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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 requirements of the Lord for every man and woman to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, emphasizing the need to live godly and holily by the holy light, spirit, truth, and grace given by the Lord. He highlights that the more God gives, the more He requires, and the less He gives, the less He requires, ultimately judging the world in righteousness through Christ Jesus. Those who believe in the gospel and receive the grace of God will be saved, while those who reject it will face condemnation.
Epistle 351
Friends,—Know what the Lord doth require of you, and all have a sense of that in yourselves, that he doth require; which is, ‘to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God [Mic 6:8].’ Now, the Lord who is merciful and just, holy and righteous, pure and perfect, he doth require, that man and woman should do justly and righteously, and live godlily and holily, by the holy light, and spirit, and truth, and grace, that the Lord hath given every man and woman to profit withal [1 Cor 12:7]. And so, to answer the holy, pure, righteous, just God of truth [Psa 31:5], in all their lives, and words, and conversations; and so, to glorify him upon the earth. And the more the Lord gives, the more he requireth [Luke 12:48]; and the less that he giveth, the less he requireth. But the Lord requireth of every man and woman as he giveth, who will judge the world in righteousness [Psa 96:13], by the man Christ Jesus, according to the gospel, the power of God [Rom 1:16], that is preached to every creature under heaven [Col 1:23]; that is, according to the invisible power; manifesting, that there is something of the invisible power of God in every man and woman. So, here the Lord Jesus Christ doth not judge according to the hearing of the ear, and to the seeing of the eye [Isa 11:3]; for with righteousness shall he judge you, according to the light, which is the life in the word, Christ, with which he doth enlighten every man that cometh into the world [John 1:9], to the salvation of them that believe in it, and the condemnation of them that do hate it [John 3:19f], and that will not receive the gospel, nor the grace, which bringeth salvation, which hath appeared to all men [Tit 2:11], but walk despitefully against the spirit of grace [Heb 10:29], and turn it into wantonness [Jude 1:4]. So, according to his grace, and light, and gospel, will the righteous God judge the world in righteousness, by Christ, the heavenly and spiritual man [1 Cor 15:47], who hath died for the sins of the world [1 Cor 15:3/1Jn 2:2]; though they deny him that bought them [2 Pet 2:1], and tasted death for every man [Heb 2:9]. Such deserve his judgment. 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.