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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 not judging one another, but instead, allowing the Light of Christ to reveal and judge the self within each individual. He emphasizes the need for unity, love, and speaking directly to others in the Light rather than back-biting. Fox warns against feigned humility and love, urging all actions to be in and from the Light to remain pure and sealed in God's covenant.
Concerning Judging
FRIENDS, to you all this is the Word of the Lord: Take heed of Judging one another. . . . (I charge you in the Presence of the Lord) . . . neither lay open one another's weaknesses behind one another's Backs. . . . But every one of you in particular with the Light of Christ (which he hath enlightened you withal) see your selves, that Self may be Judged out with the Light in every one. Now, all loving the Light, here no Self can stand, but it is Judged with the Light; and here all are in Unity, and here no Self-will can arise, nor no Mastery; but all that is Judged out. And let there be no Back-biting amongst you; but in Love, ye that dwell in the Light, and see clear, speak to the others, whose minds are gone from the Light: Else . . . if ye do speak behind their backs, there will be the Evil Eye and Filthy mind, which dare not speak to their Faces . . . and so Self should be Judged first. Here ye will be kept watchful in the pure Fear and Love of God, and all Self will be Judged out from amongst you. . . . And take heed (I charge you all in the Presence of the Living God) of a feigned Humility and a feigned Love, which is out of the Light, and then that to use as a Customary Salutation or a Formal Gesture; which is all for Condemnation and to be kept out. . . . So see, that all your Actings be in and from the Light; here ye will be kept clean and pure and will come to be sealed in the Everlasting Covenant of God with the Light, which comes from Christ. . . . So, dwelling all in the Light, which is Unchangable, ye come to Judge all the Changable Ways and Worships that are Variable and Changable by that which comes from God which changeth not; and with his Light, which he hath given, all those things are Judged. So dwelling in the Judgment, ye will be filled full of Mercy; for first Judgment and then Mercy is to spread over all, that the Just may rule over all.
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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.