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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 patience, love, and meekness in overcoming evil inventions, traditions, and self-righteousness. He emphasizes the victory of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, over unclean spirits and the importance of following His example of suffering and forgiveness. Fox encourages putting on courage, patience, and loyalty to the King who conquered all, walking in righteousness, peace, and truth, and feeling the power of God working within. He highlights the power of God that brings peace, unity, and strength, enabling believers to overcome darkness and be filled with revelation and inspiration.
Epistle 234
All you prisoners of the Lord [Eph 4:1] for his truth's sake, and for keeping the testimony of Jesus Christ [Rev 12:17], against all the evil inventions, traditions, rudiments [Col 2:8], will-worships, feigned humilities [Col 2:23], and self-righteousness of them that be in the fall, who are out of God's power and righteousness, who have no weapons but carnal [2 Cor 10:4], like themselves carnal. Your patience must overcome all these rough and hasty spirits [Prov 14:29, Eccl 7:9] in the world, and your love must bear all things [1 Cor 13:7]; for patience obtains the crown which is immortal, which runs the race [1 Cor 9:24f/Heb 12:1]. So it is the Lamb must have the victory [Rev 17:14] over all the unclean airy spirits [Eph 2:2], and over him that is out of the truth [John 8:44]. So, be meek and low, then you follow the example of Christ [Mat 11:29], and come to bear the image of the just, who suffered by the unjust [1 Pet 3:18]; and put on his righteousness, who suffered by the unrighteous; whose back was struck, and his hair was plucked off, and face was spit upon [Isa 50:6], and yet cried, ‘Father forgive them [Luke 23:34].’ Here he kept his dominion, a sufferer who had the victory, which the followers of the lamb do in measure attain unto. So put on courage, put on patience. Let your loyalty be known; for your king that hath conquered the devil, death, and hell, in walking in righteousness, peace, and truth, feeling the power of God, teaching every one of you when words are not uttered. And let your faith be in the power that goes through all things, and over all things, and every one hearken to it. So the power of the mighty God know, (the arm,) and how it works, and the hand how it carries you, which brings out of tribulation, and thraldom, and spiritual Egypt [Rev 11:8], into peace. And this is the power of God, in which you feel to before enmity was, and be at peace one with another, then you live in the prince of peace's [Isa 9:6] kingdom, and dominion, and life; in which is unity, which was before enmity was, which destroys it. And so in the power of the Lord God you are made strong [Eph 6:10], which goes over the power of darkness, and was before it was, which is out of the power of God. And all people that are from the witness of God in their own particulars [1 Jn 5:9f], they are all weak and feeble, and stagger. All men and women's strength is in the power of God; that goes over the power of darkness [Col 1:13]. So feel all this to go through all, and over all, preaching and working in you; and let the ear be lent to it, and hearken to it in one another. And by it feel the seed raised up in one another, which is heir of the power, that you may know each your portion. For all people that be from the witness of God in their own particulars, that are erred from it, and hate the light [John 3:20]; they are full of darkness, sin, and <257> iniquity. Inspiration and revelation, while their minds are erred from the spirit [Isa 29:24] of God in themselves, are hid from them. So when their minds are turned with the light and spirit of God, towards God, then with it they shall know something of revelation and inspiration; as they are turned with that of God from the evil, and emptied of that, then there will be some room in them for something of God to be revealed and inspired into them. And therefore in that, they will have prophecies, and seeing things to come; being turned from the evil that hath darkened them, and separated them from God; in which they will see the covenant, through which they will come to have peace [Ezek 37:26] with God. 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.