Friends,—Did not God provide for man and woman before he made them? Did he not make all things in six days? And the sixth day he made man in the image of God [Gen 1:27], in righteousness and holiness [Eph 4:24]. And therefore Christ, who is the son of God, who comes to restore man up again into the image of God, and leads man up into his image in righteousness and holiness, as he was in before he fell: doth he not reprove such as take thought, and told them of their little faith [Mat 6:30], and that they could not add one cubit to the stature [Mat 6:27] that God had made; and it was the practice of the heathens and of the Gentiles to take thought [Mat 6:32]? So it is clear, before God made man, he took care for him; but after man was fallen from the image of God, and his righteousness, he took care and toiled, though he cannot add one cubit to his stature in the Lord's work. For thou mayst sow thy seed in the ground or garden, thou mayst have much cattle, and other things, but yet there is no increase but by the Lord [1 Cor 3:7], neither of thy seed, nor of thy cattle; for is not the earth the Lord's and the fulness thereof [Psa 24:1]? Mark! and doth he not give the increase, who upholds all things by his word and power [Heb 1:3], who is the Creator of all, and provided for man before he made him, and set him in dominion over all the works of his hands [Psa 8:6]; which dominion man lost. Man lost righteousness and holiness, in his disobeying the command of God, which Christ comes to restore man to, and sets man above all again, as he was in the beginning, and up to his own state beyond Adam before he fell, to him that never fell [1 Pet 2:22]. And so all that believe in the light [John 12:36], as Christ commanded, in the light they see they cannot add one cubit to the stature, and so they come to grow in the faith, in Christ and in God. And so herein hath the Lord the praise of his works; and all things praise him, who hath created them all to his honour, and to his glory, and to his praise; and man to glorify him in righteousness and holiness, in the image of God and of Christ Jesus, above all other creatures in the covenant of God, in the covenant of light and life in Christ Jesus, him by whom the world was made; by him they praise and please God, and in their pleasing God, they honour God and Christ.
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."