George Fox was born in small English town. Before experiencing Holy Spirit, he was already humble but inner personality was complicated. While he was working as a cobbler’s apprentice, he saw strong illumination of Holy Spirit and realized about what he should do. After that event, George fox devoted his life to spread gospel. He declared the presence of Jesus as the “inner light” and “seed”, which were existed inside of us and make the people want to follow the true way (González, 252). Quakerism denied worship, tithes, and the most of sacraments such as baptism and communion because the people who believe Quakerism considered those as interruption. Also, according to their theology, they did not have priest or religious status because every people should be equally treated inside of Christ. In Quakerism, the priority was spiritual experience and the theology from scripture. Therefore, they constructed the quiet environment for their services.
In George Fox’s journal, most of his mystical experiences states about spiritual changes. According to his journal, he describes Jesus as light and strong power. Jesus presence is in everyone’s mind and he teaches his words in scripture. However, Fox’s explanation is more focusing on the characteristic of Holy Spirit among trinity. As following Jesus, he set regulations by himself. First, he had so much effort to listen God’s words inside of his mind. Second, whenever he called someone, he used “thee” and “thou” to everyone without respect. Here, ‘without respect’ means that he considered and treated people equally. Third, the ‘Friends’, Quaker community, never resist toward anti-Quakers because he believed that hurting other people with weapons is not what Jesus wants.
In letters, George Fox keeps empathizing individual spiritual training. It seems that the Friends thought hearing and telling to inner voice was more important than reading scripture. Some of letters were written when Fox was in jail because of religious (Quakerism) movement. However, he had a pity rather than anger for his enemies who trapped him into prison. His attitude seems like Paul in Acts, New Testament. Fox asked to the Friends not to rebel against Catholic and Protestant and bless them as Jesus did when he mocked by the Jews.