Note 18 — THE FOURTH BOOK. 1656-1658. (continued 2)

J. Nayler was a man who had been highly favoured of God with a good degree of grace, which was sufficient for him, had he kept to its teachings; for while he did so, he was exemplary in godliness and great humility, was powerful in word and doctrine, and thereby instrumental in the hand of God, for turning many from darkness to light, and from the power of satan to the power of God. But he, poor man, became exalted above measure, through the abundance of revelation; and in that exaltation did depart from the grace and Holy Spirit of God, which had been his sufficient teacher. Then blindness came over him, and he did suffer himself to be accounted of above what he ought: here he slipped and fell, but not irrecoverably; for it did please God of his infinite mercy, in the day of his affliction, to give him a sight and sense of his outgoings and fall, and also a place of repentance. And he, with the prodigal, humbled himself for his transgression, and besought God with true contrition of soul, to pardon his offences through Jesus Christ. God, I firmly believe, forgave him, for he pardons the truly penitent. His people received him with great joy, for that he who had gone astray from God, was now returned to the Father’s house, and for that he who had separated himself from them through his iniquity, was now, through repentance and forsaking of it, returned into the unity of the faith, and their holy fellowship in the gospel of Christ. And I do hereby testify, that I do esteem it a particular mark of God’s owning his people, in bringing back into unity with them, a man who had so dangerously fallen, as did James Nayler. And here let none insult, but take heed lest they also, in the hour of their temptation, do fall away. Nor let any boastingly say, Where is your God? Or blasphemously suppose his grace is not sufficient for man in temptation, because the tempted may go from, and neglect the teaching of it. David and Peter, as their transgression came by their departing from this infallible guide, the Holy Spirit, so their recovery was only by it.—Jos. Wyeth’s Anguis Flagel.