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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 emphasizes the importance of keeping meetings in the power of the Lord, encouraging the congregation to not quench the spirit or despise prophesying, but to maintain their testimony in both public and private settings. He urges the community to allow everyone, regardless of gender or age, to contribute to the service and to be valiant for the truth of the Lord on earth. Fox specifically addresses women's meetings, urging women to embrace virtue, love truth, and walk in God's service to fulfill their role in their generation and in the practice of pure religion.
Epistle 248
Friends,—Keep your meetings in the power of the Lord God, that hath gathered you; and none quench the spirit, nor despise prophesying [1 Th 5:19f], but keep up your testimony in public and private. Let not the mouths of babes and sucklings [Psa 8:2] be stopped, nor the seed in male or female [Gal 3:28], but all be valiant for the Lord's truth upon the earth [Jer 9:3]. Concerning the women's meetings; encourage all the women of families, that are convinced, and mind virtue, and love truth, and walk in it; that they may come up into God's service, that they may be serviceable in their generation, and in the creation, and come into the practice of the pure religion, which you have received from God, from above; that every one may come to know their duty in it, and their service in the power and wisdom of God [1 Cor 1:24]. For now the practical part is called for. For people must not be always talking and hearing, but they must come into obedience to the great God of heaven and earth. And so that none may stand idle out of the vineyard [Mat 20:3,6], and out of the service, and out of their duty; for such will talk and tattle [1 Tim 5:13], and judge with evil thoughts, of what they in the vineyard say and do. . . . 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.