After this, finding his health shattered by his long imprisonment and arduous labours, he settled down in London, quietly, though not uselessly, awaiting the end. His correspondence was most extensive, and he wrote many tracts and pamphlets as was his habit. One of his last letters was written to the lately-bereaved widow of Barclay, the Apologist, and is a model of Christian consolation. He tells her:—"Thou and thy family may rejoice that thou hadst such an offering to offer up unto the Lord as thy dear husband; who, I know is well in the Lord in whom he died, and is at rest from his labours, and his works do follow him." He signs himself one "who had a great love and respect for thy dear husband, for his work and service in the Lord, who is content in the will of God, and all things that he doeth—and so thou must be." But besides this literary work, he laboured zealously in the pastoral work, visiting the sick and afflicted, and endeavouring to "bring into the way of truth such as had erred."
He watched the passing of the Toleration Act with the deepest interest. It was a most welcome relief to Friends, especially those in Ireland. The losses sustained by the Irish Quakers were enormous. In one year (1689) they were estimated at £100,000, many being stripped of all they had (see Besse's Sufferings). George Fox not only collected such facts as these for publication, but, even in his last days of suffering and prostration, attended at the House of Commons to interest the members in the sufferings of his brethren, and to see that the Toleration Act was "done comprehensively and effectually."
He was equally zealous in his attendance on public worship. When so infirm that he could hardly sit through a service, he would not desist, and often afterwards had to lie down on a bed until recruited. He was determined, if possible, to die in harness, and God gave him his heart's desire.
He was especially anxious lest spiritual religion should decline, now that persecution had ceased, and Friends began to prosper in business. He wrote them an epistle of loving, but earnest expostulation, warning the young against the fashions of the world, and the old against the deceitfulness of riches. To the latter he pointedly says, "Take heed that you are not making your graves while you are alive outwardly." To some ministers who had gone to America he writes similar stirring words of counsel:—"And all grow in the faith and grace of Christ, that ye may not be like dwarfs; for a dwarf shall not come near to offer upon God's altar, though he may eat of God's bread that he may grow by it."
On the Sunday preceding his death, he preached with great power at the meeting in Gracechurch Street, but soon afterwards had to take to bed, complaining of cold and weakness. His wife had been to see him some little time before, and finding him enjoying better health than usual, was unprepared for his death, so that no near relative seems to have been with him at the time of his decease. It was indeed a consecrated chamber. Those who stood round him were struck with the triumph of faith over bodily weakness. He exulted in the power of Christ. "All is well—the Seed of God reigns over all, and over death itself." His thoughts were calmly fixed on the arrangement of Society affairs; his mind was clear, his habitual disregard of his bodily sufferings still marked him. Towards the last all pain left him. Feeling death coming, he closed his own eyes and extended his limbs; and in sweet composure, resting on Christ his Saviour, his spirit entered into rest on Tuesday, 13th December, 1690 (o.s.)
Three days after, some 2000 persons (one witness says 4000) gathered to lay him in his grave. For two hours they worshipped in that same meeting-house in Gracechurch Street, in which he had preached only on the previous sabbath. William Penn, George Whitehead, Stephen Crisp, and other leaders amongst them, thanked God for the gifts and services of their departed leader, and exhorted and encouraged each other to faith in that Lord, who raised him up and sustained him in his work. Then the body was conveyed to Bunhill-fields, and interred in the Friends' Burial Ground there.
On the day of his death, William Penn wrote to Swarthmoor to tell the news of his decease. His letter reminds us of the inscription of the Carthaginians on the tomb of Hannibal. "We vehemently desired him in the day of battle." He sadly says to Mrs. Fox, "I am to be the teller to thee of sorrowful tidings, which are these:—that thy dear husband and my beloved friend, George Fox, finished his glorious testimony this night about half-an-hour after 9 o'clock, being sensible to the last breath. Oh! he is gone, and has left us with a storm over our heads. Surely in mercy to Him, but an evidence to us of sorrows coming.... My soul is deeply affected with this sudden great loss. Surely it portends to us evils to come. A prince indeed is fallen in Israel to-day!" and in a postscript he adds, "He died as he lived, minding the things of God and His church to the last, in a universal spirit."
Fox's Journal was published soon after his death, with a lengthy preface by his friend William Penn, containing a warm tribute to his personal worth and Christian labors. The Journal gives us a better and more vivid idea of the man than any biography that has been written. An intelligent and liberal-minded Baptist minister thus describes the impressions it left on his mind:—
Rev. Wm. Rhodes to his wife:
"'My dear heart in the truth and the life which are immortal and change not;'
"So George Fox usually addressed his wife. I have finished his life of 650 folio pages since you have been gone. It afforded me much amusement, but its chief impression is that of the highest veneration and delight, for so holy and noble a servant of Christ. I have hitherto regarded Penn as the most beautiful character which that sect has produced, and perhaps it is the most beautiful, because his mind was more polished and cultivated than that of his friend; but Fox's character is by far the most venerable and magnificent. He reminds me of the inspired Tishbite in his stern majesty and fidelity, but he seems to have surpassed him in all the patient, gentle, compassionate, suffering, laborious virtues. If inspiration has been granted since the apostles departed from the world, I think he possessed it. I have read few things more truly sublime than some of his letters to Charles II."—Memoir of W. Rhodes, Jackson and Walford, p. 179.