- Home
- Speakers
- George Fox
- Epistle 272
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.
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
George Fox preaches about the importance of maintaining righteousness, equity, truth, and holiness both inwardly and outwardly, to combat inequality, injustice, and false measures. He emphasizes the need to uphold justice and righteousness in all dealings, ensuring a true measure and balance in all aspects of life. By following these principles, individuals can preserve the favor of God and uphold the good and righteous nature within themselves and others, leading to a deeper understanding of God's works and His just ways.
Scriptures
Epistle 272
Keep to the equal measure and just weight [Deut 25:15, Prov 11:1, 16:11, 20:23] in all things, both inwardly and outwardly, that you may answer equity, answer truth in the oppressed, and the spirit, and grace, and light in all people. And so, being kept in righteousness, and equity, and truth, and holiness, that preserves you over the inequality, injustice, and the false measure, and weight, and balance in all things, both inward and outward. And this keeps your eye open, keeps you in a feeling sense, keeps you in understanding, and true wisdom, and true knowledge, what you are to answer to all men [Col 4:6] in righteousness, and truth, and equity, both inward and outward. And this is to all you that have purchased or bought any Irish land, so that justice and righteousness, and the true measure, and true weight, and even balance, may be among you, to answer that which is true, and just, and even, and equal; that you may answer that which is equal, and just, and true in yourselves, and in every man and woman; that you may be preserved in the sense and favour of God, and so may answer the good and righteous principle in all, by which <18> they may be brought to truth, the equal principle, and just measure, and true weight and balance; by which they may know the just and true God in all his works and out-goings. G. F.
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download

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.