We are of the royal seed, elect and precious [1 Pet 2:6], before the world began, that which (ever) the Sodomites crucified, grieved, and vexed by their unrighteous, ungodly conversation [2 Pet 2:6], who lived in fulness, and pleasures, and abundance of idleness [Ezek 16:49]. And we are of that seed, that cannot serve the wills and lusts of men, and bow and stoop to them; who are a people redeemed out of kindreds, kingdoms, peoples, and nations [Rev 5:9], who are of the household of God [Eph 2:19], built up together a spiritual house [1 Pet 2:5], whose builder and maker is God [Heb 11:10], and do reign upon the earth, as kings and priests unto God [Rev 5:10]; whom we serve day and night [Rev 7:15]. And are of the seed that hath been slain from the foundation of the world [Rev 13:8], which the princes of the world, and counsels, and the great and wise of the earth crucified [1 Cor 2:8]; who lived in the form of godliness [2 Tim 3:5] of the saints' words, but quenched the spirit [1 Th 5:19] in themselves, and being that birth born of the flesh, persecuted that which is born of the spirit [Gal 4:29].
We are of the seed, the anointed, which the powers of the earth combine and take counsel together against, whom God (we see) sitting in heaven, laughs them to scorn [Psa 2:2-4]. We are the royal priesthood [1 Pet 2:9], who offer daily to the Lord the spiritual sacrifice [1 Pet 2:5]; the holy generation [1 Pet 2:9], and the peculiar people, zealous of good works [Tit 2:14], clothed with the zeal [Isa 59:17] of Christ against the bad works, and the workers thereof. Therefore of all nations, peoples, sects, ways, professions, and talkers of religion are we hated, by them that are out of the way and power of God, though they profess scriptures, church, worship, and ministry; yet such have crucified Christ, and the Lord of glory [1 Cor 2:8]. We are they that witness the promise of God fulfilled, and that do witness, that the age is come wherein God would show forth his exceeding riches and kindness [Eph 2:7], which was wrought amongst the apostles. We are the anointed of God, and his prophets, that he saith, ‘touch not [Psa 105:15];’ who are as the apple of his eye [Zech 2:8]; who for our sakes hath reproved powers, and thrones, and dominions [Col 1:16], and rebuked them. We are the preachers of righteousness in the great city Sodom, wherein Christ was crucified [Rev 11:8], where the life of the prophets, and the apostles, and holy men of God lies slain, and cursers, swearers, <165> drunkards, eaters, and drinkers, that rise up to play [Exo 32:6], in all fulness, wantonness, and profaneness, profess their words, and make merry over their lives. And the witnesses since the apostles' days have been slain; the woman in the wilderness [Rev 12:6], the lamb and his wife [Rev 19:7] shall be known, which is come up out of the wilderness. So in this great city Sodom and Gomorrah, the false church and the whore are, where all the abominations are, that made all the nations drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication [Rev 14:8, 17:4, 18:3]; whereby the world is all on heaps about religion, and church worship, and the several ways in Sodom's nature, professing the saints' words, imitating forms, killing and slaying one another about professing the saints' words, but out of their life. Which shows, that they are not of the royal seed, which saith, love enemies [Mat 5:44]; that is the royal seed, and they that follow him, are of the royal priesthood, and holy people and generation, amongst whom is the royal law of love [James 2:8]; whereby we cannot respect men's persons, for he who doth, is convinced of the royal law, to be a transgressor [James 2:9]. So every one of us, that is come to the seed of God, that bruiseth the serpent's head [Gen 3:15], that led man from God, who is the prince of the world [John 12:31], the prince of darkness [Eph 6:12], and the prince of the air [Eph 2:2], the father of lies, a murderer from the beginning [John 8:44], the corrupter of mankind, the author of the separation from God, and the original of sin, the beginning of it, which led man from his dominion over the handiworks of God; which the royal seed Christ [Gal 3:16], destroys, and renews man again in the image of God, and brings him again to his dominion over the handiworks of God. And this hundreds of thousands are now witnessing; by which they come to be kings, and redeemed from the earth [Rev 14:3], and come to be made kings upon the earth [Rev 5:10], in the image of God, over the handiworks of God, in the wisdom by which they were created. So all powers whatever, that are a terror to evil doers, that bear not the sword in vain [Rom 13:3f], to us are a praise, that do well ;1 Pet 2:14]. And all kings upon the earth, that were anointed by God, a figure of our Christ, the king anointed, he ends them all, and makes kings to reign upon the earth. Amongst these Christ is king, which thousands witness; amongst these he is king, and all other kings made by man, and putting on man earthly crowns, earthly man will put them off again, and unking them, if they cross them. This is the state amongst them in whom Christ reigns not, nor the true magistrate obeyed, which is to the evil doers a terror. But since the apostles' days all hath been in confusion about religion, church, and worship, amongst them that have killed the witnesses, and since the true church went into the wilderness [Rev 12:6], and the witnesses have been slain, and the man child caught up to God [Rev 12:5]. So they that have slain the witnesses, and killed the saints, have been in all this confusion; and the witnesses are rising, and the everlasting gospel shall be preached again (amongst them that have had the words, <166> but have slain the life of the prophets and the apostles) unto all nations, kindreds, and tongues of them that dwell upon the earth [Rev 14:6]. So the great professors of the world, (which were the Jews,) could not abide Jesus, the king, that he should reign; and where he is now in the male and in the female [Gal 3:28], he is king, and that makes kings, among whom he is king. All in the name of the mighty King of kings [Rev 19:16] is to be done, and then it is the power.
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."