  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).