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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 imprisoned for their faith to surrender to the truth, which will ultimately set them free. He emphasizes the importance of relying on the power of the Lord to overcome persecution and to maintain peace and unity with God and one another. Fox calls for faithfulness in the face of suffering, reminding them that their trials can lead to greater good and that they should focus on God's power rather than their hardships. He draws parallels between the sufferings of early Christians and those of his contemporaries, urging them to remain steadfast against false teachings and practices. Ultimately, he assures them that their faithfulness will lead to eternal rewards and victory in Christ.
Epistle 92
All Friends and brethren every where, that are imprisoned for the truth, give yourselves up in it, and it will make you free [John 8:32], 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, who suffer ‘for not putting into the false prophets mouths [Micah 3:5],’ and for crying against them, and for not swearing, and not giving the world's compliments and their honour, which the Lord is staining [Isa 23:9]; and who are suffering for reproving sin in the gate [Isa 29:21]. Be faithful in the life and power of the Lord God, and be valiant for the truth on the earth [Jer 9:3], 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, who suffer now by a false priesthood for their tithes, oaths, temples, which have got up since the apostles' days. For as the apostles and true christians suffered for denying the Jewish temple, priesthood, tithes, and oaths, so ye do by the false, and amongst the apostatized christians, who are got up since the apostles' days. 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 [Rev 2:10] 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 [Rev 17:14]. 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.