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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 dwelling in the light of Christ to comprehend the world's ways and bring others to salvation. He emphasizes the need to yoke the oxen, bridle the horses, and tame the wild heifers, symbolizing the need to bring all under Christ's yoke and light. Fox urges believers to wait on the Lord, grow in the light that inspired the scriptures, and love the truth above all, walking in the power of God as soldiers of Christ to lead others to salvation.
Epistle 65
This is the word of the Lord to all Friends, and fellow-labourers in the truth, who are subduing the earth [Gen 1:28], and its earthly knowledge, and its carnal wisdom, and beating down and threshing down that, in hope to get forth the wheat, and to be made partakers of your hope [1 Cor 9:10]; I charge you all, dwell in the light, which doth comprehend the world, their evil ways, their will worships [Col 2:23], what they worship, and what is their end in all their actions: so that ye may yoke the oxen, and bridle the horses, and tame the wild heifers [Hos 10:11?], and bring them to Christ's yoke [Mat 11:30], that is, to the light; bring every one unto it, to see their way to salvation, and with it every one may know their condemnation, who act contrary to it. Wait all on the Lord, that ye may be settled and stayed in the Lord, and to grow up in the light, that gave forth the scriptures; that there may be no stumbling about the words which came from the light. For no creature can read the scriptures to profit thereby [2 Tim 3:16], but who come to the light and spirit that gave them forth. Love the truth more than all, and go on in the mighty power of God, as good soldiers of Christ [2 Tim 2:3], well fixed in his glorious gospel, and in his <79> word and power; that ye may know him, the life and salvation, and bring up others into it. 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.