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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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Sermon Summary
George Fox emphasizes the importance of unity in the Holy Spirit among Friends, urging elders to be examples of wisdom and patience for the younger generation. He warns against the distractions of worldly fashions that can lead to spiritual blindness and the burden of false teachings. Fox highlights the necessity of mortifying sin through the Spirit of God, encouraging believers to set their affections on heavenly things and partake in the spiritual feast of Christ. He reminds the congregation that Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed, and they must keep the feast with sincerity and truth, purging out the old leaven of malice. The call is to embrace a new life in Christ, adorned with godliness and a meek spirit.
Epistle 416
All Friends, strive to keep in unity in the holy spirit of Christ, which is the bond of the heavenly peace [Eph 4:3], and that you elders may be examples in the heavenly wisdom, and word of life [1 Jn 1:1], and of power [Heb 1:3] and patience [Rev 3:10], to all the younger, that hardly know the right hand from the left; so that they may be trained up, both by the word and law in their hearts, and good examples from their elders in grace, truth, virtue, modesty, and sobriety, as becoming men and women professing and possessing godliness [1 Tim 2:10], being adorned with a meek and a quiet spirit, which is with the Lord of a great price [1 Pet 3:4]. And keep that eye blind, and that spirit under, that would go into the fashions of the world; for that will blind and burden, and will not bear sound doctrine [2 Tim 4:3]; and therefore that must be kept down with the spirit of God, by which all may have power over their own spirits, and they that have not, are like unto a city, whose walls are broken down [Prov 25:28], that any thing that is evil or bad may come in. And therefore the power and spirit of God is as the wall that preserveth. Therefore be wise; for when lust is conceived, ‘it brings forth sin, and sin when it is finished, brings forth death [Jas 1:15].’ <308> Now here you may see what brings forth sin and death in man and woman, which, by the spirit of God, is to be mortified [Rom 8:13], and by it their affections to be changed, and set on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God [Col 3:1f]; so that you may come to sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus [Eph 2:6]; which is a holy, pure, and safe sitting, in which all may keep that heavenly feast of Christ, our passover, not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the heavenly unleavened bread of sincerity and truth [1 Cor 5:8]. For Christ, our passover, hath been sacrificed for us [1 Cor 5:7]; and therefore he is the heavenly bread [John 6:35-58], which the feast of him our passover must be kept withal, by the clean and circumcised in spirit in the new testament and covenant: for the Jews in the old testament and covenant, were to be clean and circumcised outwardly, before they eat of the outward sacrifices; which sacrifice and circumcision Christ our sacrifice hath ended. And therefore keep to him our circumciser, and the feast of our passover, and let all the old leaven of malice and wickedness be purged out, that you may become a new lump in Christ Jesus. Amen. 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.