Dear friends and brethren, in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he hath gathered by his glorious hand and power to himself, who is the rock of ages, and the foundation of many generations, that cannot be shaken [Heb 12:27, Luke 6:48], in which you have all life, peace, rest, salvation, and eternal happiness.
Your epistle, dated the second of the Second-month, 1685, by order of your Yearly Meeting, signed in behalf of that meeting, was received and publicly read in our Yearly Meeting, and well accepted of in love and unity with the spirit that gave it forth. And Friends are very glad to hear, feel, and see your fellowship and unity in the Lord's blessed truth, and your communion in the holy ghost [2 Cor 13:14], and your care in the concerns of the holy, pure, peaceable truth. And how that you are, and have been preserved over those unruly spirits, that have been as trees without fruit [Jude 1:12[, and wells without water [2 Pet 1:17], inwardly ravening wolves, that have got the form of godliness, and the sheep's clothing [Mat 7:15/2 Tim 3:5], but are out of <293> the spirit, and power, and life of the sheep of Christ. And over such spirits, we praise God, that he hath given you dominion.
And our desire is, that you may all live and walk in Christ, and set down in him, in his grace and truth, and that you may answer the truth of God in all people with the word of life [1 Jn 1:1]; and also answer the good in all, with a godly, and a holy life and conversation.
And likewise all the magistrates and officers that are in power, you may answer the just principle in them all, and live in the spirit of supplication [Zech 12:10], and pray for all, that you may lead a righteous and a godly life under them all. So that God over all, and through you all, and by you all, may have the glory, the thanks, and the praise. To whom all is due, God blessed for ever. . . .
G. F.
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George Fox (1624 - 1691)
Was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. This was a group the Lord started through the ministry of George Fox. God called him apart from all other forms of Christendom in his day because of the lack of Biblical obedience and holiness.The emphasis in George Fox's ministry was firstly prophetic. He called out the people of God to show them that they had the Holy Spirit of God and could be taught of Him and not to solely rely on the teachings of ecclesiastical leaders. Secondly, he spoke directly to many ministers in his day to show them they were hirelings and did not have a true shepherds heart for the people of God rather they were seeking after financial gain.
Founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers). George Fox was born in Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire, England, the son of Puritan parents. Little is known of his early life, apart from what he wrote in his journal: "In my very young years, I had a gravity and stayedness of mind and spirit not usual in young children. Insomuch that, when I saw old men behave lightly and wantonly toward each other, I had a dislike thereof raise in my heart, and I said within myself, `If ever I come to be a man, surely I shall not do so, nor be so wanton.'"
At the age of 19, he gained deep, personal assurance of his salvation and began to travel as an itinerant preacher, seeking a return to the simple practices of the New Testament. He abhorred technical theology, and preached a faith borne of experience, freshly fed and guided by the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit.
Fox was persecuted almost daily, yet his power of endurance was phenomenal. He was beaten with dogwhips, knocked down with fists and stones, brutally struck with pikestaves, hard beset by mobs, incarcerated eight times in the pestilential jails, prisons, castles and dungeons--yet he went straightforward with his mission as though he had discovered some fresh courage which made him impervious to man's inhumanity.
He undertook as far as possible to let the new life in Christ take its own free course of development in his ministry. He shunned rigid forms and static systems, and for that reason he refused to head a new sect or to start a new denomination, or to begin a new church. He would not build an organization of any kind. His followers at first called themselves "Children of the Light," and later adopted the name "The Society (or Fellowship) of Friends."
Fox preached and traveled for 40 years throughout England, Scotland, Holland, and America. His life demonstrated the truth of his famous saying, "One man raised by God's power to stand and live in the same spirit the apostle and prophets were in, can shake the country for ten miles around."