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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 living in the victory of Jesus Christ, walking in humility, patience, and love, and being united as a holy temple for the Lord. He encourages believers to rely on God's love to overcome challenges and bear all things, trusting in the invisible God and His son for strength and salvation. Fox emphasizes the unchanging nature of Christ as the foundation for all believers, the mediator between humanity and God, and the source of everlasting joy and peace.
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Epistle 339
All my dear friends and brethren, every where, in the name and power of Jesus Christ, your Lord and saviour, life and peace, live and walk, in the Lamb which hath the victory [Rev 17:14]. And so in the humility of Christ, which you have learned of him [Mat 11:29]; and in patience, with which you run the race, and obtain the crown of immortal life [Heb 12:1/1 Cor 9:24f/Jas 1:12]; and in the love of God all dwell, which will warm all your hearts, and knit and unite you together [Col 2:2?], and build you up a holy temple for the Lord [Eph 2:21]. And his love will keep and carry you above all thin gs, to the glory of God. And this love will enable you to bear all things [1 Cor 13:7] what ever wicked men <131> can do unto you; or, what the Lord may try you withal. So, let your faith be in the invisible God and his son [Col 1:13,15] who is able to succour you [Heb 2:18], and save you to the uttermost [Heb 7:25]; who is over all, King immortal, invisible, the only wise God [1 Tim 1:17, blessed for ever. Amen. So, God Almighty establish you all upon this holy rock and foundation, Christ Jesus, who is the same to-day as yesterday, and so for ever [Heb 13:9], who was all the holy men and women's foundation, who is the first and the last, the beginning and ending [Rev 22:13], the saints' mediator and peacemaker between them and God [1 Tim 2:5]. Their joy and rejoicing is in him, their everlasting joy, the Amen [Rev 3:14], blessed for ever. So, with my love in the Lord Jesus Christ unto you all, in whom I have laboured, (and) among you. 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.