All Friends, be ye as strangers to all things visible and created, but be acquainted with the Creator, your maker [Job 22:21], the Lord God Almighty; for outward things are not durable riches [Prov 8:18], nor durable substance, nor durable habitations, nor durable possessions, for they have wings and will fly away [Prov 23:5]; and so therefore be as pilgrims and strangers to the world, and all worldly, created and visible things, and witness redemption from the earth, that you may reign upon the earth, as kings and priests to God [Rev 1:6], that you may know a habitation in God, and the riches of his grace and life, that is everlasting, and a substance that fadeth not away, the riches which hath not wings, and the riches that is not deceitful, that is durable and true. For men trusting in outward riches, and outward things, they will deceive and fail them, and have wings and flee away from them. And so man in that state is deceived, and riches are deceitful to him. Therefore, as I said before, be as strangers and pilgrims to the world [Heb 11:13], and all things therein, possess, as though you did not possess them, and what you enjoy, as though you did not; be above all such things, and loose to them in the invisible life and power, which is over all things; for the birth that is born again of the immortal seed by the word of God, that lives and abides, and endures for ever [1 Pet 1:23], and is above all things; for all things are upheld by his word and power [Heb 1:3]. And so be acquainted with the heavenly and certain riches, the durable substance, and the everlasting possession and inheritance of life, through which you may be acquainted with your maker and creator, the Lord God Almighty.
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."