a quote from George fox suspect

No-one knew the scriptures more than George Fox, he quoted them regularly and taught that whatever the Holy Spirit shows a man, must be confirmed by scripture.

He spoke against men who had the scriptures but did not have the Holy Spirit, which comes first.

It just shows how a mans words can be taken out of context when people read excerpts without reading more widely from source.

In the following quotation, George Fox reacts to a pastor quoting scripture and shows that it is the connection with Holy Spirit that is sacred ”” not the scriptures. This `interruption' landed Fox in prison!

At the time of this event, which was in Nottingham, Fox was twenty-four years of age. The same biography from which you took your quote also tells us that Fox was eventually dealt with leniently although he did spend some weeks in prison awaiting to go before a judge. The interim was spent mostly at the house of the Principle Sheriff who's wife saw in Fox a true light. Fox missed several hearings because he was busy ministering at the time and the Sherif was late in getting him to the court. The judge on one occasion, though angry at having to stand down, indicated that he would have simply rebuked "the youth" had he appeared that day.

In any event the context of what Fox said in the Church was consistent with his understanding of the whole meaning and purpose of evangelism. Hence why Fox speaks of the congregation being "fallow ground" and the priest being as a "lump of earth". You don't sow seed on ground that is become a lump of earth. Remember the prophecy Gary go read it again you will see the answer therein.

I don't believe this account of Fox has anything to do with taking the Scriptures less than seriously. I believe it is at once a reflection of Fox's belief that all men who's hearts are natural are open to God, and all men who's hearts are hardened by unnatural and perverse affections are dead to God. His challenge to the priest was simply a sowing of seeds to the hearts of men and women who he saw as natural, to be open to true God and in that endeavour he was asking them to be alive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The following entry of Fox spells out the underlying knowledge which informed his activities and can be seen in this instance you have made reference to.

"Now the Lord God opened to me by His invisible power that every man was enlightened by the divine Light of Christ, and I saw it shine through all; and that they that believed in it came out of condemnation to the Light of life, and became the children of it; but they that hated it, and did not believe in it were condemned by it, though they made a profession of Christ. This I saw in the pure openings of the Light without the help of any man; neither did I then know where to find it in the Scriptures; though afterwards, searching the Scriptures, I found it. For I saw, in that Light and Spirit which was before the Scriptures were given forth, and which led the holy men of God to give them forth, that all, if they would know God or Christ, or the Scriptures aright, must come to that Spirit by which they that gave them forth were led and taught."

The real question in this is less to do with the merit of Scriptures, and more to do with the hearts and minds of men and women and a knowledge of when to sow and when to pass by.

The same revelation which gave rise to this instance in Nottingham and all of Fox's endeavours also contained these words:

"Abundance was opened concerning these things; how all lay out of the wisdom of God, and out of the righteousness and holiness that man at the first was made in. But as all believe in the Light, and walk in the Light, -- that Light with which Christ hath enlightened every man that cometh into the world, -- and become children of the Light, and of the day of Christ, all things, visible and invisible, are seen, by the divine Light of Christ, the spiritual heavenly man, by whom all things were created.

Moreover, when I was brought up into His image in righteousness and holiness, and into the paradise of God He let me see how Adam was made a living soul; and also the stature of Christ, the mystery that had been hid from ages and generations: which things are hard to be uttered, and cannot be borne by many. For of all the sects in Christendom (so called) that I discoursed with, I found none who could bear to be told that any should come to Adam's perfection, -- into that image of God, that righteousness and holiness, that Adam was in before he fell; to be clean and pure, without sin, as he was. Therefore how shall they be able to bear being told that any shall grow up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, when they cannot bear to hear that any shall come, whilst upon earth, into the same power and Spirit that the prophets and apostles were in? -- though it be a certain truth that none can understand their writings aright without the same Spirit by which they were written."

In short Gary sinless perfection. Morning Brenda!

16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Peter is clear that he is speaking of the 'voice' that direct speaking of the Holy Ghost to men, not the recorded voice in God speaking to other men. Fox stressed that it is not enough to hear God through other men in scripture, but we must hear His voice within us and this comes first and it is confirmed by other men speaking in scripture.

Good morning Andrew

At least someone else here understands that Fox taught sinless perfection along with other mystics and not the later Protestant holiness teachings which go only so far of the way there and which seems to be accepted as non heretical here unless I speak about it so I will say no more.

Gary go and start the greatest revival that England has seen then come back and say where Fox was wrong on hearing God.

I suppose if we want to be most accurate then we had better place what the priest said in Nottingham in 1648/9 in their exact context.

"For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there was borne such a voice to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: and this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount. And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:16”“21)

We can very easily see that the words "And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed" speaks of the Father in Majesty bearing witness of the Son, even Christ Jesus, to Peter, James and John on the mountain, at which time both Moses and Elijah also appeared. But the context of the writing of these words is that of Peter bearing witness himself as an apostle of Christ, having heard these words with his own ears and the context in which we have them today is by the Scriptures. The means by which we apprehend them is by the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps if we are to be able to cut through the fog we would all be better served by knowing the Father, for which cause Christ came into the world.

If we want to be contentious we will have to be more accurate than Satan if by that means we are to be of any service to anyone.

As for sinless perfection I too clearly disbelieve it as some present it's meaning. It is also difficult not to see that Fox intended something by his words in which he claims that he was given surpassing revelation, by which he comprehended that in Christ we are to be restored to the sinless and perfect state which was in Adam before his disobedience. What he meant precisely by that seems to me to be an irrelevance.

In reading Fox I find that he seems to have been of the overwhelming view that the "Steeple Houses" were by and large filled with dead men professing Christ but having no true life in themselves. Hence why he placed his emphasis on seeing men and women in context of their general, natural and reasonable demeanour, which he called "ploughed fields". That term clearly is intended to mean a field prepared for planting. As planting in that sense would mean the propagation of the Gospel of Christ, then Fox appears to have been of the mind that if a person professing Christ, demonstrated by outward and visible means, decency, modesty, honestly, integrity, justice, and simple truthfulness, then they would by that means and their confession of Christ, be shown to be of Christ. If not then by rejecting such things, despite confessing Christ, they would be shown to be hypocrites and hence deluded and yet deceived.

The same High Sheriff to who's house Fox was taken after his few hours in a stinking prison, were received by Fox as true believers. He held many meeting to good effect in his house and to which meetings many high men and women attended. These men and all would have been members of the very same church in which Fox spoke the words which led to his arrest. Fox also demonstrates the meaning of this reality by bearing witness of the High Sheriff who's house he now resided awaiting his trial, a certain John Reckless, who challenged his deputy into recompensing a certain lady who was defrauded in a business deal by his hand. Fox was concerned with spiritual reality and not spiritual gymnastics.

I see Fox as having an eye for truth both in doctrine and conduct, but did not set doctrine to mean true salvation. Nor did he believe that good works were of themselves evidence of true faith. As with most things unless we ourselves have a balance we will inevitably subscribe to others the same offence which is in our own eye.

Thus I travelled on in the Lord's service, as He led me. When I came to Nottingham, the mighty power of God was there among Friends. From thence I went to Clawson, in Leicestershire, in the Vale of Beavor; and the mighty power of God appeared there also, in several towns and villages where Friends were gathered.

While I was there the Lord opened to me three things relating to those three great professions in the world, -- law, physic, and divinity (so called). He showed me that the physicians were out of the wisdom of God, by which the creatures were made; and knew not the virtues of the creatures, because they were out of the Word of wisdom, by which they were made. He showed me that the priests were out of the true faith, of which Christ is the author, -- the faith which purifies, gives victory and brings people to have access to God, by which they please God; the mystery of which faith is held in a pure conscience. He showed me also that the lawyers were out of the equity, out of the true justice, and out of the law of God, which went over the first transgression, and over all sin, and answered the Spirit of God that was grieved and transgressed in man; and that these three, -- the physicians, the priests, and the lawyers, -- ruled the world out of the wisdom, out of the faith, and out of the equity and law of God; one pretending the cure of the body, another the cure of the soul, and the third the protection of the property of the people. But I saw they were all out of the wisdom, out of the faith, out of the equity and perfect law of God.

And as the Lord opened these things unto me I felt that His power went forth over all, by which all might be reformed if they would receive and bow unto it. The priests might be reformed and brought into the true faith, which is the gift of God. The lawyers might be reformed and brought into the law of God, which answers that [indwelling Spirit] of God which is [in every one, is] transgressed in every one, and [which yet, if heeded] brings one to love his neighbour as himself. This lets man see that if he wrongs his neighbour, he wrongs himself; and teaches him to do unto others as he would they should do unto him. The physicians might be reformed and brought into the wisdom of God, by which all things were made and created; that they might receive a right knowledge of the creatures, and understand their virtues, which the Word of wisdom, by which they were made and are upheld, hath given them.

Abundance was opened concerning these things; how all lay out of the wisdom of God, and out of the righteousness and holiness that man at the first was made in. But as all believe in the Light, and walk in the Light, -- that Light with which Christ hath enlightened every man that cometh into the world, -- and become children of the Light, and of the day of Christ, all things, visible and invisible, are seen, by the divine Light of Christ, the spiritual heavenly man, by whom all things were created.

Moreover, when I was brought up into His image in righteousness and holiness, and into the paradise of God He let me see how Adam was made a living soul; and also the stature of Christ, the mystery that had been hid from ages and generations: which things are hard to be uttered, and cannot be borne by many. For of all the sects in Christendom (so called) that I discoursed with, I found none who could bear to be told that any should come to Adam's perfection, -- into that image of God, that righteousness and holiness, that Adam was in before he fell; to be clean and pure, without sin, as he was. Therefore how shall they be able to bear being told that any shall grow up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, when they cannot bear to hear that any shall come, whilst upon earth, into the same power and Spirit that the prophets and apostles were in? -- though it be a certain truth that none can understand their writings aright without the same Spirit by which they were written.

Now the Lord God opened to me by His invisible power that every man was enlightened by the divine Light of Christ, and I saw it shine through all; and that they that believed in it came out of condemnation to the Light of life, and became the children of it; but they that hated it, and did not believe in it were condemned by it, though they made a profession of Christ. This I saw in the pure openings of the Light without the help of any man; neither did I then know where to find it in the Scriptures; though afterwards, searching the Scriptures, I found it. For I saw, in that Light and Spirit which was before the Scriptures were given forth, and which led the holy men of God to give them forth, that all, if they would know God or Christ, or the Scriptures aright, must come to that Spirit by which they that gave them forth were led and taught.

On a certain time, as I was walking in the fields, the Lord said unto me, "Thy name is written in the Lamb's book of life, which was before the foundation of the world": and as the Lord spoke it, I believed, and saw in it the new birth. Some time after the Lord commanded me to go abroad into the world, which was like a briery, thorny wilderness. When I came in the Lord's mighty power with the Word of life into the world, the world swelled and made a noise like the great raging waves of the sea. Priests and professors, magistrates and people, were all like a sea when I came to proclaim the day of the Lord amongst them, and to preach repentance to them.

I was sent to turn people from darkness to the Light, that they might receive Christ Jesus; for to as many as should receive Him in His Light, I saw He would give power to become the sons of God; which power I had obtained by receiving Christ. I was to direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures, by which they might be led into all truth, and up to Christ and God, as those had been who gave them forth. George Fox 1648/9

"Up to Christ and God" by the "Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures"

Here is a useful tip in reading Fox whic h I have found to be correct:

"If you are new to Fox, I have a suggestion: study what he says. If there is something in the Bible, which you think conflicts with what Fox has written, try this approach in resolving the apparent difference: assume Fox is right, and now reexamine the scripture, questioning and searching your mind on how it could be interpreted to support what Fox says. If you do that, you will invariably see that every scripture is in harmony with Fox's entire message, with no exceptions. But, if you fail to reconsider your past understandings, which might be wrong, you must discard many scriptures that are incompatible with the subset of scriptures that you dearly hold to be true. All scriptures are compatible; if you have to disregard one to maintain your understanding, then you don’t understand the ones you think you do. One day, when you get that one more piece of the scripture puzzle, you will see how all the scriptures are totally compatible; and then you have the correct formula for what God desires and what he detests. Knowledge is not salvation, but exposes false salvations, and points the way to the one true salvation, which is to be delivered from sin and is to be experienced.http://www.hallvworthington.com/wjournal/gfjournal1.html"

Fox on understanding the scriptures rightly:

"Moreover, the Lord God let me see, when I was brought up into his image in righteousness and holiness, and into the state of the paradise of God how Adam was made a living soul; and also to the stature of Christ, the mystery that had been hid from ages and generations; which things are hard to be uttered, and cannot be borne by many. For of all the sects in Christendom (so called) that I discoursed with, I found none that could bear to be told that anyone could spiritually grow to Adam's perfection, (that is into that image of God, and righteousness and holiness that Adam was in before he fell), to be clean, pure, and without sin as he was. Therefore, how would they be able to bear being told that any should spiritually grow up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; when it threatens them to hear that any shall come, while upon earth, into the same power and spirit that the prophets and apostles were in? Though it is an absolute truth, that none can understand the Apostle’s writings correctly without the same spirit by which they were written."

Some times Brenda I am genuinely speechless at the things you write.

Can you really mean to say that in order to arrive at truth a person must reject their understanding of Scripture, presume complete accuracy by George Fox and then re-examine Scripture seeking to find George Fox's meanings?

Brenda you are the one who instructed Gary to give context to the words of George Fox's comments regarding his rebuke of a Church of England Priest. Then when I come along and give them proper context you totally disregard that context, refuse to acknowledge its meaning and end up advising all of us to adopt a position of presuming George Fox to be the height of revelation and our own understanding of Scripture to be false or wrong. In that we are to "set aside" our knowledge of Scripture and look for evidence of what Fox has said.

The only reason I posted into this thread was to support Gary in his claim that the priest was indeed right when he said that all doctrine must be tested from the Scripture. That George Fox intended sinless perfection in this life, as you understand that saying, may well be a whole lot different to what Fox intended to mean by his words. I also did not intend to draw you into a debate on sinless perfection and so I could say that Gary's wife is called Brenda.

Now in finality you infer that true salvation means "to be delivered from sin and is to be experienced". By which means are all other conditions of salvation by definition, false. Brenda why would you believe after everything that has passed between us on here, for which I have been attacked repeatedly by other members, would now amount to an intention to support your teaching of sinless perfection. By attribution I have no choice but to distance myself from your action. All of my posts are to give context Brenda and not to promote your interpretation of it out of hand. Fox I can believe meant and understood something entirely different in the sense that he was translating a heavily vision of what could happen if men were to come under the power and true leading of the Holy Spirit. He was not advocating sinless perfection as though a man could never sin again or would in fact live an entirely sinless life. In the same way that Adam was sinless and then by the power of his own will, he sinned.

That Fox by his words has made possible sinless perfection as a false doctrine is a reality in some quarters. I have read others who have expressed a disappointment that Fox did not explain these words sufficiently well enough. Just because a false doctrine can be found in another's words does not mean that they intended such a doctrine. He was just twenty-four years old at the time and clearly he was describing a heavenly revelation or vision by which he was able to comprehend eternal truths. Translating all such truths into day to day reality is always fraught with dangers. What is even more dangerous is to attempt to do it some 350 + years later.

Can you really mean to say that in order to arrive at truth a person must reject their understanding of Scripture, presume complete accuracy by George Fox and then re-examine Scripture seeking to find George Fox's meanings?

The point that the writer made, was that we should follow his suggestion *in order to understand the way Fox is interpreting them*. We can then decide whether we agree or not but first we must see how he is understanding the scriptural view we are opposing. He is interpreting the scriptures quite often in a way that is not grasped by many who are not in the same spirit as he so he is frequently misunderstood.

I have read others who have expressed a disappointment that Fox did not explain these words sufficiently well enough. Just because a false doctrine can be found in another's words does not mean that they intended such a doctrine. He was just twenty-four years old at the time and clearly he was describing a heavenly revelation or vision by which he was able to comprehend eternal truths. Translating all such truths into day to day reality is always fraught with dangers. What is even more dangerous is to attempt to do it some 350 + years later.

Fox made it more than clear here:

"At last they asked me, whether I was sanctified? I answered, yes; for I was in the paradise of God. Then they asked me, if I had no sin? I answered, Christ, my savior, has taken away my sin; and in him there is no sin. They asked how we knew that Christ did abide in us? I said, by his spirit that he has given us. They temptingly asked, if any of us were Christ? I answered, no, we were nothing, and Christ was all. They said, if a man steal, is it no sin? I answered that all unrighteousness is sin. When they had wearied themselves in examining me, they committed me and one other man to the house of correction in Derby for six months, as blasphemers."

Please note I am not defending the doctrine I am merely showing what Fox taught.

Please note I am not defending the doctrine I am merely showing what Fox taught.

I rather thought that you had precisely done that very thing Brenda time and again both here and elsewhere. I grant that Fox's words are difficult to resist in their implication of what he himself may have intended to mean.

The same thing could be said of the examination he records at Derby assizes.

I can't be bothered to go into it. Although I have no doubt that it would be very easy to contract a semantic argument which exonerates Fox from a deliberate presentation of a claim to sinless perfection by giving some insight into 17th Century usage of the English language. The questions may have been in a mocking tone. They do not have to have been sincere or truly an enquiry into truth. They could have been intended to impute a heresy and not necessarily to uncover one. The words of themselves could be made to mean anything.

I take my position from the fact that I too have been in paradise by the grace of God and thus see very easily that no such thing could have been possible except that sin had been thoroughly removed from my account. It is easy to mock all such claims and I can imagine how Fox would have been mocked by dead men who professed Christ as their own but had no true knowledge of Him, let alone been in the place of His habitation. Fox's account hinges on his claim to have been in Paradise. Without that it would be heretical. With it, it becomes a true revelation of our condition in Christ Jesus and even in this life a measure from which to truly seek to please the Lord in our present conduct. What it may not have been intended to mean was a claim to sinless perfection in this life.

Well Fox was known as one of the great mystics and a holy man by his peers at the time, many making the same claims as he and mystical theology consisting of exactly that - union with Christ and taking on His nature. He follows in a long line of them since the early fathers and they all interpreted the scriptures in the same way, often having come to the understanding without any influence as myself came to it.

Often people discount the teaching without taking the time to understand the claims or the way scriptures are seen supporting that view. Of course, many do not accept it and they are entitled not to.

Gary

Many Quakers downgrade the scriptures and many do not even believe in God and call themselves atheist Quakers. The movement is dead and there is no-one preaching the message Fox brought that I know of, and certainly not in the UK although there was an academic book printed called: Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism: An Historical Analysis of the Theology of Holiness in the Quaker Tradition (Studies in Christian History and Thought) Paperback ”“ December 1, 2007 by Carole Dale Spencer which showed that the original message was not that 'every man is lighted with the light of Christ' which is what many Quakers think, but it was concerning holiness and similar to the revivals in the Holiness Movement days.

When Fox formed the Quakers, there had been no groups who's message was holiness until then, though I am sure that he knew that there had been small groups (or even individuals) like the Carmelites within the Spanish Catholic church. He said that all denominations were apostate, even the Anabaptists from their onset who were not formed over that doctrine. It was the organisations that Fox spoke out against, not individuals within who may be true disciples.

Fox held the scriptures in their rightly place, in that there is no interpretation of them unless a person is in the same Spirit as the writers. In those times, many believed that any man could read the scriptures and understand them. Fox said that having the Spirit inside is the first thing that is needed. Then the scriptures will be in accordance with the 'light' and there will be no discordance.

the Anabaptists are praised here this forum but not so with George it seems he calls them a false sect

is it true the Anabaptist are a false sect ,,what does the forum think

"The Great Mystery Of The Great Whore Unfolded; And Antichrist's Kingdom Revealed Unto Destruction. In Answer To Many False Doctrines And Principles Which Babylon's Merchants Have Traded With, Being Held Forth By The "Professed Ministers, And Teachers, And Professors In England, Ireland, And Scotland, Taken Under Their Own Hands, And From Their Own Mouths, Sent Forth By Them From Time To Time, Against The Despised People Of The Lord, Called Quakers, Who Are Of The Seed Of That Woman Who Hath Been Long Sled Into The Wilderness. Also, An Invasion Upon The Great City Babylon, With The Spoiling Of Her Golden Cup, And Delicate Merchandise, Whereby She Hath Deceived The World And Nations; And Herein Is Declared The Spoiling Of Her Prey, In This Answer To The Multitude Of Doctrines Held Forth By The Many False Sects, Which Have Lost The Key Of Knowledge, And Been On Foot Since The Apostles' Days, Called Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyters, Ranters, And Many Others; Who Out Of Their Own Mouths Have Manifested Themselves Not To Be Of A True Descent From The True Christian Churches: But It Is Discovered That They Have Been All Made Drunk With The Wine Of Fornication Received From The Whore Which Hath Sitten Upon The Beast, After Whom The World Hath Wondered."

http://dqc.esr.earlham.edu:8080/xmlmm/loginB?XMLMMToc=E12877488C-000&XMLMMLanguage=English&XMLMMCollection=/earlham&XMLMMReturnURL=http://www.qhpress.org/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi%3Fname%3Dgeorge.fox

You will see from this great list in the above link that Fox was addressing specifically named men whose writings were published and concerning whom Fox took the view that they in all times were against the true Christian, whom Fox called "The Despised People of the Lord, Called Quakers". Incredible as it seems the quote is a title and not a doctrinal statement as such.

Fox appeared to hold to a supremacy of true believers which he did not call the body of Christ in the way we would today call true believers, but rather he called all true believers who were sanctified and living holy lives "Quakers" in keeping with the accusations levelled against him and his friends. He appears to have done this with no recognition for denominational affiliation as such. Fox was making of these few men and women the name "Quakers" whether they had themselves heard the expression or else conceived of it's meaning or not. I would say that this represents the height of arrogance by today's understanding and use of the term "Body of Christ" but who knows what it really meant to Fox or for that matter why he used that term "Quaker" instead of "Body of Christ" to denote true believers who were living holy lives. The reality is that whilst George Fox was an undoubted prophet in his day, he was also mistaken about some very important realities. What Fox was speaking about I believe is that remnant of believers in every age who are by the grace of God living a sanctified and holy life unto God and before men. Is it forgivable that Fox neither used that term or even the body of Christ to denote what he perceived as the persecution of all such godly men and women, in all denominations, in my view. He had the Scriptures and he could read. Why then he chose to identify and impute the meaning of "Quaker" as a legitimate description of sanctified believers I do not know beyond stating that to him at least in his day and experience of ministry who else would he identify with in practical and meaningful terms other than those who were called "Quakers" by those who were against them?

You also have to realise or take account of the fact that,"Quaker" was an insult and not a compliment at that time. The men and women Fox fellowshipped with called one another "Friends" in keeping with making a separation between those who agreed with the claim to a practical and real holy life, and those who did not. Or in other words it is a distinction between those who were enemies and those who were friends. I find Fox difficult as much as I admire him. I think he wilfully and knowingly provoked hostility by making statements in his preaching and pamphlets which were truly against all established religious traditions. This was especially directed at paid clergy and it is in this sense that he includes the Anabaptists.

I just put on the board a series of messages by Denny Kenaston entitled An Oral history of the Anabaptists. These messages are out of the SI archives. Denny, who passed away into God`s presence sometime ago, does an excellent job explaining who the Anabaptists are. I believe if one listens to these messages they will come to the conclusion that the Anabaptists were anything but heretics.

If anything the Anabaptist saints captured the true essence of following Jesus Christ even to the point of death.

Very good messages. This is not dry history. But this is food for the soul. Certainly messages that challenge us to follow Jesus Christ as radical disciples of him in this day.

Blaine

Gary the Anabaptists were not a false sect. Brother please see the messages by Denny Kenaston posted on the board.

Blaine

Gary wrote: can any one see the problem with foxes teaching about the iner light and how he has elavated himself and others to the infalably prophetic and the bible as the rule and foundation of high revalation re..... although there be the same spirit in all the saints that gave forth scripture , yet all the saints do not have the same inspiration of the spirit that the apostals and the prophets had , so as that they should be able to give forth INFALABLE TRUTHS , and imidatly dis cover the pure and clear will of god AS THE APOSTALS AND PROPHETS DID

It is necessary to understand exactly what Fox meant. He said that if we have the same Spirit as the apostles and prophets, then we will be inspired by the Spirit and know the truth as they did.This truth is directly given to us in our spirits by the Holy Spirit if He is within us. We should have this knowledge within (which cannot disagree with scripture) but which must be our confirmation of the truth.

Fox knew that all who call themselves believers, do not have this witness within and rely on their minds in interpreting scripture and look to others to interpret for them, and it is a lot more common than people think and explains why there is so much disagreement. Get together a group of believers who do have the Spirit, witnessed by whether they have like Fox and been in Paradise and restored to an uncorrupted state, then you will find agreement. Fox's persecuters were believers who would not accept his teaching on this.

The early Quakers were such a people and were in agreement from within and did not need any man to teach them once they were in the Spirit (we need teaching to get there).

By the time of Wesley however, the Quakers had lost their inner witness and Wesley, though he supported them at first, was correct in admonishing them and was noted for saying that they showed their hypocricy in the purchase of expensive bonnets to obtain the required style and at the same time plead for simplicity and economy. He did not live in the times where the witness of the holiness of the Quakers turned England upside down and we must not forget that even despite the much lower spiritual state of Quaker communities, he had lost quite a few of his members to them, which makes me think that he had more than an impersonal gripe against them.

His main gripe was concerning the sacraments and again, the Quaker position is badly misunderstood. They do believe in partaking of the elements but in a spiritual form not a physical one and the baptism is of the Spirit. The ten points that have been made, likewise show a very scant reading of Barclay's Apology with many misinterpretation and misunderstanding going on.

The Quakers arose at a time in history where many practises needed to be challenged and they must be understood according to the climate of the time. But their witness of holiness and message cannot be denied. They changed Britain totally and the influence is still there. Most of Christianity is still apostate and denies the power of God for deliverance from sin

Gary

You say it is twisting Fox's words but I say it is misunderstanding them. How much of Fox have you actually studied? Have you carefully read his journal? Or do you just believe what others say about him? I have studied his writings for many years and know that many write absolute rubbish about him and even Wesley, great theologian as he was, did not understand Fox.

I don't agree with everything Fox said, nobody is right 100% but he was right on most things theologically speaking and the proof of the pudding was in the eating. I don't know why he had to interrupt Anglican services but I would not judge anyone on such a practise in a society that I have little idea about.

OK Gary I am not offended but still don't have an issue as to what Fox said. We have the same Spirit if we have been baptised into the body and can speak the revealed truth just like they did but obviously not all are called to teach.

are you saying we can speak the truth as fox and weasly did

Yes we can. For an example, we can say that God is a Trinity. Not because it says so in the Bible but because it is something that He reveals to us in our spirit. Now that's an easy one that beginners know, but the problem is that many cannot discern between having something revealed by God and something that they worked out in their minds. It takes a proficient to know the difference and so Paul said on one matter that he was saying his own thinking not what had been revealed to him by the Lord. If something has been revealed by the Lord then we can speak with confidence, that is, if one has progressed to having the mind of Christ.

It is this knowing that Fox spoke about and it can only come for those who are in absolute obedience and are led only by the Spirit of God and not by their own notions (another word Fox liked to use). He saw that most of the preachers and leaders in his day were going by their own notions regarding the way of sanctification. They all preached sin according to Fox in that they said that a man cannot stop sinning in this life. That was his contention.

blessings to you too.

There is no doubt about it Brenda you really do push that sinless perfection doctrine with its mystical covenant of progressive enlightenment.

Beginner's and Proficient's sound more like an occult coven than the Gospel of grace.

The following link is to an 1835 edition of Volume III of the Works of Fox which was published to serve as a rebuttal to the accusation that the Society of Friends has itself apostasies from Fox's teachings.

http://www.hallvworthington.com/Original%20PDFs/Works_3_Great_Mystery.pdf

I have no idea how these eight volumes served to prove otherwise, but in any case the reason I have posted this link is because the part which is entitled The Epistle to the Reader and which forms the first part thereof is truly remarkable in the breadth and import of what Fox was claiming as the substance and meaning of the Quakers, so called.

The various parts which make up Volume III were written and published just seven years after the Quakers began their ministry in the North of England. There are so many extraordinary sayings by Fox in this "Epistle to the Reader" that I am almost lost for words. I am writing this brief comment to draw attention to just one of the things Fox claims.

Having set about to condemn in utter completeness, in every part and by every possible spiritual meaning, all of the Churches in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, with no exceptions whatsoever, Fox declares that the Quakers were brought forth as a remedy to the total and complete apostasy of all sects and groups who take the name of Christ without exception, of priest or member throughout the whole of Christendom. He sets this in specific context of the reign of antichrist which he asserts began at the time of the apostles or soon thereafter and continued up until the hour of his ministry and its beginning. He sets his ministry, or more specifically the move of God which came to be called "the Quakers" as the beginning of the redemption of the woman (Church) sat in ruins in the wilderness of apostasy, being delivered, and her ruin coming to an end; thereby heralding the soon return of Christ.

Anyway don't take my word for it read the part I have made reference to for yourself. I am speechless and will have to meditate on this for some days before I respond again, even if I do respond again. Suffice it to say that I am not in the least bit surprised that Fox was hated by all, apart from those who became as he was. This particular volume was written as a response to persecution and yet it lays down the foundation, and certainty of provoking even more hatred of the Quakers. His condemnation is total, without any restraint of meaning, and it puts all others who take the name of Christ into eternal destruction and ruination without exception. In fact it is so elitist that I am finding it difficult to take it in.

It will take some reading because Fox like most men of his day could retain a long sentence and variety of meaning without necessarily expelling the relevant connections. One thing he does make crystal clear. Everything which he says this move of God represents, (of which he was a principle party), was founded on a direct experience of heaven itself and was not acquired by any means of ordinary learning. Everything is derived from that premise. In short you either received it or else you had no choice but to reject the man himself and all of his friends as heretics. Fox even says that they are called heretics and witches. All of this is set in and around the English Civil War.

For anyone who is willing to wade through this, I would like to point out that when Fox uses the term 'professors' he is referring to those who claim to be Christians but do not live the life, walk the walk.

He is speaking against those and the priests and leaders who deny the power of Christ by their confessions of sin, but says that the true church fled into the wilderness since the time of the apostles meaning that true disciples were hidden, but now God has called them forth to join together to preach the true gospel. He is not condemning all mankind but the state of the church in those times was dire, just like it is today and we are ripe for another prophet like Fox to stand up (and probably slaughtered).

When he spoke up in Anglican churches he would be taken outside, beaten to a pulp and left for dead, then the power of God would come upon him and he would stand up, shake the dust off his feet and head for the next town.

When he speaks of the anti-Christ, he is referring to the old man within us who takes his place on the throne of our hearts where Christ should be. In other words, sinners.

For anyone who is willing to wade through this, I would like to point out that when Fox uses the term 'professors' he is referring to those who claim to be Christians but do not live the life, walk the walk

I would like to point out that Fox has written in English and not antediluvian so his words are plain enough. In fact his language is so precise that it is simply impossible to misunderstand what he is saying. I have read elements of Fox's books in the past. I was given one just a few days after I was converted in prison in 1984, by an Elder of the Society of Friends. As an inmate in solitary confinement my only access to fellowship was via the prison chaplaincy office. So I asked to see the Catholic Priest, the Anglican Priest, the Methodist Minister and the Quaker Elder. This being not before I asked the Father in heaven why there were so many sects in the Church.

In fact the remarkable thing to me now, in reading this "Epistle to the Reader" from Volume III, is that Fox's originating position is the precise antithesis to my own. I am still trying to fathom that and to see, if as Brenda has suggested that somehow Fox is alluding to something other than the plain meaning of the words themselves. I have a reasonable command of the English language I am not a novice or unlearned so I have to take the position that if I cannot reasonably see the meaning in his words, I would not for myself at least accept any other meaning than the one I could plainly see. I would view any attempt to suggest that Fox was intending an allegorical meaning as deception and reject it out of hand.

Time to stop playing games with words Brenda. Lets cut the heart out of this man's ministry and see what manner of heart it really was!

If as you say Fox was as well versed in Scripture as he clearly was, then making use of passages of Revelation which speak of the great weight of the catholic Church, (being the church in the world) and not simply Rome, then any statement made corresponding to that meaning must of itself have the same weight. If the article did not carry that kind of weight and Fox's words were not so exacting and precise then I would genuinely think that I have misunderstood. As it is I am afraid that I have not misunderstood. Fox included in his condemnation every single person throughout the world who takes the name of Christ and said of them that unless they had come into the move of God of which he was an instrument, then they were yet apostate. There is no removing from what that means Brenda. He says these things in context of Britain, but broadens its meaning in context of using Revelation and the Mother of Harlots as his prophetic and Scriptural canopy. Given that you hold this man to be second only to the apostles of God, then demonstrate from his words and not your own that he did not mean what he has plainly stated in his "Epistle to the Reader".

It is a book written in time and place. The time is a few years after the end of the English Civil war, and the place was specifically the North of England. It was published in 1659. It is specifically a rebuttal to seven years of persecution and hatred by many men and women, but especially authorities of every type and kind, having concluded in the deaths of over 670 men and women in prison, and a few by execution. Not to mention imprisonment of more than 10,000 men and women, the whippings, beatings and slanders of many more thousands of men and women, all called Quaker's by those who hated them throughout the north of England, especially. The book therefore is not an allegory, it is set in a very dreadful context and circumstance. Moreover Fox went on to live another thirty-two or three years. He had plenty of time to recant of it's meaning and purpose had he ceded it's meaning to an error in his own thinking.

Moreover the "Epistle to the Reader" is a universal address to all men in all times and in all paces. It is stated thus and not some other thing. Further it is set into the context of his own life by which he says that he earnestly sought to know God from his childhood and eventually he came to know God and Christ and this was by an inner light of such a consuming effect that he was left utterly and irrevocably changed. Some portion of that same period of time included a rapture into Paradise and a revealing of the better part of the substance of that which constitutes his rebuke to all Churches, ministers, and members of all Churches, without exception.

Finally please don't allegorise what is self evidently intended to be real meaning in the ordinary sense. If you do then I for one will not take you seriously. I have wondered for nearly two years why you have taken Fox so singularly as a man who stands out head and shoulders above all other believers since the apostle Paul. I have just taken this to mean something akin to affection and thus a form of exaggeration. Now that I have read this "Epistle to the Reader" I can see that George Fox made of himself a prophet equal to any apostle. I have never troubled to look before until this thread by Gary. In seeking to place some balance to what Gary was saying, whilst broadly agreeing with him, I have presented a generally supportive position to Fox. I am now quiet uncertain if I will not end up holding him to be the chief heretic of all England. I have had to try to find an unadulterated copy of the 1659 book. The link I have provided is to the 1831 original copy. I would encourage anyone to read that version no matter how difficult it may be to read, and reject all other abused volumes.

If you want to know you will simply have to read Fox's own words in their purest and least altered form yourself. Otherwise there is nothing further to say.

So here is the link again:

http://www.hallvworthington.com/Original%20PDFs/Works_3_Great_Mystery.pdf

I have renewed the link Gary. Apart from that I cannot explain why it does not work for yourself. Here is another link to a scanned copy at Harvard University Library.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OUBUXRr-y-4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

The reason why I am saying read the unaltered original is because all other copies are set in context of a defence of Fox. In fact the eight volumes produced in 1831 were intended to address a claim that the Society of Friends had abandoned George Fox's original position. The volumes were produced to examine if that was in fact the case by seeking to set out a best possible insight into the time and writing of George Fox from his own hand.

My deepest concern is not precisely with the obvious contentious nonsense of those who hated Fox, but at the moment at least rests on the fact that his singular focus and uncompromising position was entirely based on a revelation or rapture to Paradise. In that context he claimed to have received in an instant of time a full and persistent account of the state of the catholic church, the planned redemption to an original Adamic state and then the fullness of redemption in a seating down in Christ at the right hand of the Father. When Brenda speaks about Fox turning England upside down we have to realise that he provoked a deliberate condemnation of every single part of all churches and all believers. He literally provoked this outcome by his own hand. What is more it led to the suffering and deaths of many people through more than a twenty-five year period involving at its height tens of thousand of men women and children who were literally hated because of this provocation. I know that some will say the Quakers were hated because of Christ, but I would say that we do not have to overwhelmingly condemn all others as apostate and lost, who take the name of Christ, to an end of leaving them with no other recourse than to say we are mad. To then deliberately attend their meetings and belay their words with our own, amounting to a total condemnation, seems remarkable.

Just remember whatever good came from this activity of Fox is was absent when John Wesley began his ministry, the same is true for George Whitfield both of whom were repeatedly dealt with badly by the population of England. In the case of Wesley that specifically meant the same part of rural Leicestershire that Fox first ministered in. It also means just one generation after the death of George Fox England openly hated the gospel again. Having lived in this part of Leicestershire for some years I have seen the legacy myself. It is dead as death itself. I preached with my partner in the gospel throughout this part of England and received nothing but rebukes or else indifference.

Anyway Gary as you started this, where are your answers brother. Simply expressing doubts won't do any of us any good. We need answers.

Fox included in his condemnation every single person throughout the world who takes the name of Christ and said of them that unless they had come into the move of God of which he was an instrument, then they were yet apostate. There is no removing from what that means Brenda.

I don't see him saying that they had to be Quakers - would you supply a reference please?

Time to stop playing games with words Brenda. Lets cut the heart out of this man's ministry and see what manner of heart it really was!

I have no problem with putting him under the microscope. I don't think that he was God and do not agree with him 100% for example on how to treat children (he advised spanking) but if you are going to say your understanding is superior to those who actually knew him and called him the most enlightened man what ever walked bar the apostles, then fire away.

The OT prophets had a similar message to him and yes I think he was a prophet. His message is valid for all times, in that most who call themselves believers are apostate but his main focus was on priests/ministers who misled the flock.

his singular focus and uncompromising position was entirely based on a revelation or rapture to Paradise.

Again, where did you get that from? What transpired in his experience of Paradise was that he was sanctified. His revelations came about at different times.

When Brenda speaks about Fox turning England upside down we have to realise that he provoked a deliberate condemnation of every single part of all churches and all believers. He literally provoked this outcome by his own hand.

The outcome was due to the reaction to his words. The anger came from the priests etc. The Quakers were a peaceable people but were called to a holy war in declaring the apostasy of the church and hopefully God will raise a man up today to do the same. The Quaker meetings were invaded, burned down and the Quakers hounded. Fox only stood up and spoke the truth.

The deadness of the north extends to my area too ie Durham. Nothing to do with the Quakers or Wesley.

mainly is it OK as a bible believing Christian elevate extrabibical revelation to the level of scripture as fox did

I don't know why you keep repeating that - Fox quoted scripture frequently and would not accept anything that could not be confirmed by it.

Why Don't we ask Greg if Fox was a heretic? He must have read a bit about him whilst writing his latest book.

Andrew what exactly do you mean by my answers

I was looking for answers Gary rather than offering them, nor did I think you had given any. I could see that you were asking rather than answering. My concern is really a simple one and it has to do with Brenda and her persistence through time that Fox unique in all history with the exception of the apostles themselves. I have read this claim from Brenda on various web sites going back over twelve years. Whenever it comes up for comment Brenda appears to draw back from it. Frankly I can see that I am really best not participating in this forum. It is much easier for people to simply make claims and by that means to influence others than it is to support those claims. In this instance there is not doubt whatsoever that Fox (and he includes others in this) believed that he had arrived at a perfectly restored and God given appointment to a proper and foundational understanding of the meaning of the Church. On that basis he condemned all others and it is a reality that practising silence, and the inner light of revelation formed a central core to that meaning.

I have previously thought that Fox was misunderstood when Brenda has made certain claims about his teachings. I now think that she is right about his claims for himself and his claims about what salvation means. I also see that in the eyes of Fox you were not saved if intact you did not have that inner light so as to know as he knew those things concerning Christ which is the gift of all prophets and not necessarily the gift of all men and women. Fox made the mistake of imposing his own calling on others. Therein is a profound and destructive reality. He failed to comprehend the meaning of the prophetic, and the nature of prophecy, with which all believers can at any time know profound and wonderful things.

If he was called to suffer then he should have suffered himself and not have drawn tens of thousands of other into it's meaning. The prophet is not called to lead crusades which result in countless others being harmed by it and call that ministry to the body of Christ. The apostle Paul did not provoke authorities so that the result would be the hatred of all other believers. In fact he submitted to all authorities and in doing so he was able to bear witness of Christ in a manner which did not reflect such a total and utter condemnation of all others. Fox did precisely the opposite and taught others to do the same by example, Even down to paying taxes, whether to show respect to others in the way of removing the hat and many other instances.

England was in the grip of civil war and so much of his activities went unchallenged. When the war ended he was taken to task and fully. Whether he made much of it or not he was the de facto leader of many thousands of men women and children. The majority suffered because they followed him. Otherwise we have to say that Christ Himself enlightened every single man women and child to be of the same mind as Fox, and that this mind is the mind of Christ. If we say that then we also have to say that Fox was a prophet equal to the apostle Paul and as significant as the apostle Paul. Where is the evidence of it? There is none. No one can even agree on what Fox actually believed himself precisely.

So if we agree that the same thing could be said of the apostle Paul (disagreement concerning his teachings) then where does that leave us? It leaves us in the same place the church has always been and that is a place where there are divisions. There were such distinctions even amongst the Apostles. Fox massively over simplified Scriptural reality and he did it on the basis of a profound experience of being caught up to Paradise and an subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If Fox was minded to suffer then he ought to have suffered and spared others. He did not he accepted the death of women and children starving to death in filthy prisons as evidence of the work of Christ. He gloried in suffering, not just in his own body but taught others to believe that their suffering was evidence of the same reality which came by his own calling.

And if you ask yourself what all this suffering was really about you will find that it was to do with laying hold of Christ Himself. And that is where some on here have erred. You do not have to suffer anything to lay hold of Christ unto eternal life, nor will suffering preserve eternal life. It is the free gift of God. Christ suffered Himself in order that all men can lay hold of Him in peace. The difference may well be the difference between heresy and truth.

Why Don't we ask Greg if Fox was a heretic? He must have read a bit about him whilst writing his latest book.

That strikes me as divisive so probably best left alone. As to everything else Brenda I have provided the source and a read will show whether I have accurately reflected Fox and his claims with regard to the origin of his revelation as well as the specifics regarding his manner and customs of worship. Also his total and complete condemnation of all persons, who are other than his practise. Also whether he sets his movement in context of an end time restoration of the true church and whether he sought to claim that the true church was only to be found in his custom and practise. Its all there look for it. I have and I see it plainly and easily.

Gary wrote: thats just it brenda the scripture doesnt teach we can recieve infalable revalation as the apostals did

27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

If we are really in Christ, we have the same anointing to teach us all things

On that basis he condemned all others

His disputes were with fat greedy ministers who claimed the name of Christ but did not live accordingly..

Fox made the mistake of imposing his own calling on others

He did no such thing. He preached his message in the streets that a believer cannot be a Christian and sin and thousands were convicted and followed his society. They chose the pathway of suffering and could have left at any time.

He did not he accepted the death of women and children starving to death in filthy prisons as evidence of the work of Christ.

The weaker Quakers in prison were replaced by the stronger ones more than willingly. Where is your evidence of women and children dying in prisons?

The apostle Paul did not provoke authorities

And neither did Fox. He preached his message and many were saved, and then the churches came against him. They started it by persecuting the Quakers. He did not lead a crusade. He was forced into defending the Friends.

Parliament enacted laws which forbade non-Anglican religious meetings of more than five people, essentially making Quaker meetings illegal. Fox counseled his followers to openly violate laws that attempted to suppress the movement, and many Friends, including women and children, were jailed over the next two and a half decades. Meanwhile, Quakers in New England had been banished (and some executed), and Charles was advised by his councillors to issue a mandamus condemning this practice and allowing them to return. Fox was able to meet some of the New England Friends when they came to London, stimulating his interest in the colonies. Fox was unable to travel there immediately: he was imprisoned again in 1664 for his refusal to swear the oath of allegiance, and on his release in 1666 was preoccupied with organisational matters””he normalized the system of monthly and quarterly meetings throughout the country, and extended it to Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fox

As much as I detest wikipedia for its broad inaccuracies where spiritual matter are concerned the historical facts cannot be fabricated.

Brenda I have come to feel that you have no idea what I am pointing to when I make such claims about imposing ones calling on others. There is nothing to be done about it and I can see that this whole exercise is largely fruitless and will not be resolved. If even the least small point cannot be understood what chance of understanding anything really substantive. Paul the apostle did submit to all authorities. George Fox openly encouraged disobedience. It is a historical, documented and real fact. He was examined in prison not for his faith but because of the implications of what his attitude might mean for national security at a time of massive and serious civil disharmony where insurrection meant loss of life on a large scale.

The prophet does not have the right to impose by reason of his influence his understanding, insight, vision and it's meaning, on all others and require them to live by that same revelation. If the matter is simply Christ and who the Lord really is and what the Lord has done for men and how the Lord would have each individual to live, as well as by what means, then let that be in the simplicity of faith. If it becomes something else then it is want to be seen as heresy and rebellion by others. That is the way of it. Paul was firstly a Prophet. He had the faith of a prophet and he had the revelation of a prophet. The overwhelming number of sincere believers do not have the same precise and easy understanding which the prophet has. To mistake ones own calling with the portion of all is a serious error and it will lead to the suffering of countless others. History is filled with such men who led what amounted to rebellions and cost others their lives and their peace.

If I showed you that there are existing records of women and children dying in English prisons because they were taken as surety for their husbands who would not pay their taxes in obedience to the vision of Fox would you even care Brenda? I rather doubt it somehow. We are wasting our time here and I ought to know better.

amrkelly wrote:
Parliament enacted laws which forbade non-Anglican religious meetings of more than five people, essentially making Quaker meetings illegal. Fox counseled his followers to openly violate laws that attempted to suppress the movement, and many Friends, including women and children, were jailed over the next two and a half decades.

I don't see a problem with this. We are instructed to obey Christ and not the authorities if it conflicts with scripture and scripture tells us to meet together. The early Quakers went by their own convictions, Fox was adamant that men do that, that is, following their own light rather than obey others. He was not a dictator.

You are determined to place him in a role he did not have.

Thanks proudpapa for your quotes. Indeed those who love spiritual men cannot help but love Fox and he gained the esteem and love from all of his followers. I have never known a leader spoken of more highly. It is the reason I love him too. He was passionate about the Lord and cared nothing for his life or safety when he was subject to persecution. The early Christians were persecuted too and their families will have suffered. It is unavoidable for those who will not deny Christ and who come in the fire line of the enemy.

I don't see a problem with this. We are instructed to obey Christ and not the authorities if it conflicts with scripture and scripture tells us to meet together. The early Quakers went by their own convictions, Fox was adamant that men do that, that is, following their own light rather than obey others. He was not a dictator.

Brenda the only determination I have is to understand why you are the only person I have come across who has a view of Fox which sets him far and above all other views I have read. Even the link which Proudpapa silently slipped into the thread does not lay claim to anything more than an acknowledgement that Fox had an influence on Christendom with regard to the way ministry was perceived and thereby made way for a more sincere held appointment by some men. Wesley and Whitfield were beneficiaries of that reality.

George fox refused to swear any oaths for example. At a time of civil war and the necessity of laying a lawful foundation for the government to hold men to account for their actions which gave rise to dissent amounting to possible rebellion, oaths were a necessary instrument. Otherwise the government could do as it pleased and act without the law altogether, That was not England and despite the undoubted persecution of Quakers the particular source of my concerns has little to do with those kind of things. I have cited my source and it is easily read if anyone wants to get a sense on what George Fox believed and bore witness to by his own hand as to the meaning, origins of the Quaker movement, and the basis of his whole contention with all churches in Britain and the Colonies.

As for taking things literally how simple a matter it is to say in reply to your ease of dismissal, that Christ said, "where two or three are gathered together in My name &c" I think that covers the Law of England don't you? What are men about when they resist all laws which require them to swear legal oaths, or pay taxes, or show respect to those in authority by a traditional means of removing the hat (men only). Your view of Fox seems to me to go beyond what is reasonable in the sense that it has given rise to a peculiar doctrine which you say that Fox promoted. I have to agree that in his words there does seem to be something resembling a fanatical commitment to taking spiritual truths so literally that he was unable to even flinch in the face of persecution. These all have nothing to do with the real meaning of eternal life and all have to do with an elitist view of salvation which sets all men as children of a spiritual whore, except that men experience a similitude of revelation inwardly by which they are similarly assured of eternity, arising from which they too are prepared to suffer all things and resist all laws and decrees which by that reckoning incites them to a disfellowship with Christ in the inner man should they obey those laws.

That is by any stretch of the imagination a serious place to arrive at if what we are speaking about is paying taxes and doffing the hat, or swearing an oath to ones country after a civil war which gave rise to rebellion and insurrection and the cost of thousands upon thousand of lives. The link I gave here is a document published in 1659. The civil war ended in 1652 and the period of the document is the preceding seven years. It is before any significant changes occurred with regard to the Quakers as a religious body, and very nearly reflects as much a political reality in view of the close relationship between Church and State, Fox may well have been entirely concerned with spiritual matters and realities but the very men he ridiculed and condemned were of the State because they were of the Church. The crucible of the civil war was not a separating of Church and State it was a separating of Rome from England and Catholicism from the true Protestant faith. It was a separating of the right of kings to the right of Parliament. To make the judgement which Fox made at that time was a guaranteed cause of persecution for no more reason than political reality.

His emphasis on doctrinal matters is irrelevant to me. No one is going to perish because they lay the emphasis on an inner witness as the source of their obedience, even though they may be led outwardly by a very devil, of masterful skills and manipulations. The silence of Quaker meeting was a silence to avoid the outer man be he a devil or otherwise. We live or die on the ground of Christ crucified for sin and nothing more. That is eternal truth and all else has to do with the coming kingdom and reign of Christ over the nations. I have no contention with Fox and no direct interest in him either. Its all about you Brenda! I hope you sense my sincerity because I am being sincere even if I am frustrated beyond words.

amrkelly wrote: George fox refused to swear any oaths for example. At a time of civil war and the necessity of laying a lawful foundation for the government to hold men to account for their actions which gave rise to dissent amounting to possible rebellion, oaths were a necessary instrument. Otherwise the government could do as it pleased and act without the law altogether, That was not England and despite the undoubted persecution of Quakers the particular source of my concerns has little to do with those kind of things.

Once again you accusations are regarding whether Fox should obey the government or Christ:

Mat 5:33-37

33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:

35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.

36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

Quakers, Mennonites, and members of some other Christian sects choose to not to swear oaths because they believe firmly in telling the truth at all times, and feel that swearing to tell the truth goes against their religious values because it suggests that they might lie at other times.

Who do you obey and why do you find issue with a man who obeyed Christ rather than men?

Far from having exceptional views on Fox, go to any Conservative Quaker site and you will find many with the same views.

Gary, I love you brother, love your passion and your awesome contributions on this forum but please, I am pleading with you...no...I AM BEGGING YOU...please do yourself and all of us a favour and learn how to use SPELL CHECK!!! It is very hard to take you as seriously as you ought to be taken when you misspell almost every word and use punctuation and crazy multiple commas worse than a homeless man on crack!!!! My 6 year old does a better job at writing than you and he doesn't even know how to write yet!!! But seriously, I know you have your reasons and I respect that but are you even interested in trying to improve???

To be sure, most of us can interpret what you are saying, but why settle brother...I know you can come up to a new level in this...if you want to, that is?

I am speaking in love and I pray you will receive this admonishment with JOY and see it as an opportunity to grow:)

PS. If you need tips and/or pointers on where to find online classes to learn how to spell and write better, I am more than willing to send you some links.

PPS. If you had included your email in your profile I would have sent you a private note.

PPPS. Since this has been addressed publically before I didn't think it was a big deal to bring it up publically again:)

PPPPS. You are an awesome man of God...I love you and look forward to reading your replies...when I can understand them:) You are an an inspiration in every way (except spelling and writing lol)

Brenda I have read your own attempts to draw other Quakers into your views of Fox to a non effect. I have made a diligent study of the specific claims which you have made about Fox which attend to your view of Salvation and eternal life precisely by reading dozens of Quaker web sites and discussion boards. It has only been in the last 24 hours that I find myself considering the possibility that Fox may well have laid such a foundation. What I cannot find is a single piece of evidence that any Quaker alive today holds to that view if it was indeed Fox's view or not. You have said to counter this type of argument previously that quakers today are essentially far removed from what Fox taught and all the Quakers of his day believed. Now the argument has slipped to a meaning which has to do with whether anyone holds Fox in great admiration or not. Why is this the case at this precise moment Brenda?

It is because Proudpapa slipped a Google link to a book by Spurgeon in which Spurgeon makes a statement, such as the one I have said already regarding the benefit to a broad effect of Fox's ministry in helping to shape a better view and attitude to ministry. That was posted to rebut what I said that there was no benefit to Fox's ministry even within a single generation of his death. This morning before Proudpapa made that post I bought the book online. Now Proudpapa posts another link to Spurgeon only this time it has to do with Spurgeon's own attitude to Fox. This too is a silent comment and it's meaning is also clear.

Unfortunately it is a false statement because the reality is this. No man can truly love a man whom he has never met, let alone on who is deceased. If we mean that we love Christ who's life we now possess, and by that means we comprehend and love those who have been zealous for Him, than we ought to say that. But to say we love a man whom we have not met is to say that we love Christ whom we have known in the inner man. It is to love Christ whom we love and whom that man loved. The same quote clearly includes the controversy as well as the praise. If Spurgeon intended a vulgar meaning to his words then I may as well say that I love Spurgeon and intend it to mean that in some way I know Spurgeon. I do not know Spurgeon, I know Christ whom Spurgeon loved.

Anyway I can see you have no intention of addressing anything of substance. Swearing an oath does not make any man a liar unless his oath is false. No one in England was ever asked to swear a false oath which of itself prevented them living and demonstrating a true love and faith into Christ Jesus. That is except by the hand or Rome. Fox had no such experience. He was always free to practise his faith had he intended that to mean unto the Lord. His ambition was a Holy War against the Mother of Harlots which he saw as the world itself and all things that were outwardly worldly as he believed that to mean. So he had no difficulty in telling men who took their living from their ministry that they were hirelings and false shepherds all.

I know all about religious people Brenda I have been offended by them for thirty years and as I have said before some of the most hateful people I have had to do with were those who took the name of Christ. In the same vein the most liberal theologies I have come across have been from those who are more concerned with the opinion of men than with the effect of their deceptions. Niceness and nastiness go hand in hand in the Lord' name. Many hate the Lord's name because of it.

Andrew

Modern Quakers study Fox and approve of him and defend him most strongly against his critics. They do not however understand that he claimed to be restored to Adam's state in the way that he meant it. They believe in gradual sanctification and see his time in Paradise as conversion whereas I see it as a further blessing, and so our paths do not meet.

But anyway Andrew, I don't think that we can gain any purpose in continuing as I do not understand your reasoning.

They do not however understand that he claimed to be restored to Adam's state in the way that he meant it.

And that Brenda is precisely my point. Over three hundred years since George Fox died and every generation since that time has missed his central meaning as to what being restored to Adam's original pristine state actually means. And not only that Brenda, but sanctification in that order of Adam's original pristine condition, is being claimed to be the only true and proper meaning of what salvation is.

Were this not so then every single minister and learned man throughout the British territories of Fox's day could not be called of that, "harlot who sits in the wilderness". Otherwise if Fox intended those words to mean something akin to personal sins, he is saying that every minister and learned man was a wretched sinner by some outward and visible means. The one is a doctrine and the other would be judgemental. Moreover Fox attributed this same meaning, though in a less condemnatory way, to everyone who sat at their feet and were taught of them in their steeple houses. He could not and would not even use the term church for fear of giving a false impression of approval.

As a matter of reality Fox went further than simply speaking of being resorted to Adam's pristine condition, but that seem hardly relevant.

I see a serious problem with your position Brenda and I truly would that I understood it and that you could explain what you believe in the depth of your heart regarding this matter. To see what others cannot see, and have not seen for nigh three hundred years is really something. I don't say that insultingly either, but it would really be something if it were true. In that regard I have wondered, as I have been reading what present day Quakers have to say about George Fox, if his peculiar ministry wasn't best left in the time it was meant for. Which may be something of what Spurgeon means when he speaks of him so affectionately. It does seem that Quakers who are clearly intending to live godly lives, as opposed to the humanist enterprise we have in the UK for the most part, simply steer a clear path away from a controversy which no one want's to really talk about. Perhaps there is in fact no real controversy at all and others have simply been left with a legacy in the fabric of English history which remembers that at one time the Quakers were held in great suspicion and thought to be a serious threat to the stability of the nation.

As to understanding my reasoning Brenda! Welcome to the party. I don't even attempt to understand it myself. I just reason as I do. I don't make doctrines and never have done. Not even seeming nice ones which encourage a spectacular opportunity to be totally self driven. Perhaps one day the Lord will give me a better portion and then I can cease from my efforts regardless as to why I feel a need to write as I do. No one is taking much notice anyway and that seems reasonable to me, so I have to believe that I am learning all the time as we all are, and that everything will work for the good according to the Lord. If you want to send me a private explanation as to what you actually believe George understood and taught his immediate fellow believers then of course I would welcome that.

There has been one moment Brenda when I did think that George Fox was speaking about arriving at a position of sinless perfection in the outer and inner man. It happened yesterday and it made me think very hard indeed. I don't really believe that it is true, but I do believe why someone would think that it could be true. And I don't mean because of a spirit of deception or a doctrine of devils. I mean because a person may have seen in revelation an eternal reality which is true in Christ and at the same time comprehended a hope and a realisation that one day we will have new bodies and we will be incapable of sin. How Fox could have translated that into a present reality of experience may not really be the issue. The issue may be how could Fox have laid that on anyone else if the very substance of it's meaning could only come by a revelation of God and would be in line with a prophetic calling and purpose of God. Given that we agree that Fox was indeed a prophet in this proper new testament meaning, how would he have made the mistake of pressing a doctrine which is actually physically impossible to live by, even if it is a reasonable hope?

I cannot believe that he did intend such a meaning and thus I cannot see that he prescribed to sinless perfection in this life. Of course I may be wrong. It is one thing to see a wondrous reality of what the innocent and perfect man Adam was like. It is also one thing to say that in Christ, the last Adam, we have been drawn back into a life relationship with Christ Himself to a place wherein we are indeed as was Adam before his fall, without sin; yet in the inner part where the Spirit dwells in newness of life. But to conclude or to miss the reality of the physical body is equal to missing the fact that despite his perfect and pristine condition, Adam did sin in his own body and by his own free will. This is where George Fox actually goes a lot further because he then goes on to speak of another effect, which I believe you are calling the second blessing, and this pertains to being seated in Christ at the right hand of God. In short it is to be in Paradise with Christ Himself, and not simple to be on earth knowing and living by the life of Christ in us, by the Holy Spirit.

For the majority of believers the part which most takes on a reality is the "on earth as in heaven part", but rarely is it the "seated in heavenly places in Christ," as a victor and conqueror in Him. Watchman Nee covers something of this in his Sit, Walk, Stand book. Yet Nee did not have these kinds of revelation where you actually experience Paradise in the direct sense that Fox did. My few seconds visit to Paradise on the night I was saved was wholly fixed and focused on one reality. That was a realisation that Christ is truly both Lord and God. This was as a distinct reality in person to the moment I first knew the Father and asked "who is Christ". George Fox has been accused severally of failing to make a proper distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I feel that this is profoundly unfair because the distinction is a false one if we intend to simply cite dead doctrines for the sake of claiming some reality. His whole emphasis was really on Christ Himself which is entirely pleasing to the Father and the very reason why the Holy Spirit was given to men.

So if I was to take my own testimony it would be a truly easy thing to say that I have reason to accept your dichotomous understanding of believing and then separately entire sanctification (I don't make that distinction of course). Wesley has been categorised in exactly the same way as per his Aldergate street experience which most insist was conversion, but which both you and I believe was another thing altogether. You believe this was entire sanctification or a second blessing, and I believe it was a revelation of inclusion in the death and resurrection of Christ on the cross and by that means the ability to apprehend eternal security. It settled his mind and put him into a state of rest.

There are no hard and fast doctrines by which men can insists that salvation is by this and this means. If we are to have doctrines let them be doctrines according to the apostles and not according to our interpretation of them. And never let them be according to what men have experienced no matter what wonderful realities such experiences may bring. The only true doctrine is Christ Himself and all that which is in Him. Hence why I don't make doctrines or go after them save for going after Christ Himself. Contending has always to do with seeking to resist anything which detracts from Christ. Similarly I cannot bring myself to defend Christ within, because Christ is more fully seated at the right hand of the Father, and you and I in Him. Looking inwards produces no good thing at all. You can see just how profoundly similar and yet different we are Brenda. I have seen Christ with my own eyes and known the touch of His hand, yet when I comprehend Christ inwardly, who I knew in Paradise physically, that witness instantaneously bears witness of Christ in heaven, not to the Spirit of Christ dwelling in me. I cannot explain things better than that, but I am certain in some as yet inexplicable way that George Fox was not lying in his ambition to a perfect sinless life, but he cannot have possibly intended that to mean sinless perfection. It may well be and it is in fact a proper ambition to live a life free from the power of sin, but sinless perfection is not that thing. How or why you believe that George Fox makes a presentation of sinless perfection beyond what I have shared I don't know, but I simply cannot believe that he intended any such thing. If he did and taking other things into account of his influence and teachings via his pamphlets and book I would have a serious problem with Him and that is a fact.

When Paul speaks of Christ in us and whether we are His or not the word is our spirits bearing witness with the Holy Spirit, crying Abba Father. This is not the same as saying we ought to naval gaze in order to comprehend Christ. If we are His then just as He bore witness of the Father, so ought our spirits to bear witness of the Father. Either we are sons and daughters or else we are not. Being taught of the Spirit must clearly always be an inward reality, yet even then why would such an enterprise of God require us to look inward. Revelation is inward, visions are essentially inward even though they may well seem before our eyes and so on. Paradise, Angels and even the very throne of Christ are outward and cannot be found inwardly. Perhaps it just me but it all seems to be a lot of effort for little meaning.

I have endeavoured to find at least one person who sums up a perverse or perhaps not so perverse version of what George Fox believed.

Here it is and as far as I can tell it corresponds almost perfectly with what Brenda believes George Fox taught.

Quote

"Those who have received him in the light, believing in his name, have the power to become a son of God, John 1:12; but one must exercise that power by repetitively waiting, listening, hearing, believing, and obeying Christ the word and light within your heart. Just believing that Jesus is the Son of God does not yield escape from condemnation; even the demons believe that Jesus is the Son of the most High God, and they tremble. If you are still sinning, you are living in condemnation that came on all men when Adam fell and lost the life of God. Out of condemnation is to be free of all sin, in fellowship with the Son and the Father, and eating from the Tree of Life with Jesus as your true Lord supplying all your spoken words and directing all your deeds.

Christianity today is an enemy of the cross, falsely teaching that the cross is not necessary; and so their believers continue to sin and thus remain slaves to sin, John 8:34. The only cross of Christianity is just decoration, hanging on the wall or worn as jewelry. Christianity leaves people living in the lusts of their flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts of their minds, just like the rest of men; they are left in their sinful natures, walking according to the flesh, whose aim is satisfying things of the flesh; in their lusts, desires, affections, pleasures, pride, anger, vanity, fear, worries, plans, etc.; they are left walking in the ways of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air (Satan) Eph 2:2-3. If you die still sinning, you are banned from heaven.

After saying these things this 72 year old couple then say the following:

Quote

"For those who think we are evil, stupid, or who feel threatened by the message of this site:

First, We sympathize with you. To some of you this is shocking and attacks what you hold to be your sacred beliefs. We too were told by many "experts" that there was nothing to do other than accept Jesus; confess that Jesus is Lord; get baptized; according to some, receive the Holy Spirit; go to services; and study the Bible for growth.

But, after all of the above and more, I still had problems: like anger and lust. And, no matter how many times I was 'saved,' I failed to measure up to Christ's admonitions, among them: Be perfect, therefore, as your Fatherwho is in heaven is perfect, Mat 5:48, and anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart, (Mat 5:28). All of the Bible's warnings, the requirements, and qualifying conditions were being ignored by Christendom. And I could see leading Buddhists and Hindus who were far more peaceful, gentle, and godly than any of the living leaders in Christendom. But I knew Jesus was the right way; his teachings and record were so far superior to the founders of all other faiths. So there was something very wrong, something that everyone in Christendom was missing. We knew the early church was full of miracles and holy, perfect men with the power of God for miracles that healed entire towns; but what happened? So I started researching Christian history, and stumbled across the early Quaker writings; and then to the founder of the Quakers, George Fox. And there it was again. The power of Paul, the power of Peter, in many thousands of early Quakers, (modern Quakers are radically different). So, holiness was and is possible; power was and is possible. The Kingdom of Heaven can be entered while on earth."

I said I didn't know of anyone who believed in sinless perfection as a condition for eternal life but I was wrong this couple believe in exactly that.

Andrew I am having to pinch myself to believe what I am reading from you at the moment, that you can see what Fox actually said. I would be more than happy to discuss my view of Fox's teaching by email if Greg will not allow it to take place on the forum.

I found the Worthington's some time ago and tried to make contact to no avail. I have made a new attempt.They were indeed the only people that I found on the internet to understand Fox as myself. They are perhaps in their 80's now. I was disappointed that they give little testimony however. I had actually forgotten all about them but will do some more reading on their site and pray for contact if it is the right timing in the Lord.

George Fox's mystical theology was the via triplex and after much research I have found others - the woman in the wilderness, who taught the same way to holiness as opposed to the two stages espoused in the evangelical revivals, which to me was merely a stopping short of the fullness though still to be commended.

I am reading writings of these mystics at present, mainly from the 16 century Spanish Carmelites but I have been reading earlier writings on the same dotrine. I am also attending a conference on mystical theology held by Durham University next week which should be interesting as they will be speaking about St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila whom I am reading at the moment.

But to get back to the Worthington's, my own experience has been the same, in that I found my Christian walk to be far less than I expected on reading the new testament and despite great efforts could not escape from the bondage of certain sins (not gross sinning) and lukewarmness. After finding the high way of holiness through evangelical writings I came across the early Quakers and found that Fox's beliefs went further and were exactly what the Lord had shown me.

Mark I agree with you about Gary's writing and would to see some effort from him although I can perfectly understand his spelling now and even find it amusing. But many others reading for the first time will not and it does show some respect if he is displaying attempts to improve.

I am sure that many here will be more than happy to help you Gary by giving you some tuition on spelling and typing.

Here is a start, instead of doing ,,,,,,,,, instead of using spacing, which is the most annoying thing you do for me and which Greg has already spoken about, use the long bar beneath the letters pressing each time, once to make each space.

I also find it annoying when you don't make an effort to spell people's names correctly like John Wesley's even when you are replying to someone who does spell it correctly.

Your contributions however are appreciated and you obviously love the Lord dearly.

No need for sarcasm Gary. It has nothing to do with your intelligence, I did not say anything about that and obviously you are able to read well enough. You lack of typing skills and spelling makes it harder for others and it only needs a bit of sustained effort from you. I am self taught and missed most of schooling which ended at 15 due to lifelong ill health but don't expect others to endlessly be making allowances for me.

From the Worthington site: An introduction to the book on the Whore of Babylon by George Fox:

"This is a book of George Fox's answers to the many accusations and objections against the doctrines and beliefs of the early Quaker movement of the 17th Century. You begin to see the opposition and accusations as coming from men who deliberately turned a blind eye to the scriptures they spent years studying. Desperate to hold on to their positions of power and salary led them to speaking lies in hypocrisy, which seared their consciences beyond operation. They even deny the specific scriptures that support perfection, union with Christ and God, Christ in you, the kingdom of heaven within you, being taught directly by God, the light in every man that comes into the world, revelation from God, hearing the Spirit of God, and more. Regarding the ministers and priests in this book, the Word of God within my heart, spoke to say:

"they plead strongly the scripture is the last you will ever have, and then preach against others who have had revelations,"
"they cannot understand what the Spirit is doing,"
"they teach the commandments of men"
"they render themselves odious,"
"they will eat the fruit they have created,"
"the door slams shut on them all,"
"these will have their remittance; pray heed the reason."

They are so puffed up in their own fleshly knowledge of the scriptures, that they cannot imagine anyone with more Spirit than themselves; and if they admitted the possibility, they would have acknowledge they are the unperfected disciples, who were blind guides, of whom Christ warned us and told us to leave them. They would be without any followers, without an income, without the prestige of their job. In the 17th Century many churches were emptied by the truth of the early Quaker movement, which panicked the priests into whipping up their followers and the government officials to violently persecuting the Quakers on a massive scale: 869 Quakers died in prison, (not including those attacked in their meetings by violent Protestant mobs and soldiers), tens of thousands were imprisoned for failure to swear or for not paying legislated tithes to the Protestant priests, and many, many more had their property seized. Three godly men and one woman were hung in Boston by the Puritan Congregationalists. In most every case, it was the priests and ministers who stoked the fires of hatred against the Quakers, just like the Jewish high priest insisted on the death of Jesus and Steven. As was Christ's condemnation of the Pharisees who had the scriptures:

You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form; and you do not have his word abiding in you. John 5:37-38

so is the condemnation of Christendom's preachers, who deny Christ's spirit, word within, and light within, to be the teacher, the cleanser, the purifier, and the perfecter of his disciples.

Why can they not hear the word in their hearts? Why do they have no light to see the revelations of God? Because they teach errors, leading others into captivity and destruction, and are thus condemned to captivity themselves. Because they were never called, never taught, never sent by the Lord. Because they preach for money in their covetousness to be admired by men. Because they lord it over their congregations. Because they are like the Pharisees: uncleansed, unpurified, hypocritical leaders, who outwardly appear righteous, but who are hypocrites whose hearts are full of wickedness and iniquity (sin). Because they are enemies of the cross, and their god is their belly, (their lusts and affections), and their minds are on earthly things.

The Bible is a complex book, especially if you start with incorrect understandings passed down through many generations; the more complex, the easier it is for someone to be fooled with erroneous teachings. We have all become confused by Babylon, which means confusion. It is easy for charlatans to exist within complex issues, and Christendom is full of millions of ministers and teachers who are charlatans ”” just as the Bible predicted that the world would follow the false church, the whore, the beast, and devil ”” all transformed to appear as ministers of righteousness.

If you read this book, you will read hundreds of erroneous doctrinal statements made in opposition to the early Quakers. These allegations usually directly contradict scripture, exposing how hollow their religion really is, which includes the Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and more. You begin to hear the whore in her lies; you hear her howls of insecurity, completely disregarding the scriptures. That whore continues to reign today in the 30,000 sects of Christendom, but her remaining time is short.

The whore and her billions of followers worship a different Jesus, created from a subset of scriptures, ignoring hundreds others that conflict with her creation, and twisting others into the opposite of their meaning. Their created Jesus does not speak to them; their god doesn't teach them, their god doesn't cleanse them of sin, or purify them, or perfect them; their god has the form but no power. And those who follow these ministers of this other Jesus will not realize their error until they die, at which point the real Jesus, who has power, will say to them: Depart from me you workers of iniquity for I have never known you.

Most of the doctrinal misunderstandings come from selective scriptures of Paul's letters, while ignoring many others that are necessary to understand the whole. Peter spoke of those who misunderstood Paul's letters: There are some things in his letters that are hard to understand, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest [twist] to their own destruction, as they also do the other scriptures. 2 Pet 3:16. And Jeremiah spoke of their predecessors: The prophets prophesy lies in My name. I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken to them; they prophesy to you a false vision, divination, a worthless thing, and the deceit of their heart. Jer 14:14

The greatest stumbling block of the ministers, called by man, made by man, and sent by man, who quarreled with the early Quakers, was over the light of Christ. In addition to Christ being named the word, Christ is also named the light, which enlightens every man; the light is the light of the word, the light of Christ. Jesus, the light who enlightens every man who comes into the world. Jesus, the light of the world, who if man follows, will have the light of life, and will be reconciled and restored to God, who is light, to become children of the light.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and there was nothing made without him.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. [Him is Jesus, the life and the light of men]
The light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. [John the Baptist, who prepared the way for the Light.]
This man came as a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him [the Light] might believe.
He was not the Light, but was sent to bear witness of the Light. [John the Baptist was the witness of the Light, Jesus.]
Which was the true Light that enlightens every man who comes into the world. John 1:1-9

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of Life." John 8:12

And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For everyone who does evil hates the light, neither does he come to the light, for fear his deeds will be exposed and reproved.
But he who practices truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be shown to have been produced [effected, formed, prompted, energized] through God. John 3:19-21

God is light. 1 John 1:5

Every good gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither is there a shadow cast with his turning. James 1:17

While you have light, believe in the light, that you may become the children of light. John 12:36
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Eph 5:8
You are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. 1 Thes 5:5
For the people of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the children of light. Luke 16:8

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; so that you may show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; 1 Pet 2:9

Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. Col 1:12

Now as he [Saul, later named Paul] neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven shined around him.
And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"
And he said, "Who are you, Lord? " And the Lord said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting;" Acts 9:3-5

As Paul was later persecuted because Christ lived in him and who spoke, so were the Quakers persecuted. The light of Christ is persecuted wherever it appears in fullness of the stature of Christ, in which is the unity - without which unity are heaps of sects.

Christ the light was the new covenant, prophesied to come to the Gentiles, to be God's salvation to the end's of the earth:

I the LORD have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand; I will keep you and give you for a covenant to the people, for a light to the Gentiles, Isaiah 42:6 [Isaiah lived 778 years before Christ was born.]

He says, 'It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation to the ends of the earth.' Isaiah 49:6

And the Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Isaiah 60:3

A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. Luke 2:32

For the Lord commanded this, saying, 'I have given you to be a light of the Gentiles, that you should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.' Acts 13:47

That the Christ would suffer, and that he would be the first who would rise from the dead and proclaim light to the [Jewish] people, and to the Gentiles. Acts 26:23

In this book, many of the ministers and priests of Protestantism argue against and twist the meanings of the following scriptures:

Which was the true Light that enlightens every man who comes into the world. John 1:1-9
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. 1 Cor 12:7
And it shall come to pass in the last days, said God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: Acts 2:14-18

They insist on disbelief of the above scriptures applying to every man. Why? Because then there is no difference between sinners in their sect and sinners outside their sect; they lose their imagined distinction; which imagined distinction exists because they deny the possibility of ever being freed from sin. If every man in the world has the light, and if every man in the world has been given the spirit, then what do the sects have to offer? Nothing! Because they are only a form of godliness without the power to change a man to become godly, pure, holy, clean, and perfect. And so you will read in this book, how the false prophets constantly fight the scriptures that testify to the light and the spirit being in every man. To deny the light, is to deny 100 + scriptures (click to see) that speak to a spiritual, supernatural light.

Because the false prophets have never seen the light of God, they insist that Bible references to the light refer to a natural light, but the Bible makes a clear distinction between the natural light of the sun and moon, and the light of God or Christ:

I saw no temple in the city. For the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
And the city had no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God illuminates it, and the Lamb is its light.
And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in the light of it; Rev 21:22-24.

The sun shall no more be your light by day; nor shall the moon give light to you for brightness; but the LORD will be an everlasting light to you, and your God will be your glory. Isa 60:19.

Yes, the darkness does not hide from you, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to you. Psa 139:12

I am formally asking Greg to review the site which I quoted from but did not identify with good reason. The link is here:

http://www.hallvworthington.com/aboutus.html

As you will know Greg I have been resisting Brenda's sinless perfection teaching for two years and I have been told a number of times that I was being judgemental and other things as well. Brenda has been painted as a victim at times by well meaning brethren who intended to protect her from my comments. I have no problem with that. But at what point will we connect the dots through time and see where reality lies?

In all of that time it has been my discernment which has kept me informed as to a concern and so I have tried repeatedly to find the "key" to understanding Brenda's theology and beliefs.

This thread finally unlocked the mysteries and this was directly due to a quote which Gary made from Volume III of Fox's Works dated 1831.

Whilst Gary may not have seen the significance of his quote I did immediately and set about to read that volume. I finally saw something in George Fox's writings which I could see was forming the basis for Brenda's beliefs.

It has been a struggle to get to the end of this and it has taken hundreds of hours of research and effort. I do not believe that George Fox was making the case, either for the meaning of true salvation or the deeper meaning of the Christian walk, in the way he has been presented by Brenda.

Brenda almost verbatim speaks in the same terms as the elderly couple speak who run the above site. They make the precise same claim that they were disillusioned with Christianity and then stumbled across George Fox via the Friends and via George they say they stumbled upon a mystery which few have ever seen, save for those who were with George in his day. The claim is that his deep meaning is lost.

It can be seen even in this thread that Brenda speaks of another prophet like George Fox, as though George was somehow a defining moment in history.

It doesn't matter to me whether anyone takes this warning seriously or not.

The site to which I have now given the link, is heretical and fully false. It could be shown to be heretical and indeed it could be shown to be very dangerous. The only remarkable thing about it is the fact that the couple who run it are uniquely passive in their own responses to their site, and although they have spent thousands of hours over more than 20 years preparing the material thereon, they do not make any effort to promote it themselves other than by reason of its presence on the internet. That is a very mystical position and entirely in keeping with their understanding of ministry.

At the very heart of their position, which they say they took from George Fox, and especially the eight volumes which were printed in 1831 based on an 1659 publication in part, lies a mystical doctrine which is pure occult. This couple have, without any help, scanned and corrected every single volume word for word, as well as numerous other Fox publications. It has been in that endeavour that they have come to the strongest possible place with regard to their belief that George Fox was unique, in the sense that what he was teaching was mystical, inward, without true personality, and hidden within, with the inner man being the source and the ambition and the kingdom of heaven being within where outward realities of the kingdom of heaven arise from that inner reality and where true heaven is lost to sight in meaning and purpose. In that scheme Christ Himself is lost to sight and true meaning.

In trying to understand what Brenda has sought to promote on this site for numerous years, the only term which has been easily recognisable has been sinless perfection. Other terms such as second blessing are misleading of themselves and therefore even Brenda has from time to time acknowledged their potentially misleading usage. In the end the term of preference has become entire sanctification. However the couple at the back of the above web site are clear and honest about their ambitions and the meaning they hold to. It is, in their parlance, called sinless perfection every time.

In any event this web site of Mr and Mrs Worthington pulls no punches and represents a fully formed and cogent version of what Brenda believes. Brenda has herself acknowledges this fact in her last post. I have set a trap by writing these last few posts. I stated when I first came to this site that I set snares for other mens feet. I explained it then and I reiterate it now and regardless as to whether it is easily understood, it is real.

Brenda recognised the quote I posted from this couple, even though she had forgotten who they were. You would think that given these two people are the only people in the world as far as Brenda knows who hold to a precise view of George Fox and an alleged mystical reality which it is claimed he demonstrated in his practical life and infused into his books, that Brenda would be more inclined to hold onto them. However, they do not answer e-mails to anyone and they say so on their site. Nor do they partner with anyone nor do they learn from anyone. Their whole understanding is based on a twenty-five year wait on the the Lord in silence being led from within. Since that point of being moved from within in 2006 they have progressively built up this site and their peculiar doctrine.

The instant I make a simple assertion that I can see how it is that Fox's writing could give rise to this mystical occult understanding of Christ and faith in Christ, Brenda tells me she has to pinch herself as though somehow I was in anyway in agreement with her. The overwhelming meaning is always set aside in favour of just one hint of agreement with her position. I cannot claim to be ignorant of the effect that my comments have as I have already said I set snares for mens feet. I wrote a ten thousand word article in response to that claim called "You Seek for Prophets" nearly two years ago. That article was written with this in mind.

I am finished with this effort. If the moderators do not stop this process it will in the end give rise to serious deception.

This is not about George Fox, this is about what happens when we set men up ahead of their reasonable influence and dig into their words seeking for evidence of something we have received through the air. For the most part the only time I have posted into this site in recent months has been in response to Brenda. So I apologise for the way things have turned out and genuinely hope that no one takes this teaching, which is occult and difficult to lay hold of, seriously enough to seek after it's meaning.

Brenda almost verbatim speaks in the same terms as the elderly couple speak who run the above site. They make the precise same claim that they were disillusioned with Christianity and then stumbled across George Fox via the Friends and via George they say they stumbled upon a mystery which few have ever seen, save for those who were with George in his day. The claim is that his deep meaning is lost.

Please get your facts right. Both myself and the Worthington's with whom I have never spoken but respect their position in waiting on the Lord, already believed and for myself, had already experienced the 'coming up through the flaming sword' before ever hearing of Fox and the early Quakers, who also wrote of their own experience of living this life. I was stunned to find Fox speaking of what I had already known for myself in a way that was identical to my own.

I have never hidden the fact that I believe it to be sinless perfection but have avoided using terms which others may not understand in the same way ie I do not believe that one can reach a place in life where sinning is impossible - we always retain the ability to sin.

As for your 'tricks' Andrew, why does that not surprise me along with the threatening way you have spoken to others in the past. I believe I have the measure of you now. I did not come here to promote anything, I joined for the same reason as others and with the hope to find some who were enlightened in the same way as myself.

Brenda I have not misrepresented you in any way. Nor have I sought to harm you in any way. I have simply done my due diligence and read yours posts here and in other places and have formed my understanding from that effort grounded on your own words.

The only part which cannot be got from reading what people say is the initial discernment which provokes the concern. I have been disobedient to such things in the past and it has literally cost people their lives. So in this regard I am following through as I ought to do.

I am glad you have got the measure of me Brenda its about time you did do.

This following post Brenda which you made in 2003 in another place was the beginning of my enquiry in seeking to understand you and why you have arrived at sinless perfection as a valid teaching. It clearly spells out exactly where you came into George Fox's teaching and by what route. In view of that Brenda how could I not know what the facts are?

You say that you don't mean an inability to sin, but simply the power to be delivered from sinning and an evidential victorious life. Unfortunately your claim will be found to be built on shifting sand. Subliminally the end of this doctrine is precisely a claim to be sinlessly perfect before men.

The Worthington's for example do mean a final ability and power not to sin at all. Even in a minuscule and remotely insignificant way. More over they claim this is what George Fox believed and taught.

Please get your facts right. Both myself and the Worthington's with whom I have never spoken but respect their position in waiting on the Lord, already believed and for myself, had already experienced the 'coming up through the flaming sword' before ever hearing of Fox and the early Quakers, who also wrote of their own experience of living this life. I was stunned to find Fox speaking of what I had already known for myself in a way that was identical to my own.

Greetings to you Themis, Elias and Kitty

Thank you for the warm welcome from you all. I thought that I would let you know how I came to call myself a Quaker and what it means to me in my life and witness. I have been in Protestantism for 30 years of my Christian life but not happy at all with all of the differing denominations. I particularly was not happy that one would be barred from attending the local church when they insisted in having church order and practice revolve around one doctrine which they chose to emphasise which caused the division I felt that God did not want.I felt that it would not have been too hard to hold a service which could be accessible to everyone, although I had no definite idea how this could be organised. I felt that if we gave a witness of unity to the community in which we live, and made a commitment to accept and love each other, we could learn and grow together beyond denominational difference.

The most important thing for us as Christians I felt was not how we interpreted scripture and saw things such as baptism, but for us to seek the kingdom of God, which I interpreted to mean having Christ's rule in us, in it's totality, with nothing left of self as the source of our life, but that Jesus alone gave the life within and that our spirit would be dominating instead of the soul with our own thoughts and ideas on how we should live the Christian life. It must be how Christ will have it, everything bowing down to His Lordship because if He is not Lord of all then He is not Lord at all.

I came to this view quite a while ago after being introduced to the doctrine of holiness by a woman who was very involved with the Welsh revivals in Wales, Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th Century called Jessie Penn-Lewis, a deeply spiritual woman of God. She followed a long tradition in the church which emphasised our ability to live without sin as a commandment by God 'Be ye holy as I am holy' and as a possibility as witnessed by such as John Wesley.

After many years of great struggle against my sinfulness and inability to reach the standard of Christianity I saw in the saints of the New Testament, it was a great release for me to realise that God does not give commandments that are not able to be kept by His children, and in their fullness without providing the power to do so in a way which will cause our conscience to witness to us that we are indeed pleasing to God.

All that is required of us is to believe that this is true and to submit ourselves to God to work this out in our circumstances to become a reality, usually provided in a crisis of faith where we can chose our will or God's will in a pressing matter. God brought me to that crisis and I did submit to His will for my life, relinquishing ultimate control of myself. This is particularly difficult for those who have built up many barriers and walls due to their background before coming to Christ frequently due to abuse in childhood. These walls are built up very early and form a major part of the personality, and they prevent God working in us. They also are a great source of temptation in the Christian life and are the primary cause of such sin as lack of trust in God. To have these walls broken down is a major crisis, having to hand over this control in giving up all rights of oneself to another being when experience has taught us over and over again from a very early age that there is no one you can trust.

However, this is the way into the kingdom and the flesh resists this work very much. It is taking a step into the dark, but step we must, and any reluctance is due to not believing that God's arms are there waiting. I took that step and indeed they were waiting and the landing itself was beyond anything that can be put into words. Having this strong belief in entire sanctification which is what this event is called, I was very thrilled to find Simon Watson from London on a board in England who was saying that George Fox said we must be holy. After contacting Simon, attending an NFF meeting and acquiring The Journal, I was overjoyed to find that I believed in everything Fox taught and that I recognised someone who had also stepped into the dark. I think that Fox's teaching to be the purest form of Christianity since the apostles.

It also answered my previous thoughts about forming a local fellowship open to all in the form of silent worship and commitment to being taught by Jesus not by man (and particularly not by man standing at the front and even less so if he is in garb).

I am working out myself how the principles described in the Peace Testimony must impact my whole life in the way I interact with all of God's creatures. I have been looking at how my purchases must not encourage exploitation of workers in the third world, and how to be pacifist in my relationships and not passive. God says 'Blessed are the peace MAKERS' and I am asking Him to show me what this means in practice.

I hope I have not tried your patience brothers in my first post. I am very pleased that I have found you all and that I have new Friends where there is already a measure of agreement which saves a lot of time in getting to know each other.

I pray for us all that we will have much revelation of truth this year and we will really move forward in our ministry to others.

with much love from your sister in Christ
Brenda

Posted on Peace Churches United 21st January 2003

I do get my facts right Brenda and I would suggest that you simply do not understand what I am about despite your claim to now know it.

If things were as simple as a person, who is pressing into error and mysticism, understanding the risk they are taking, then that very knowledge of the risk itself would be a sufficient restraint. But if someone persists in pressing into mysticism in the end they will uncover a whole world of darkness which appears to be full of light. Believers are not immune to this reality.

Finally Brenda you have done little other than press into your journey and sought to take others with you for a number of years now. It is all in the forum and can be demonstrated with ease. You may not see things in this way because you feel your search is legitimate. But I know that your search will in the end land you in deep water. If I say so publicly it is because I cannot say so privately due to a restraint on my part. It would not be reasonable to make that connection myself in private unless I was asked to do.

I understand your annoyance Brenda and your response is perfectly reasonable and has been all along. I think that others can see that something is amiss and Gary has said so in his own way. He is very serious in what he is saying. He says it reasonably as well. Now in finality you can go back to the Worthington's web site and really read where your enquiry will lead Brenda. You will find that it is a pervasive snare which leads to death.

What you do personally is surly your own business but that which you press onto others become the business of all right-minded people who understand how deception and error arising therefrom really works.

Gary,

You say you have no interest in improving because you would rather "spend that time reading my bible or praying". Brother, this forum is neither a pray time or a bible study time and you appear to be spending a lot of time here. I was trying to help you use that time more wisely. I will leave you to it bro!

Actually Mark, Gary has improved his typing skills a lot over the last two years. You should have seen them when I joined in April 2012. One time Gary shared a prophecy which was so badly written that it took me several hours to unpick it and retype it in a form that could be understood. It was so bad that it's meaning was defeated without a lot of effort. Just recently I saw one of Gary's post which actually had paragraph structure and syntax and grammatical marks in it. I wondered if someone had typed it for him. So I know that Gary can in fact type properly. His poor typing is as much a reflection of psychological nervousness when he is emotionally involved with what he is writing, than it has to do with an inability to be accurate.

The spelling part is of course another matter. Gary is a smart man in fact and I have had a few moments with him in a challenge where he has held his own with purpose and determination. So if he can exercise such a mind in one way he can do it in writing his posts as well.

But I know that your search will in the end land you in deep water..... You will find that it is a pervasive snare which leads to death.

Andrew would you care to elaborate on the comments I have quoted? Why would anyone who has learned to trust the Lord entirely and value His fellowship more than anything in life have any fear? If we are wrong or being misled, then we can rely on Him to lead us out of error through the shining in of His light on our pathway and if we are correct then the consequences may be fatal for other reasons, but it will merely hasten in His eternal presence.

If someone is being 'pressed' towards error, then the responsibility lies within themselves to look towards God and not to men for their guidance into the truth and forays into error will merely end up being be an exercise of growth.

I have been misled by the errors of others many times but it has merely resulted in the development of my discernment and strengthened my weapons in spiritual warfare. Satan shoots himself in the foot this way endlessly.

Besides which, my principle desire is to find others of like mind, and test my revelations on the way. You must have noticed by now that I have no web site nor have written any books and in fact, post on very few Christian forums now, in fact this one is the one I post on the most and that is not very often. I live a very quiet isolated life due to my disabilities and illness which the NHS is not helping me with. So I am in a very limited position to be a threat to many people with my 'heresies'.

I have no issue with anyone questioning my beliefs and in fact have always welcomed it in my quest for truth which is all I care about.

I am finding some of your thoughts rather strange for a believer and follow of Jesus Christ. You also failed to understand why faithful men such as George Fox would refuse to swear oaths as commanded by a government when the apostle Paul had forbidden it.

There are other incidents Andrew Kelly when your thinking seems to be at odds with those of a genuine believer and your stalking of myself, a person of no repute or standing in the Christian world, without ministry or indeed a church is a further very strange thing when added to the manner in which you have made barely veiled threats to others on this forum. I think that your own admission of mental health problems are significant. My own mental health state is far from being an issue and was only at risk when I was deceived into espousing Reformed theology.

My trust in what I believe God has shown me, are enabling me to be an overcomer in circumstances which would be impossible without the help of God and which if I described on here, would probably not be believed, being so severely difficult.

This will probably be my last communication with you.

Brenda I have no mental health problems and never have had. I believe you will find that you are confusing what others have said on this site as a mechanism for trying to defeat my persistence on certain matters. The substance of these things arises from my testimony which is on this site in which I make reference to my mother, now deceased, who did have mental health problems. I have none and never have had. Don't feel any need to apologise Brenda no one else has done and I can see no reason why you should set an example.

The fact that you find some of my thoughts strange for a follower of the Lord Jesus, is a matter for you. If you want to say so then by all means do. It is of no concern to me at all if the form of that saying has no more substance than you have displayed here. Likewise if you feel that anything I have said, or else which you believe I have implied; and which by your inference constitutes veiled threats, then my advise would be to go to the appropriate authority and report me immediately. My name Brenda is Andrew Michael Robert Kelly. Greg knows my address and so he can assist in that endeavour if you believe it to be necessary.

Stalking people has a legal meaning and should not be used emotively to put someone down or as a mechanism for making them go away. This is a public forum and I have posted only material that is in the public domain by your own hand. It is all in the context of a discussion in which it is both ordinary and normal to quote people who have published their thoughts and ideas publicly; if by that means it can be shown what their prior publications are relevant to the discussion. If I had made reference to your private life that would have been unacceptable and clearly wrong.

You elected to post these two parts from my own post and then asked me to comment.

"But I know that your search will in the end land you in deep water..... You will find that it is a pervasive snare which leads to death"

The term death Brenda on a Christian website when speaking of spiritual realities and in context of the living has a meaning attendant to spiritual outcomes. Whether this comment is specifically applied to yourself is of course semantically unclear. However by inference you may well decide it has you in mind or you may broaden your thinking and see it for what it is. It is a statement made in generality of a possible consequence arising from a person going into mysticism and instead of finding true light, which is life, finding darkness, which is death. And that Brenda is the exact context I set the comment in. These are spiritual terms and you know it well enough.

If you want to make something of my comment about persisting with you and that, because I feel led to do so, as well as the consequence of not obeying such a leading in the past with another, literally resulting in death, then that can be deduced to mean both physical death, in the case of that past reference, and may well reasonably be further deduced to mean physical death in your case. However, I did not say that with regard to your self, and whilst I can see how subliminal allusions can and often do make for subconscious concerns I am disinclined to believe that you have any such concern for yourself by that means. You have displayed yourself as someone with a sure independent mind. Therefore, whilst my claim is in fact true, and I have posted an account of it on this site, being time stamped to a date prior to the relevant comment herein, citing a past tense reality with a future concern does not in any way constitute a threat or for that matter a prophetic claim. You know it well.

So what is it to be Brenda? Will you always resort to such methodologies or will you accept that I have been explicitly clear in my reasoning and thinking and have in truth said nothing more unreasonable than to express a concern about your spiritual ambitions to promote mysticism and all that such a thing entails, be it a peculiar sinless perfection doctrine, which you cannot even properly explain, or else a supposed via triplex which you seemingly grasp only by reason of a numerical value and not in its philosophical roots in occult pantheism.

Brenda if my comments on this site are at odds with those of a genuine believer then you ought to make the case for that and ask Greg to remove me from the site.

A few facts:

I said previously:

"Finally Brenda you have done little other than press into your journey and sought to take others with you for a number of years now. It is all in the forum and can be demonstrated with ease. You may not see things in this way because you feel your search is legitimate. But I know that your search will in the end land you in deep water."

This is the first part of the joined up element of my post which you elected to highlight Brenda and as you can see the term "deep water" is a general expression intended to give rise to a concern without expressing precisely what that concern is in terms of its outcome.

"Now in finality you can go back to the Worthington's web site and really read where your enquiry will lead Brenda. You will find that it is a pervasive snare which leads to death."

This is the second part of the joined up element of my post which you elected to highlight Brenda and as you can see the context is very clear and there is no threat whatsoever. To infer that there is, albeit indirectly may be somewhat of a mistake on your part. If you were to make sense of what this really means you would clearly have to follow the advice and read the whole of the Worthington's statements. You would also have to come to the conclusion that they express some remarkable things which are self evidently heretical and spiritually dangerous. But as these things are now presented as subjective realities and not eternal truth, in order to make this presentation of mine a criminal activity and thereby seek to ruin the man, it would not be difficult for someone with a willingness to hate the man and to agree with prior accusations and claims to threats or mental health problems, to dismiss all things out of hand.

As the Quakers are so fond to remind us all. Pacifism not passivity is the ambition. Mr Fox was an exemplar of that very instrument. He was capable of provoking the most necessary response by means of his words, and by means of his body and a pacifist spirit, (for which he suffered greatly), facilitate an accusation against men going beyond spiritual matter and doctrines. By that means he did perfectly express a violent agitation of mens spirits that he brought the whole matter upon himself, and therein lay claim to the brutality of others and demanded the eventual sympathy and agreement of the more men to his side.

You have learned your master's trade well I think Brenda. I am however decidedly not deceived.

George Fox was a mighty man of God, who none of us should dare to disparage. Those of you who may have read this thread and become confused, don't let the ignorance of a few lead you astray. Instead read brother Greg's new book where he includes a short and inspiring bio of this powerful servant of God.

As to the rest of this thread, it has descended into a chaotic mess and become the sort of thread that give Sermon Index a bad name. If I was a first time visitor and was able to read this entire thread through I would leave and never come back. I certainly would not want to poke my head up and say something after seeing the way people are spoken to here!

To that end dear sister Brenda let me encourage you to know that I am praying or you. You may not be perfect and we may disagree on some points, but I can tell that you love The Lord Jesus Christ, and that's all that matters to me:).

I am disgusted and appalled at the abusive way you have been spoken to and maligned here...from what it seems is a very unhinged individual who appears to have been stalking you online all these years?!! I don't blame you for feeling a little creeped out. And not just stalked you, but admits to deliberately laying snares to "trip up your feet". What utter nonsense, actually it sounds worse...more like some weird obsession with you...yikes! If you were my wife I would have some very strong words with any man that spoke to you like this. This guy needs to shut his big mouth, repent and apologize to you.

For what it is worth sister I find your posts pleasant and respectful and not the least bit heretical and without anything even remotely related to the occult! Lol. The smartest thing you could do is follow through on your words and never reply to him again because you will only feed his obsession. May The Lord bless you and strengthen you in spirit, soul and body. Praying for you tonight!!!

Mark thank you so much for that post, it is most appreciated. You may know that there have been a number of people on this board over time who have been subjected to Andrew's obsessiveness and have questioned his sanity. I do so for him to hopefully get some help.

I quote his own words from amrkelly's own website: https://blog.ichabod.eu/

I had an underlying condition of acute anxiety which I had lived with for so long that I didn’t even realise that I was anxious. To me my obsessive and overly methodical ways were normal and I saw no flesh in them at all. It was realising this fact almost single handedly which caused me the most resentment and anger....... At times by a perverse attitude of pride and knowledge I was pressed to the very edges of what it was possible to resist, yet always used the prophetic gift and the knowledge of God as a shield and way back from the darkness of the kingdom of Satan. In response to these drivings from the air, I set about to clear up the town of serious crimes. This reaction was my way of "proving” to myself that I was not going to do their bidding. In one instance I sought out a serial rapist who was plaguing the community and finding his house I stood against him. Within days he was caught and arrested at home. I walked the streets at night and sought out the youth gangs who so often put fear into others, and withstood them in a countenance which left them completely speechless and unable to say anything against me.

Also he says that not only his mother but a son of his has mental health problems which would lead me to question my self due to heredity. I will of course pray for him.

Gary

At one time Wesley stated that all that became between him and the Quakers was their stance on the sacraments and only later did he decry the man, which coincided with the loss of many Methodists to Quakerism.

I am sorry to spoil your thread Gary which will probably be locked now but I did not start the attack from Andrew.

Gary I am trying to find you a referrence but I have to go out.

For anyone interested in the Worthington's, their testimony is that they are still waiting on the Lord to grant the blessing that George Fox spoke of.

Gary

Are you saying that such a renowned and highly educated theologian as John Wesley, had not even read what must have been the most controversial writing of Fox before he commented on his theology?

The reference you gave on a previous post:

[47] in one of his letters to Archbishop Secker, he remarks: "Between me and the Quakers there is a great gulf fixed. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper keep us at a wide distance from each other; insomuch that, according to the view of things I have now, I should as soon commence deist as Quaker.”[48]

[47] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 488.
[48] Ibid. vol. xii., p. 74.

is incorrect:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5JNKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=Wesley%E2%80%99s+Works,+vol.
+xii&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AkAAVNvZC4TR7AbK4oHYBw&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ
#v=onepage&q=Wesley%E2%80%99s%20Works%2C%20vol.%20xii

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5JNKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=Wesley%E2%80%99s+Works,+vol.
+xii&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AkAAVNvZC4TR7AbK4oHYBw&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ
#v=onepage&q=Wesley%E2%80%99s%20Works%2C%20vol.%20xii&f=false

Mark we both know one thing. You know it and I do. Please don't think that you can hide behind a veil of words. You do not even know what the occult is. You are a shallow fake Mark. Do you want me to prove it in a public place? Do not press me. I have stated more plainly than you in this thread respectful things about Brenda. You are a selective idiot and a fool. This thread demonstrates one clear reality which others need to get their heads around. Believers are ignorant and blind despite their claims and despite their efforts. I rebuke you Mark for your Hypocrisy, selective blindness and falsehoods.

Brenda I am perfectly happy for you to quote me. But please do it in context and be sincere about it if at all possible. Suffering from acute anxiety when you have been abused as a child is not a mental health issue. Nor do I mean perverse uncles nor do I mean the ingestion of gum powders foolishly given by my parents. I mean torture and violence and hateful speech. In that context acute learned anxiety would be thought as a psychological normalcy.

Further, bearing witness to a period of a few months in one year some fifteen years ago whilst in a backslidden condition, which is the context of your quote from my blog site, does not express a mental health condition either. The statement Brenda is past tense. I have no problem with anyone on here saying and doing what they want to say if by that means some at least can benefit from a dose of reality. In fact I would press for the matter.

My son Brenda is called Daniel he has a severe brain injury caused by medical negligence. He is twenty seven years of age and he also does not have mental health problems. Your claim that my mothers condition may have run in the family is completely false and I rebuke you for saying it.

I have said this before and I now say it again. Christians can be, and often are some of the most hateful people. This has been my experience not because they murder others with swords, or thrown stones and rocks to kill others, or steal others possessions, but because we are the only people in the whole world with the means and knowledge to love with discernment and understanding, as God Himself loves, and instead we hate one another.

Brenda I have no interest in your hypocrisy any more. Until this last post of yours, and the way you have gone straight on to deal in trivialities with Gary I had thought you to be a genuine and decent person. That confidence has now gone and so is any possibility of further communication between us.

Despite the nonsense spoken here by yourself and Mark as to the substance of my alleged attacks on others I would invite you to do some real work and prove it. I therefore ask the Lord Jesus to make the judgement between us in the visibility of men and angels. I will make no further comment so you can really say just whatever you feel like. No defence will be made. I really cannot stomach American heroes Brenda they get right up my nose. Dammed Yanks.

You will of course not pray for me Brenda. I would not suffer your prayers before the Father, given this context.

Just to give some material substance to what I have said in my blog site and what you have quoted here now as evidence of my mental health.

The serial rapist was a real person. I had the misfortune to witness a small child being raped in Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, in 1999. I took that child up into my arms in the name of the Lord Jesus and carried her home realising that I could not chase after her attacker, but mindful of who he was. I then reported myself to her mother and to the police and provided a witness statement. Several months passed and several more rapes and eventually I decided that I would use my occult knowledge and abilities under a cover and preserve of the prophetic calling, and bring him to judgement. This decision was taken because I was not walking in the spirit and knew that my prayers were hindered and so I decided to do what I knew I could do regardless of that hinderance.

I was once a practising Satanist Brenda and an accomplished sorcerer. I have made no secret of this fact anywhere on this site, I know how to harm men through the air, I know how to lay wast to their pretentious nonsense as well. But I do not do such things as they are evidentially occult when done in the flesh of self interest. I rather pray and ask the Lord accordingly. The line between the occult and the prophet is so close that I doubt more than two people on this site would even know where to begin to draw it. My whole blog is devoted to exposing that reality. The quote you have taken is a confession of what a believer does when they are not walking in the spirit. It is not a mental health forum or a a claim to have suffered mental health problems. It is an intelligent expression of spiritual realities presented in terms which few will have ever even considered.

I have twice used the following saying on this site:

The distance of thousands of miles does not a veil make which cannot be drawn back.

The one I leave hidden and the other was spoken to Just-In who has now left the site. Just-In like Mark also started to be personal against me because he felt a need to defend Brenda. Now Mark, So has Colin Murray. There has also been similar personal attack from Mike and one other. None of these things really matter except they serve to make for real meaning and evidence of our attitudes and conduct. If you go into those situations, which none of you are now able to do without considerable effort, you would find that far from my attacking individuals, either by name or by indirect inference, I have attacked ideas. Beating children with pieces of wood for example. Now it is mysticism and the heresies which arise from that means of comprehending God. I have also spoken against rock music. But only in context of defending David Wilkerson who came in for a beating several times. I could go on. What I have never done is attack an individual other than perhaps to have the gall to say that I did not care whether a certain person loved me or not. If anyone can show me otherwise I will publicly repent of it.

None of these things has anything to do with mental health. The youth gangs were similarly dealt with by prophetic means. So that when I say, "I withstood them in a countenance which left them speechless, that oddly enough is precisely what I mean. I stood in their midst fully visible in a prophetic countenance and they spoke not one word to me. They dare not even ask me what I was doing or even look at me. Their power was broken with not one word being spoken and they dispersed. You have no idea Brenda what you are about and Mark is just as ignorant. Go and read the articles or at least try to read them. There are eight altogether in the series on sorcery in the Church. I am of course happy for you bringing my words to others attention. What you have missed however is that they speak of me in far darker terms than any mere mental health issue could possibly speak. I am afraid Brenda that far from being mentally ill I know Satan personally and am unaltered by that reality. You can also make of that what you will. But I do not stand idly by even when Satan is attacking me from the air because I am not walking as I should. The context of the quote you have selectively taken Brenda is very different from anything you have any experience of. The Lord Himself lets Satan do his work, and by that means are men sifted and proven according to their activities. That was all fifteen years ago Brenda. Do you have any comprehension of context or meaning? Shame on you.

Unlike you Brenda I am not a victim in life even though I have suffered a great deal and would have every good reason to be mentally ill. Ironically suffering from acute anxiety Brenda as a learned process arising from years of being physically tortured at the hands of your parents on a daily basis for ten years did not produce so much as an outward hint of the inner turmoil and anxiety, even as a child. My wife and all the people I have to do with, including court officials, social workers and health workers of many types and kinds, as well as Neuro Psychiatrist's and medical doctors on an almost daily basis have never even noticed it. Do not take words and imagine you have any conception of what they mean unless you take them in a sincere heart and intend good by them. The speed that you have come to the floor of hypocrisy at the first encouragement from another, being Mark of course, speaks for itself as Gary has indicated.

The issue which Gary raised in the root of this OP has been lost as far as my own comments are concerned, but as Gary has said, he has spoken with me probably for a little over four hours in the last eighteen months and so he is better placed to realise what a mistake you have made. American boys put you heads in. This is not Hollywood this is reality. Either get real or get out. Brenda I have no regret sister about what has been said on either side. I am genuinely not offended and see this as the hand of the Lord to teach me reality and what it means to expose those things about oneself before others which they can make use of to harm us. Fortunately my mind Brenda is a Rock, we have the mind of Christ don't you know! My advise Brenda, is use it and stop looking for mystery.

Finally the term obsessive methodical behaviour was also set in a specific context. In 1999 I started a computer hardware and network installation business. I single handedly turned over more than £200,000 in the first year. I explain in that same article you helpfully quoted from that this was the precise reason and the basis for neglecting my walk at that time. This too is not a mental health condition. It is a mind of determination borne out of having to deal with stress and anxiety internally from a very young age. In short Brenda the saying has context and real meaning.

So just to summarise then:

I am not mentally ill.

A learned operant condition of acute inner anxiety is not a mental illness

The period covered by the quote Brenda sweetly made to my seeming help is a reference to events between September to December 1999

My 27 year old son is brain damaged not mental ill

My wife did not even know that I experienced internal anxiety until I was forty years old despite being intimate with me for the preceding fifteen years. Only then did she know because I told her. Read the article fully Brenda.

A few on SermonIndex literally imagine what reality is and hate me because I am direct in what I say. Mark is personally offended with me and is hiding behind a pretext of spiritual knowledge. He is in my mind a damned yank.

Brenda became momentarily afraid but very quickly shot her arrows off when she realised I was not against her

Thank you all for being the very antithesis of discernment, truth and understanding.

Gary can you shorten those links like I have done to reduce the width of the page thanks.

Also the link you give did not work.

this thread is such a beautiful witness, to the fun and frittering away of hours spewing words, words, words.

"what a peculiar people these Christians, look how they love one another".

aint religion fun?

I am disgusted and appalled at the abusive way you have been spoken to and maligned here...from what it seems is a very unhinged individual who appears to have been stalking you online all these years?!! I don't blame you for feeling a little creeped out. And not just stalked you, but admits to deliberately laying snares to "trip up your feet". What utter nonsense, actually it sounds worse...more like some weird obsession with you...yikes! If you were my wife I would have some very strong words with any man that spoke to you like this. This guy needs to shut his big mouth, repent and apologize to you.

For what it is worth sister I find your posts pleasant and respectful and not the least bit heretical and without anything even remotely related to the occult! Lol. The smartest thing you could do is follow through on your words and never reply to him again because you will only feed his obsession. May The Lord bless you and strengthen you in spirit, soul and body. Praying for you tonight!!!

Mark having made one reply I am minded to give another one as well so read it and you may be better informed next time you have a mind to make silly comments in a show of Hollywood heroics.

I do not know Brenda personally. The only things I do know about her are taken from this site and two other Quaker sites which Brenda posts into using her real name in full. I have in fact only quoted her from those two sites and I have quoted her in context and verbatim. The original posts are still there and I can show the links to test that claim. I have never so much as posted any words whatsoever to Brenda, or about Brenda except in public in SermonIndex. There has been no private words and no words other than can be found here. This has been in the time I have been a member which is just four days less than yourself. In other words it has been over the last 30 months. Though for ten months of that I did not make a single post to Brenda or respond to her own posts at all. I only started when I saw her inclination to mysticism and recognised the inherent danger in it. This forum is frequented by far more people who do not post than who do post and many of them will be spiritually thirsting.

Brenda takes the view that Jesus will keep them by some inner reality which amounts to an occult claim in itself. I have seen a number of different realities because sometime people disobey Jesus despite the warnings and the efforts of others to draw them back and they pay a heavy price. This is not an exaggeration, it is a reality. I have documented one of these realities here on SI which has to do with a man who was involved in the Hebridean Revival. I also had a conversation with Greg two years ago and shared another similar incident with a man which lasted for a ten year period and resulted in his premature death. Greg's response to me was "Ten years?". In other words the Lord showed mercy and understanding for ten years before I was withdrawn from that mans life.

All of my posts have been about a specific reality which I can see you have no comprehension of. No doubt you still imagine that the devil is a horned fellow with a garish grimace. So you imagine that the occult therefore must be similarly grim. The occult Mark is the most desirable commodity known to humanity. It speaks of the acquisition of knowledge by an unlawful means of men and angels in order to maintain men and angels in the place of God. If that in finality means a false Christ then perhaps you can see why anti-christ is a reality of ambition to Satan, and why all that which is in the name of Christ must be tested and shown to be of Christ and not the prince of the power of the air.

Therefore when you say you cannot see anything occult in the things Brenda says, or the doctrine she espouses and her inclination to acquire knowledge and understanding by an inward means attending to mysticism, you really do not know what you are actually saying. If you do not even know what the occult is how will you know when you see it before your very eyes?

Mark what you really think about me is really not important. But what you are missing is that this exchange between myself and Brenda is specific and is not in any way chaotic or obsessive. It is in any even over now. I am glad that it is. I have said everything can could be said. What benefit is in it I cannot say, but my conscience is clear.

Stalking someone Mark has to have some substance my friend. It's not a word to be bandied around like children's sweets. This is not a political forum it must be a forum where people speak truthfully as best they are able. My posts to Brenda and my research into her beliefs cover a short period of time and have been confined to indirect actions on a public forum moderated by five men who all see and read what is being said. If Brenda can say otherwise then she ought to say it plainly and clearly and seek for advise and help accordingly. Otherwise Mark your unnecessary and false report will be seen to be what it really is. Follow your own advice and resist replying Mark, it will do you no good whatsoever.

I would also encourage you to actually read Greg's pen sketches on George Fox. Nowhere will you find an encouragement to mysticism, via triplex, sinless perfection or prolonged silences awaiting inner revelation to the exclusion of biblical sound doctrine. That was Gary's original premise and it remains true regardless of what has passed in this OP.

I have nothing more to say about George Fox except what I have written.

Brenda dear sister, I hope you are well, I certainly have nothing else to say to those who clearly display not even a shred of humility or regret in the way they speak to people. I jumped into this thread to defend you from that silly tirade, but I now see that you are quite capable of handling yourself, lol. I just don't like it when I hear big-mouthed bullies treat women like doormats.

This is all I have to say on this thread, and to be honest I am probably not going to come be back often on these forums again, it has gotten really, really bad here which is sad. As long as this silliness goes on unchecked, a lot of good people will not participate very much. Now if Sermon Index had a block feature like Facebook...wouldn't that be something?!!

And here is one for you Paul. If you insist on promoting occult and dangerous material on this site and allowing others to do the same then what do you expect. You remonstrate about the witness of the Lord's name, with no conception as to what effect these mystical teaching may have. Now you can delete my account.