Dear friends,—With my love to all the prisoners and the faithful, as though I named them. It is the time now for all the faithful to keep in Christ their sanctuary, in whom you have all peace, rest, life, and salvation, and by the testimony of Jesus, and the blood of the Lamb [Rev 12:11], whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life, before the foundation of the world [Rev 21:27/17:18], they were they that did overcome [Rev 12:11], and did eat of the hidden manna, and had the new name [Rev 2:17]. And therefore now is the time to keep the word of patience , and the testimony of Jesus; for they that keep the word of patience, the Lord will keep them in the hour of temptation, which will come upon the whole world, to try them which dwell upon the earth [Rev 3:10]; for the word was before the world was, and the <233> tempter; for all things were made by the word [John 1:3]. And it is also the word of reconciliation [2 Cor 5:17], the word of power [Heb 1:3], the word of wisdom [1 Cor 12:8], and the word of life [1 Jn 1:1], and the word of salvation [Acts 13:26], by which people are reconciled to God, that are born again of the incorruptible seed by the word of God [1 Pet 1:23]; and they feed and grow by the milk of the word [1 Pet 2:2], which lives, and abides, and endures for ever [1 Pet 1:23], which strengthens all the faithful, in all ages, in all their afflictions, imprisonments, and sufferings; and it is the same to God's people now in this day of trial, to preserve all his people every where, in his spirit and power, faithful to himself; for, he that endures faithful to the end shall be saved [Mat 10:22]. And Christ saith, ‘He that is ashamed of me before men, him will I be ashamed of before my Father, and his angels which are in heaven [Mat 10:33/Luke 9:26].’ And therefore it is good to confess Christ before men [Mat 10:32], to be your priest, prophet, your shepherd, your bishop [1 Pet 2:25], your way, your mediator, that makes your peace betwixt God and you; and be valiant for his glorious name and truth upon the earth [Jer 9:3]. And so with my love in the seed, in which you and all nations are blessed [Gen 22:18].
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."