George Fox: An Autobiography

GEORGE FOX AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
GEORGE FOX FROM A PAINTING BY S. CHINN
An Autobiography
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY RUFUS M. JONES, M.A., Litt. D. PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HAVERFORD COLLEGE
Philadelphia:
FERRIS & LEACH 29 SOUTH SEVENTH STREET 1909
Copyright, 1903, by Ferris & Leach
Dedicated
TO THE SWEET AND SHINING MEMORY OF THE LITTLE LAD WHOSE BEAUTIFUL LIFE WAS A VISIBLE REVELATION TO ME OF THE TRUTH, WHICH THIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY TEACHES, THAT THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN ARE NOT FAR-SUNDERED.
It ( George Fox's Journal ) is one of the most extraordinary and instructive narratives in the world; which no reader of competent judgment can peruse without revering the virtue of the writer. —Sir James Mackintosh.
I have read through the ponderous folio of George Fox. Pray, how may I return it to Mr. Skewell at Ipswich? I fear to send such a treasure by a stage-coach, not that I am afraid of the coachman or the guard READING it, but it might be lost. Can you put me in a way of sending it safely? The kind-hearted owner trusted it to me for six MONTHS; I think I was about as many DAYS in getting through it, and I do not think that I skipped a word of it . —Charles Lamb to Bernard Barton, Feb., 1823 .
Fox judged truly that the new Protestant scholasticism had not reached to the heart of things in any image of past experience, or in any printed book however sacred: that academic learning was not in itself an adequate passport to the Christian ministry; that the words of God should not supersede the Word of God. He realized, as few men have ever realized, that we are placed under the dispensation of the Spirit: that the power from on high with which the risen Christ promised to endue His People was no exceptional or transitory gift, but an Eternal Presence, an unfailing spring of energy, answering to new wants and new labours. He felt that the Spirit which had guided the fathers was waiting still to lead forward their children: that He who spoke through men of old was not withdrawn from the world like the gods of Epicurus, but ready in all ages to enter into holy souls and make them friends of God and prophets. —Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott.