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George Fox
George Fox (1624 - 1691). English Dissenter, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), born in Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire. Apprenticed as a shoemaker, he left home at 19, seeking spiritual truth amid Puritan and Anglican tensions. In 1647, after visions and direct experiences of God, he began preaching an “inner light” accessible to all, rejecting clergy and formal worship. By 1652, he gathered followers in northern England, forming the Quakers, known for pacifism and simplicity. Fox traveled across England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and America, enduring eight imprisonments for his beliefs, including at Lancaster Castle. He wrote Journal (1694) and numerous letters, shaping Quaker theology with calls for equality and justice. Married to Margaret Fell in 1669, a key Quaker leader, they had no children, but she had eight from her prior marriage. His 1660 Declaration rejected violence, influencing conscientious objection. Fox’s emphasis on personal revelation transformed Protestantism, and his writings remain central to Quaker thought.
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George Fox preaches about the importance of dwelling in the power of the Lord God, maintaining unity and fellowship in the spotless truth and life of God, and being a good savour to God by living in the newness of life. He emphasizes the need to keep in the holy life, guided by the spirit of the Almighty, to walk in truth, righteousness, peace, and holiness to see God. Fox urges living in peace, as God is the author of peace, and avoiding unrighteous actions that lead to wars and troubles. He encourages living in the truth and power of God to inherit the endless life and serve the Lord with pure mind, soul, and spirit.
Epistle 246
O dear friends! mind every one your habitation in the power of the Lord God, that first convinced you, and keep your possession in it, in the sense of God's love and mercy to your souls; for your unity and fellowship lie in the spotless power, truth, and life of the everlasting God of life and power; and herein to you the springs of life will be opened, through which you may be daily refreshed up to the God of life. Oh! be tender of the spotless truth and life, through which you may come to answer it in all Friends, that they may have unity with you in the same life and power, through which you may be a good savour to God, and a blessing to him in your generations, serving the Lord God in the newness of life [Rom 6:4/7:6], as a chaste spouse and bride to him [2 Cor 11:2], in body, soul, and spirit, having an esteem of your bodies, which are for the Lord, and to be his temple [1 Cor 6:19], not for adultery or fornication [1 Cor 6:13], nor idolatry. Oh! therefore mind and keep in the holy life, and feel the moving and counselling power and spirit of the Almighty in you, directing you into the ways of truth and righteousness, peace and holiness, without which none shall see God [Heb 12:14]. Live in the peaceable life, and love it; eye that which makes for peace [Rom 14:19], for God is the author of peace, and not of confusion [1 Cor 14:33]. So live all in the precious truth of God, feeling it in its operation; through which unity and the peaceable life may be preserved amongst you in righteousness and peace; for wars, and strifes, and troubles, and fightings, come by unrighteous actions, which are below truth and righteousness; for truth leads into the modest, decent, and comely life, which is honourable and estimable to God, and in the hearts of all his people. So live in the truth and the power of it, that you may all come to be heirs of the power of an endless life [Heb 7:16], and to inherit and possess the endless life, the power of a world that hath no end. And so keep your eyes to your possessions, and to the life that hath no end; and herein you will increase in the truth, in the righteousness and holiness, and the power and virtue of the holy life; and so sit down in your possessions, that you may all serve the Lord in a pure mind, soul, and spirit, and none to defile your bodies, but have esteem of them, as vessels of honour, and vessels fitted to receive the treasures of the Lord [Rom 9:21-23]. G. F.
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George Fox (1624 - 1691). English Dissenter, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), born in Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire. Apprenticed as a shoemaker, he left home at 19, seeking spiritual truth amid Puritan and Anglican tensions. In 1647, after visions and direct experiences of God, he began preaching an “inner light” accessible to all, rejecting clergy and formal worship. By 1652, he gathered followers in northern England, forming the Quakers, known for pacifism and simplicity. Fox traveled across England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and America, enduring eight imprisonments for his beliefs, including at Lancaster Castle. He wrote Journal (1694) and numerous letters, shaping Quaker theology with calls for equality and justice. Married to Margaret Fell in 1669, a key Quaker leader, they had no children, but she had eight from her prior marriage. His 1660 Declaration rejected violence, influencing conscientious objection. Fox’s emphasis on personal revelation transformed Protestantism, and his writings remain central to Quaker thought.