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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 addresses his friends in Malton, urging them to focus on the pure life of God within themselves to grow spiritually and avoid strife and confusion. He emphasizes the importance of living in the wisdom of God, which is granted to those with pure hearts, and encourages them to wait on the Spirit for guidance and righteousness. Fox reminds them to not quench the Spirit but to live in the authority and power of the Son of God, assuring them of his spiritual presence and joy in their faith.
Epistle 69
All my dear friends at Malton,—Mind that which is pure in you, that ye may grow up in the power, out of the form. And take heed of deceit, and of jarring one with another; take heed of strife and confusion in your minds. But mind the pure life of God in you, according to your measures, to guide you up to God out of the flesh, and all the ways and works of it, within and without, which that which is pure <81> and holy, calls all unto. So all walk in the wisdom of God, which is given into the pure heart, that none of your nakedness may appear, and men see your shame [Rev 3:18, 16:15]; but all wait in the spirit upon God the Father of spirits, to be clothed with his righteousness. So God Almighty keep you and bless you; the blessing of the Lord be with you and among you! I am with you, present in spirit, (joying and beholding your faith towards God, which ye have in Jesus Christ,) though absent in body [1 Cor 5:3]. And all Friends, quench not the spirit [1 Th 5:19] of God in you, but live in the authority of the son of God and his power, whereby ye may be kept on top of the world. 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.