The Journal of George Fox

George Fox, Rufus Jones

• Publisher: Friends United Press
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781956149128
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

George Fox's record of his life and ministry is a Christian classic. Its pages chroncile not only Fox's spiritual travial when he heard a voice that said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition, " but his years of ministry and gathering a people for Christ who became known as the Society of Friends. Includes a glossary of words and phrases most commonly used by Fox.

Glossary-Index

This Glossary-Index is intended as a guide to George Fox’s Journal, particularly the version edited by Rufus M. Jones in 1908. That version provides an introduction by Rufus Jones (pp. 15-45) and the Testimony of William Penn (pp. 46-60), as well as an abundance of footnotes. Yet the seventeenth-century language of Fox may seem as remote from us, rooted in the twentieth century, as the King James Version of the Bible, published in 1611. Fox, however, felt that his mission was to direct people beyond the Bible to the very Spirit that inspired the Bible, and about which the Bible was written. So in reading Fox we find that we must not only struggle with the language of his day, but move beyond that language, until we find that we are being “taught by Christ.”

The Glossary-Index focuses on a few of the words and phrases most frequently employed by Fox, and undertakes to show how Fox is using them, mainly by referring to key passages, and letting them throw light on each other. We are not attempting to provide dictionary definitions, since the assumption here is that the reader is ready to grow to a new level of understanding, and to be guided by the Spirit in that process of growth.

Rufus M. Jones (1863-1948) was one of the towering figures in the recent history of the Society of Friends. Not only did he write and teach extensively on Quakerism and Christian mysticism, but more than any other person he helped to heal the divisions of the Society of Friends. He was the first Chairman of the American Friends Service Committee and had a large part to play in shaping that organization.

The introduction and the footnotes will give one a feeling for the special approach of Rufus Jones to Quakerism. Many writers, today, would say that Jones tended to give too much weight to the influence of continental mysticism upon Quakerism, and too little to the influence of Puritanism. No doubt Rufus Jones was much influenced by William James, whose The Varieties of Religious Experience was published in 1902 (see footnote, p. 25). One can sense, in the footnotes, a keen interest in providing psychological explanations for various events, that may appear to us to be rather speculative.

In the summer of 1983 an opportunity was provided to test out the Glossary-Index in a workshop. As a result, I feel confident that it will be useful both for someone who is studying alone, and for a group exploration of the Journal. While the Glossary is entirely new, the Index of names of persons and places is essentially a duplicate of the Index in the 1908 edition, carefully checked for accuracy.

I owe a special debt to those who advised me in my thesis work at the Earlham School of Religion on Fox’s Journal: Hugh Barbour, Wilmer Cooper, T. Canby Jones and Alan Kolp. I also have been greatly helped, in a variety of ways, by Lewis Benson. This assistance, from these and many others, has been given generously and unstintingly, and I want to express here my gratitude and my thanks.

Howard Alexander

July, 1983

Abrahams, Galenus, 556

Amsterdam, 551

APOSTLE, PROPHET

For Fox, the word Apostle is used to refer to any one of the writers of the New Testament scriptures; and Prophet is used for one of the writers of the Old Testament. Sometimes Fox uses the expression “prophets, Christ and apostles” as a brief way of referring to three time periods: that of the Old Testament, that of the ministry of Christ, and that of the New Testament.

Audland, John, 154

Baltimore Yearly Meeting, see Maryland Yearly Meeting

Baptists, 22-24

Barbadoes, 488-492

Barclay, Robert, 549

Barnet, 69

“Battledore, The,” 406

Beavor, Vale of, 94, 98

Believers, true, 74

Bennet, Justice, 125, 126

Beverley, 136

Bishop, George, 223

Blood of Christ, 91

Bristol, 272, 331, 392, 468, 535

Broadstreet, Simon, 378

Bunyan, John, 19, 26

Burnyeat, John 498, 508, 547

Burrough, Edward, 157, 374, 402

Cambridge, 228

Carlisle, 186-191

Carlyle, characterization of Fox, 67n, 139n

Carolina, 525-528

Charles II, Fox’s letter to, 354

CHURCH

For Fox, the true Church has been obscured since the time of the apostles (p. 284), and confused with “an old house made up of lime, stones and wood.” The true C...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• The Influence of The Journal of George Fox
• Introduction
• The Testimony of William Penn Concerning That Faithful Servant, George Fox
• I. — Boyhood — A Seeker,
• II. — The First Years of Ministry,
• III. — The Challenge and the First Taste of Prison,
• IV. — A Year in Derby Jail,
• V. — One Man May Shake the Country for Ten Miles,
• VI. — A New Era Begins,
• VII. — In Prison Again,
• VIII. — A Visit to Oliver Cromwell,
• IX. — A Visit to the Southern Counties, Which Ends in Launceston Jail,
• X. — Planting the Seed in Wales,
• XI. — In the home of the Covenanters,
• XII. — Great Events in London,
• XIII. — In the First Year of King Charles,
• XIV. — Labors, Dangers and Sufferings.,
• XV. — In Prison for not Swearing.,
• XVI. — A Year in Scarborough Castle.
• XVII. — At the Work of Organizing.
• XVIII. — Two Years in America.
• XIX. — The Last Imprisonment.
• XX. — The Seed Reigns over Death.”
• Index
• Chronology of the Life Of George Fox
• George Fox in England