Note 51 — Chapter X
Reading edition
James Naylor was a monument of human frailty. His gift in the ministry was eminent; his experience in divine things truly great. He fell through unwatchfulness, but was restored through deep sufferings and unfeigned repentance. His own writings are the most clear and lively description of the various dispensations he underwent; some of them deserve to be transmitted to the latest posterity. His address to his brethren bespeaks the real repentance of his heart; in that he says, “My heart is broken this day for the offence I have occasioned to God’s truth and people,—I beseech you, forgive wherein I evilly requited your love in that day. God knows my sorrow for it!” &c. A few hours before his death, he spoke in the presence of several witnesses the following remarkable words:—
“There is a spirit which I feel, that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong; but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations; as it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it; for its ground and spring is the mercy and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness; its life is everlasting love unfeigned. It takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth, but through sufferings; for with the world’s joy it is murdered. I found it alone; being forsaken. I have fellowship therein with those who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth; who through death obtained this resurrection, and eternal, holy life!”
Such was the end of James Naylor; who, in his forty-fourth year, “chastened, but not killed—cast down, but not destroyed”—through much tribulation, entered, we may humbly hope, “into the kingdom of God.”—(For full particulars, see his Life by Joseph Gurney Bevan.)