Lewis Benson
(Philadelphia: The Tract Association of Friends, 1948.)
This Document is on The Quaker Writings Home Page.
Fox's message lays special emphasis on two things: the relationship between God and the
individual Christian, and the nature and mission of the Church.
He declared that faith in Jesus Christ always means direct acquaintance with the living Christ and
obedience to His "voice and command." Just as the hebrew prophets conveyed the mind of the
Lord to the children of Israel, said fox, so does the living Christ make God's will known to the
believing Christian. He brings us an authoritative word of Truth concerning what God requires
of us in the moral decisions that confront us day by day. He is "the prophet who speaks from
heaven."
It followed from this belief in a direct and daily contact with God through Christ that man must
be capable of receiving this word of Truth - a capability which Fox called "that of God in every
man."
He is careful to make clear, however, that the means of Salvation do not lie in man's own
Spiritual resources. Man's capacity to receive Truth is a conspicuous part of Fox's message but
his main concern deals with the manner in which God's Truth is imparted and the means by
which it reaches our receptive capacities. The living word of Truth comes from the living Christ.
He is the prophet, like unto Moses, who is to be heard in all things. Fox is never more serious
than when he is exhorting all to hear and believe the prophetic word of the living Christ. The true
Christian, according to Fox, is the man who, through "that of God" in him, is in constant
communion with the Lord by means of the mediating power of Christ.
At the moment of moral decision, then, man has access to a standard of Truth whose author is
the creator of the universe. There is a living word of Truth that reaches man's contemporary m
oral situation through day to day instruction from the living prophet of God's truth. When moral
decisions are reached in this way it produces the maximum of moral certainty and this, in turn,
results in the greatest possible release of moral energy.
Fox's message on the relationship between God and the individual Christian is wonderful good
news for this age. Through faith in the living word of the living Christ we can know what God
wants us to do and we can do it.
Fox's conception of the Church is no less daring and no less important. To him, the basic unit of
human society is the Church for it is here that the rule of Christ is recognized and accepted and
obeyed. He taught that this true Church must be gathered on the basis of common devotion to
Christ and to the Truth that He reveals. The true Church must demonstrate that it is under
Christ's rule by doing his will. It has a corporate testimony to bear to the moral Truth that Christ
reveals and to His supreme authority over those who are gathered in His Name. The Church that
is so gathered is the people of God whose corporate life is directed and sustained through
constant communion with its living high priest - Jesus Christ. Insofar as there is a meaningful
future for mankind it consists in becoming gathered into this witnessing fellowship of which
Christ is the living Head.
Moreover, the Church is, in Fox's view, the only lasting human fellowship. To him, every other
form of human society is ephemeral but the Church that is gathered together through fellowship
with Christ is His suffering is an everlasting fellowship. It will outlast every combination that
appears against it. It is absolutely secure. Its ground is Truth.
This then is what Fox had to say three hundred years ago. His message is still good news to all
who seek a foundation that cannot be shaken. It is still a message of hope for all who seek to
know the will of the Lord and to do it.