"if the Quakers were creative in their heterodoxy, they were remarkably unimaginative when it came to proving their orthodoxy."

      Madeleine Pennington, Quakers, Christ, and the Enlightenment (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2021), 114.  116:

even in its earliest form, the letter [to the Governor of Barbados] reflected Fox’s aspirations to demonstrate the Quakers’ theological reputation. 

Yet it also ultimately reflected how ill-equipped he was to do so. It drew on none of the Quakers’ own theological resources or distinctive insights. Fox’s use of the Apostles’ Creed in his description of God as ‘Creator of all things both in heaven and in earth’, and of Jesus as ‘Conceived by the Holy Ghost, and Born of the Virgin Mary’, was particularly surprising given the Quakers’ general position on conciliar authority. What purpose was served by quoting the creed in this manner, if not to deflect aspersions regarding one’s orthodoxy? And yet, Fox did not—could not—speak entirely with his own voice in this regard.