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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 encourages all believers who are suffering for the truth to fully surrender to God's power, which will ultimately lead to freedom and victory over persecution. He emphasizes the importance of remaining faithful and valiant in the face of suffering, urging them to focus on God's power rather than their trials. Fox reassures that their faithfulness will not only bring peace and unity with God but also impact those who are imprisoned by their own struggles. He calls for perseverance in the life and wisdom of the Lord, promising a crown of eternal life for those who endure. Ultimately, he inspires believers to trust in God's power to overcome and achieve victory.
Be Faithful in Sufferings
ALL Friends and Brethren every where, that are Imprisoned for the Truth, give your selves up in it, and it will make you free, and the Power of the Lord will carry you over all the Persecutors, which was, before they were. For since the Beginning hath this Persecution got up; therefore live and reign in that Power, which remains, when the other is gone, and in that ye will have Peace and Unity with God, and one with another. Be faithful in the Life and Power of the Lord God, and for the Truth be Valiant on the Earth, and look not at your Sufferings, but at the Power of God, and that will bring some good out in all your Sufferings; and your Imprisonments will reach to the Prisoned, that the Persecutor prisons in himself. So be faithful in your Sufferings in the Power of the Lord. . . . So the Power, and Life, and Wisdom of the Lord God Almighty keep you, and preserve you, to finish your Testimony to the End, that ye may witness every one of you a Crown of Life Eternal, in which ye may sing Praises to the Lord, and in that triumph. And so, be faithful in that which overcomes, and gives Victory.
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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.