And in all your men and women's meetings, let all things be done in love, which doth edify the body [Eph 4:16]; and let nothing be done in strife and vain glory [Phil 2:3], but keep in the unity of the spirit, which is the bond of peace [Eph 4:3]. And let all things be done in the wisdom of God, which is pure and gentle, from above, above the earthly, which is below, sensual, and devilish [James 3:17,15]. . . .
And keep your testimony against all the filthy rags [Isa 64:4] of the old world; and for your fine linen, the righteousness of Christ Jesus [Rev 19:8].
And keep your testimony for your liberty in Christ Jesus [Gal 2:4], and stand fast in it [Gal 5:1], against all the false liberties in old Adam; and your liberty in the spirit of God, and in the gospel of Christ Jesus, against all the false and loose liberties in the flesh [Gal 5:13].
And train up all your children in the fear of the Lord [Psa 34:11/Prov 22:6], and in his new covenant, Christ Jesus; as the Jews did their children and servants in the old covenant, and so do you admonish your children and servants. And let no man or any live to themselves, but in that love that seeks not her own [1 Cor 13:5].
And have an eye over them that come to spy out your liberty in Christ [Gal 2:4], and will report out of your meetings things to make advantage, and to the defaming of persons.
And let every one seek the good of one another, and their welfare in the truth, and make others' condition their own; and this keeps as a father and mother to condescend to a child. And all live in the seed which hath the blessing, and in the wisdom by which you may order all things to God's glory [Wis 8:1/1 Cor 10:31], over the evil seed, that is out of the truth [John 8:44]. . . .
<330>
And stop all bad reports, (for thou shalt not raise a false report [Exo 23:1] upon my people, saith the Lord,) and minister justice upon it presently, so that no man or woman may be defiled or defamed with such things.
G. F.
Be the first to react on this!
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."