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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 being strangers and pilgrims to the world and all visible things, emphasizing the need to focus on the Creator, the Lord God Almighty, rather than temporary earthly possessions. He highlights the deceitfulness of outward riches and possessions that can easily vanish, urging believers to seek durable and true riches found in God's grace and everlasting life. By being above worldly attachments and rooted in the invisible life and power of God, one can experience the enduring birth of the immortal seed and inherit the heavenly riches and possessions that come from knowing the Lord God Almighty.
Epistle 273
All Friends, be ye as strangers to all things visible and created, but be acquainted with the Creator, your maker [Job 22:21], the Lord God Almighty; for outward things are not durable riches [Prov 8:18], nor durable substance, nor durable habitations, nor durable possessions, for they have wings and will fly away [Prov 23:5]; and so therefore be as pilgrims and strangers to the world, and all worldly, created and visible things, and witness redemption from the earth, that you may reign upon the earth, as kings and priests to God [Rev 1:6], that you may know a habitation in God, and the riches of his grace and life, that is everlasting, and a substance that fadeth not away, the riches which hath not wings, and the riches that is not deceitful, that is durable and true. For men trusting in outward riches, and outward things, they will deceive and fail them, and have wings and flee away from them. And so man in that state is deceived, and riches are deceitful to him. Therefore, as I said before, be as strangers and pilgrims to the world [Heb 11:13], and all things therein, possess, as though you did not possess them, and what you enjoy, as though you did not; be above all such things, and loose to them in the invisible life and power, which is over all things; for the birth that is born again of the immortal seed by the word of God, that lives and abides, and endures for ever [1 Pet 1:23], and is above all things; for all things are upheld by his word and power [Heb 1:3]. And so be acquainted with the heavenly and certain riches, the durable substance, and the everlasting possession and inheritance of life, through which you may be acquainted with your maker and creator, the Lord God Almighty. 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.