TO all Friends who are in the Unity, which is in the Light; Walk in the Light. It is one Light that doth Convince you all; and one Christ, that doth call all to Repentance, up to himself, the one Head, which is Christ. . . . It is he alone that gives Faith, and all who are in this Faith, are one. It is one Power that raiseth up the Seed; and your Faith being out of Words, in the Power, ye are all one, and that Seed is one; and ye are all one, if ye be Ten Thousand; which Seed is one; and all the Brethren, who are in the Spirit, are one. Ye have all one Eye, which is the Light; one Fire, which Consumes all, which the Light discovers to be Evil; and one Spirit which baptises all into one Body, where there is no Confusion, but Pureness and Oneness.
Therefore all Friends, mind the Oneness, and that which keeps you in the Oneness and Unity, it is that which keeps you out of the World; and this one Light leads you out of Darkness into the Everlasting Day, where ye see the Church of God. But living in the Darkness, and following that Mind, it leads into the World's Assemblies, who have the Letter of the Saints' Words, but live out of the Life, smiting one another, fighting for the Husks: But minding the Light within, it leads you into the Assemblies of the Righteous, who are in the Life. The Kernel is (to be found) within, the Husk is without. . . . They are Outsides, who feed upon Outsides.
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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."