I cannot see how we can allow the one, and reject the other.
Lastly, let all those daughters and handmaidens of the Lord, who think it their duty to pray, prophesy, or preach in his name, occupy the talent God has given them, to his glory. As long as you are sensible that your hearts are sincere, your intentions pure, your lives holy, that you have no other end in view than gaining proselytes to Jesus Christ; continue to follow the openings of Providence, and the immediate teachings of his Spirit. If devils are cast out; souls saved; and the people willing to hear you; let no man stop you, without producing his authority from the King of heaven; and giving you good and sufficient security that he will answer for your neglect of service in the church of Christ, at the divine tribunal, in the day of awful and righteous retribution...
From what has been advanced, I think it appears, (at least to me) that female preaching, in some extraordinary cases, (and this is all I contend for) is both reasonable and lawful, consonant to Scripture, and the practice of primitive times; and I certainly think if any person could so far divest himself of any preconceived opinion on the subject, so as to weigh impartially in the balance of the sanctuary the Scriptures cited in this pamphlet, will be led to decide in the same way; ...
I trust I am endeavoring to follow scriptural truth wherever it may lead me. I know the conversion of sinners is the work of God — it is his to begin, carry on, and establish it. It is his to choose the instruments, and means of doing it. And all the glory must be ascribed to him....
- Zachariah Taft (The Scripture Doctrine of Women’s Preaching)
He was married to the well respected and well-known preacher, Mary Barritt Taft.
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