George Fox is known as the 17th Century English founder of the Religious Society of the Friends, better known as the Quakers. They lived up to being “Protestants,” protesting not only the theology and practice of the “Popish” Catholics, but also the “steeple-house” Christianity of the first Protestant denominations (e.g., the Church of England, Presbyterians, and Baptists). Fox found the religious authorities of Puritan England to be hypocritical and lacking in the power of the Spirit of Jesus.
Fox believed that the Bible was to be the sole authority — not as an external authority imposed by religious leaders, but as an inward testimony to the real life that we can experience with God through Christ.
It’s amazing to realize that this brilliant educator, leader, and lay attorney was poorly educated and read little except his Bible. People in his day marveled that if the Bible were destroyed Fox would be able to recite three-fourths of it from memory! Sure enough The Journal of George Fox is filled with hundreds of references or allusions to Scripture. Repeatedly, he outwitted educated priests and judges with his knowledge of Scripture and his logic.
When I read the many stories in The Journal of George Fox I was repeatedly struck by how he acted in the power of the Holy Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures.
The Journal of George Fox (Excerpts and Summaries, Part 2)
Ministering the Word to All People (The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 2)
Fox writes in his journal, “Now the Lord opened to me by His invisible power that every man [and woman] was enlightened by the divine light of Christ, and I saw it shine through all.” And he meant all people. He shared the word that Jesus Christ was alive and could be known in anyone’s direct personal experience with priests and atheists, justices and clerks, constables and criminals, business owners and servants, drunkards and bartenders, pimps and prostitutes, physicians and the sick, the rich and the poor.
“I was direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures,” he said, “by which they might be led up into all truth, and up to Christ and God, as those had been gave them forth.” These Holy Scriptures were “very precious” to Fox, as was being “in that Spirit by which they were given forth.” Repeatedly, he helped people to get off of men and onto the Lord and to learn how to experience “Christ the Inward Teacher.”
Fox Interrupts a Church Service and is Put in a Nasty, Stinking Prison (The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 3)
One day George Fox took a hike up a hill to pray. He saw a “steeple-house” and heard the Spirit of the Lord urge him to visit a church service and speak against the idolatry there. So he did. He found the people to be like fallow ground, once tilled, but now lying in waste, and the priest to be as a great lump of earth plopped down on a high pulpit.
The priest told the people that the Scriptures were the sole source of doctrine, religion, and opinion. Fox writes, “The Lord’s power was so mighty upon me… that I could not hold, but was made to cry out and say, ‘Oh, no; it is not the Scriptures!… It was, namely, the Holy Spirit, by which the holy men of God gave forth the Scriptures… The Jews had the Scriptures, and yet resisted the Holy Ghost, and rejected Christ.'”
After he interrupted the church service officers came and took Fox away and put him in a nasty, stinking prison.
Soon after he was released from prison he went to another steeple-house and there Fox says, “The people fell upon me in great rage, struck me down, and almost… smothered me; and I was cruelly beaten and bruised by them with their hands, …Bibles and sticks.”
Afterward the word of the Lord came to him and ministered comfort: “My love was always to thee, and thou art in my love.”
The Word of God Protects Fox From Being Murdered (The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 4)
In the town of Twy-Cross Fox visited a great man who had been so ill for so long that the physicians gave up on him. He went to his bedroom and spoke the Word of life to him and the sick man was restored to health!
Then Fox went downstairs and was speaking the word of God to the man’s servants. Suddenly one of the servants came rushing out at him, raving mad and raising a knife! “I looked steadfastly on him,” Fox writes, “and said, ‘Alack for thee, poor creature! What will thou do with thy carnal weapon? It is no more to me than straw.”
With that word from Fox the murderous servant wilted.
Fox Walks Barefoot in the Snow to Preach and his Feet Are On Fire! (The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 5)
The Spirit of the Lord led Fox to travel to the city of Lichfield to put the people off men and onto Christ, their true Teacher. It was a cold winter day and yet the Lord directed him to take off his shoes and walk one mile in the snow. Fox did so and reported that, “the Word of the Lord was like a fire in me… The fire of the Lord was so in my feet, and all over me, that I did not matter to put on my shoes again.”
He went into a steeple-house and felt moved of God to say to a priest, “Come down, thou deceiver; does thou bid people come freely, and take of the water of life freely, and yet thou takes three hundred pounds a year [a large living then]… for preaching the Scriptures to them.”
Later Fox was brought before a judge to be tried but he turned the tables on him and the high and mighty judge fell to the ground, slain in the Spirit. Fox reports, “As I admonished him, I laid my hand upon him, and he was brought down by the power of the Lord; and all the watchmen stood amazed.”
Physically Abused with a Bible, Yet Loving his Enemies, Fox’s Faith Shakes the Country For Ten Miles! (The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 5)
Another time Fox spoke in a steeple-house and the priest struck him on the face with his Bible so that blood gushed out from him. The people pushed him out of the church and beat him exceedingly and threw him down to the ground. They dragged him along, beating him and stoning him. “I was all over besmeared with blood and dirt,” Fox recalls. “Yet when I was got up on my legs, I declared the Word of life… I forgave [them].”
Then the Lord spoke: “If but one man or woman were raised by His power to stand and live in the same Spirit that the prophets and apostles were in who gave forth the Scriptures, that man or woman would shake all the country… for ten miles round!”
The Quaker Preacher Sees a Great Vision that Comes True — Then He Chases Beggars to Give Them Money (The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 6)
One day when he was 27-years old Fox came across a very steep and high hill and he was moved of the Lord to climb to the top of it. He writes, “The Lord opened unto me, and let me see a great people in white [clothing] by a river side, coming to the Lord.”
Soon after he came to a town and met “a company of rude fellows” there and because he would not drink alcohol with them they struck him with their clubs. One of the drunks came up close to him and pretending like he was going to whisper to him he pulled a knife on him! But Fox told the man to repent and the Lord’s power came over the treacherous man.
The next First-day after a service in Firbank chapel everyone went to dinner, but Fox walked alone to the nearby brook to get a little water and to pray. He sat down on the top of a rock and soon a thousand people, including several preachers, gathered around Fox and he “declared God’s everlasting truth and Word of life freely and largely for about… three hours!” This was just like the great vision God showed him.
Later some poor travelers came to a house Fox where was visiting. They were begging for relief and were obviously in great need, but the people of the home gave them nothing and reproached them as “cheats.” Fox writes, “It grieved me to see such hard-heartedness among professors [of faith in Christ]… I ran after the poor people about a quarter of a mile, and gave them some money.”
The people who saw this marveled that he couldn’t have run so far so fast even if he had wings!
“Are You Angry with Your Bibles?” (The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 9)
In Dorchester Fox and his company stayed at an inn, which was a Baptist’s house. He asked to invite some people for a Quaker meeting, but they refused and were in a great rage. “Their teacher and many of them came up, and slapped their Bibles on the table.”
Fox says, “I asked them why they were so angry — ‘Were they angry with the Bible?’… I asked them whether they had the same Spirit and power that the apostles had? They said they did not…”
Fox got them to admit that there were only two powers: that of God and of the devil. Then he told them, “If you have not the power of God that the apostles had, you act by the power of the devil.”
The people listening to Fox confront their teachers became convinced that Christ was the Teacher they needed and listened to Fox preach the word from the Scriptures. “A precious service we had there for the Lord and His power came over all.”
