All my dear friends, in the everlasting power, life, and truth live, for you cannot live without it in the winds and storms. And though the hills and the mountains are burned [various, e.g. Psa 83:14, Jer 51:25], and the trees are become fruitless [Jude 1:12], and winter hath devoured the former fruits, and you do see that persecution hath choked them, and the heat hath scorched them [Mat 13:6, 21]; whereby the untimely figs are fallen [Rev 6:13], and the corn is withered on the house-top [Psa 129:6], and the night is come, and the evil beasts go out of their den. But truth lives [1 Esd 4:38], and the power of God is over them all; and Christ ruleth, and there is bread of life [John 6:35], and water of life in him, and in his house; though the caterpillars and locusts are agreed to eat up all the green [Psa 105:34f]. But, as you are in the truth, you are in its day; and they in the darkness, are in the day of darkness [Joel 2:2, Zeph 1:15]. And all who are in the truth, rejoice through Christ, in the God of truth [Psa 31:5], and never heed prisons, for they are but for a time; and mind him who hath all times and seasons in his hand [Acts 1:7]. And never heed the raging waves of the sea [Jude 1:13], nor be troubled at his tongue that speaks nothing but tribulation, anguish, and bondage; nor be troubled at the cords of the ungodly [Psa 129:4]; for the cords of love [Hos 11:4], the power of God are stronger. And what doth he that sits in heaven, but laugh them to scorn [Psa 2:4]? And so be valiant for the truth upon the earth [Jer 9:3], for the power is the Lord's. And so my love to all Friends in the everlasting seed, that never fell [1 Pet 2:22] nor changeth [Heb 13:8].
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."