Dear friends, who suffer for your testimony, and to all the rest in your county, I am glad to hear of your faithfulness, and of your standing for the church which Christ is the head of, which is in God, and are become his living members; and therefore wheresoever ye are in prison, or out of prison, where two or three are gathered in his name, there is a church, and Christ the living head in the midst of them [Mat 18:20]; a prophet, to open to his church the things of his kingdom; and a bishop, to oversee his living members, that they be preserved in his light, grace, truth, spirit, and gospel; and he is a shepherd to feed them with heavenly food, who gives life eternal to his sheep [John 10:28], which he hath purchased with his own blood [Acts 20:28]; and a priest who has offered up himself a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world [Heb 7:27], who cleanses, and washes, and purifies his church, his people [Ezek 37:23/Tit 2:14]; a high priest, made higher than the heavens [Heb 7:26]. Heb. vii. And no priest made below the heavens will become Christ's church; and therefore feel and see Christ exercising his prophetical, priestly, and kingly offices, and his ruling in your hearts. And all that will know the right way, or highway, or path to the church in God [1-2 Th 1:1], (2 Thess. i.) must walk in the light [1 Jn 1:7], which is the life in Christ [John 1:4], and that will guide them to Christ, the way to God [John 14:6], the head of the church [Col 1:18], the rock and foundation of God that stands sure [2 Tim 2:19].
And now, dear friends, my desires are, that you may all live in the love of God, and in the unity of his spirit, which is the bond of peace [Eph 4:3], in which you will be all kind and courteous one to another; and so the God of all peace and power support you, and strengthen you, and uphold you, throughout all your trials and sufferings, that he may be glorified in you all, who is over all, from everlasting to everlasting, blessed for ever; from whom ye have blessing and life.
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."