My friends,—All you that do know God and Christ your teacher, and are come to be the sons and daughters of the Lord God [2 Cor 6:18], and are in his new covenant; in which you all do know the Lord, and need not any man to say unto you, know the Lord [Jer 31:31-34]. And are heirs of the gospel of peace and salvation, that hath brought life and immortality to light [2 Tim 1:10]; and that by the power of God, the gospel [Rom 1:16], you do see over him, the adversary and the destroyer, that hath darkened you. And so do know, that the power of God is the authority of your men's and women's meetings; in it keep them, and all other meetings. And all such as be heirs of grace, and heirs of life [1 Pet 3:7], and heirs of the gospel, keep your men's and women's meetings in the power of God, the authority of them; and they that cry against them, or you, strive not with them, for they will in God's time die of themselves, and wither away; but keep your testimony of the life, and of grace, and of the gospel, and of the order of it, and your faith in him, your teacher, who bruises the head of the serpent [Gen 3:15], the author of all disorder and ill government; even Christ, of the increase of whose government (in his truth, and power, and righteousness) there is no end [Isa 9:7]. Glory to the Lord God for ever.
And so all strive to be of one mind, and heart, and soul [Acts 4:32], and spirit, and faith, living together in unity, and in the love of God, all drinking into one spirit, by which you are baptized into one body [1 Cor 12:13], having one head, who is heavenly and spiritual; and in the one spirit, by which you are circumcised, which putteth off the body of the sins of the flesh [Col 2:11]. So as you do keep to the spirit of Christ [Rom 98:9], it will keep you to be one body, and to him the one head, Christ Jesus, the Amen [Rev 3:14].
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."