A bit more of Fox's religious thinking (according to Rufus Jones)
Names Fox used for the "Inner Light": "The Christ Within"; "the Spirit of God within us"; "the Light within"
Fox did not believe in predestination. Every person comes into the world from the creative hand of God with the divine possibility of coming into the condition of Adam before he fell. The individual himself must no doubt first come up through the flaming sword, through struggle, temptation and suffering, but the possibility of that victorious attainment lies within the sphere of the will of everyone who is born. Nobody is doomed to go wrong. No one is fated for evil in advance. No person's destiny is rolled off without the consent of his own will. The key to all doors that open into life or into death for man is in his own hands.
It is the guiding principle of the light within that makes a man able to choose rightly. He cannot be religiously effective unless there is a seed of spiritual life within him. On this Fox rests his claim that man is the only possible type of temple that really has a true holy place in it. Outward buildings and, books and priests are insufficient. Scripture texts do not work by magic, nor as fetishes. They can be used effectively only as they are spiritually applied.
Spiritual authority, though, is not infallible. Fox was humble about the quality and range of his own revelations. He does not claim that they are on a level with the revelations given in Scripture. But he did insist that God spoke to him and through him and he is confidently certain that God sends him forth to speak prophetic messages to the world.
The Friends' form of worship then was designed as an outgrowth of Fox's belief in and his experience of this close, intimate inward relation between God and man. The problem is never one of going somewhere to find a distant or a hidden God. The problem rather is one of human preparation for meeting and communing with a God who is always near at hand but cannot be found and enjoyed until the soul is ready for such an exalted experience.
Similar to the personality of George Fox, the Friends religion is both an inward religion and a call to action. George Fox spoke out against slavery, for women in the ministry, he saw the Light within the Indians and Africans, and wanted both boys and girls to study everything practical and useful under creation. He was against war, and refused to fight. He believed in treating all men as deserving equal respect, be they king or beggar, since all have that of God in them.
Final note: George Fox was not a polished or gifted writer. His several volumes of journals attest to this. Just in case thee is tempted to go peruse them, a word of warning...His autobiography is here and also here.
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