George Fox
He was born at Drayton-in-the-Clay (Fenny
Drayton, 15 miles south-west of Leicester), Leicestershire,
England in July
1624 and died in London on January 13, 1691.
His father,
Christopher Fox, was a weaver, called "righteous
Christer" by his neighbors; his mother, Mary
Lago, was, he tells us, "of the stock of the Martyrs".
From childhood, Fox was of a serious,
religious disposition. "When I came to eleven
years of age," he said,
"I knew pureness and righteousness;
for, while I was a child, I was taught
how to walk to be kept pure. The
Lord taught me to be faithful, in all things, and to
act faithfully two ways; viz., inwardly to God, and
outwardly to man." As he grew up, his relations
"thought to have made him a priest"; but he
was put as an apprentice to a man who was a
shoemaker and grazier.
In his 19th year the
conduct of two companions, who were professors
of religion, grieved him because they joined in
drinking healths, and he heard an inward voice
from the Lord, "Thou seest how young people go
together into vanity, and old people into the earth;
and thou must forsake all, both young and old, and
keep out of all, and be as a stranger unto all."
Then began a life of solitary wandering in mental
temptations and troubles, in which he "went to
many a priest to look for comfort, but found no
comfort from them."
At one time, as he was
walking in a field, "the Lord opened unto" him "that
being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough
to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ,"
but that a spiritual qualification was necessary.
Not seeing this requisite in the priest of his parish,
he "would get into the orchards and fields" by
himself with his Bible. Regarding the priests less,
he looked more after the dissenters, among whom
he found "some tenderness," but no one that
could speak to his need. "And when all my hopes
in them," he says, "and in all men, were gone, so
that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor
could tell what to do, then, oh! then, I heard a
voice which said, `There is one, even Christ Jesus,
that can speak to thy condition.'"
In 1648 he began to exercise his ministry
publicly in market-places, in the fields, in appointed
meetings of various kinds, sometimes in the
"steeple-houses," after the priests had got through.
His preaching was powerful; and
many joined him in professing the
same faith in the spirituality of true
religion.
In a few years the Society
of Friends had formed itself
spontaneously under the preaching of Fox and
his companions. Fox afterward showed great
powers as a religious legislator, in the admirable
organization which he gave to the new society.
He seems, however, to have had no desire to found
a sect, but only to proclaim the pure and genuine
principles of Christianity in their original
simplicity.
He was often arrested and imprisoned for violating the laws forbidding unauthorized
worship, for refusal to take an oath, and for wearing his hat in court. He was imprisoned at Derby in 1650, Carlisle in 1653, London in 1654, Launceston
in 1656, Lancaster in 1660 and 1663, Scarborough in 1666, and Worcester in 1674, in noisome
dungeons, and with much attendant cruelty. In prison his pen was active, and hardly less potent than his
voice.
In 1669 Fox married Margaret Fell of
Swarthmoor Hall, a lady of high social position, and one
of his early converts. In 1671 he went to Barbados
and the English settlements in America,
where he remained two years. In 1677 and 1684
he visited the Friends in the Netherlands, and organized
their meetings for discipline.
Fox is described by Thomas Ellwood, the friend
of John Milton, as "graceful in countenance, manly in
personage, grave in gesture, courteous in
conversation." Penn says he was "civil beyond all
forms of breeding." We are told that he was
"plain and powerful in preaching, fervent in
prayer," "a discerner of other men's spirits, and
very much master of his own," skilful to "speak
a word in due season to the conditions and
capacities of most, especially to them that were weary,
and wanted soul's rest;" "valiant in asserting the
truth, bold in defending it, patient in suffering for
it, immovable as a rock."
George Fox died on January 13, 1691 and was interred in the dissenters cemetery at Bunhill Fields in London, England.
Early life
His ministry. The Society of Friends
External links