Dear friends,—Who are gathered in the name of Jesus [Mat 18:20], by whom all things were made and created [John 1:3/Heb 1:2], who upholds all things by his word and power [Heb 1:3], and gives the increase [1 Cor: 3:7] of all things; the earth is his, and the fulness thereof [Psa 24:1]. And therefore let your minds and hearts be with the Lord, and your care cast upon him: and though the Lord is pleased now to try you, and to exercise you in sufferings, and permits your persecutors to spoil your goods, or cast you into prison, to try whether your minds be in him, or in the outward things he gives you: yet let not visible things separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus [Rom 8:38f], nor no persecutions amaze you, nor separate your minds from the love of God. For all things shall work together for good, to them that love God [Rom 8:28]; for the love of God bears all things, and suffers all things [1 Cor 13:7]; and they that spoil the goods of the innocent and cast them into prison, for serving and worshipping of God, the Lord sees it and beholds it; and so leave them to the Lord to deal with them. For that which they get by spoiling you, they will never be the richer for; and when they have done spoiling, the Lord can spoil them and theirs. And all the goods they take from Friends, for serving God, will torment them at last, and be a greater plague to them, more than keeping on your hats, and saying thou to them, was.
And you have had experience how the other powers spoiled your goods; but were they either the richer or the fatter? Nay, the more they did eat, destroy, and devour, the more they looked like Pharaoh's lean cattle [Gen 41:17-21].
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And did not the christians of old suffer joyfully the spoiling of their goods [Heb 10:34], by professors and profane? So they that are born of the flesh, will persecute them that are born of the spirit [Gal 4:29]; and they that will live godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer persecution [2 Tim 3:12]; and blessed are they that do suffer persecution for Christ and his righteousness' sake [Mat 5:10].
And so never fear the loss of the fleece, for God can make it grow again, as he did poor Job's [Job 42:12]. And it is the way of the enemy and adversary, to set upon the young convinced, to think by that means to make them to yield. For, have you not read, it was the way, how that the enemies of Israel, of old, fell upon the weak and feeble of their camp, and the hindermost of the flock [Deut 25:18]; but they had their reward at the end. And so wait upon the Lord, and he will support you, though he may try you awhile; as he doth all his saints, that the trial of your faith may come forth more pure than gold [1 Pet 1:7].
And so never fear man, nor what they are permitted to do unto you, but the Lord: though the hungry lions may lack, yet they that wait upon the Lord, shall not want any good thing [Psa 34:10]; for his promise is, he will never leave them nor forsake them [Heb 13:5].
And so the Lord God Almighty give you power and courage, to stand against all the wiles of the enemy [Eph 6:11], and to be valiant for his truth upon the earth [Jer 9:3]. And so, with my love in the everlasting seed, Christ Jesus, who is over him that makes to suffer, and will be when he is gone.
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."