James Nayler was a prominent preacher in the first years of the Quaker movement. He knew that his greater self was Christ, and he felt led to ride into Bristol on a horse in 1656 with women leading the horse, spreading cloaks and crying Holy, Holy.(1)
He was brought before the Bristol magistrates. His examination follows in part:(2)
Being asked his name, or whether he was not called James Nayler, he replied: The men of this world call me James Nayler.
Q. Art not thou the man that rid on horseback into Bristol, a woman leading thy horse, and others singing before thee Holy, holy holy, Hosannah, &c.
A. I did ride into a Town, but what its name was I know not, and by the Spirit a woman was commanded to hold my horses bridle; and some there were that cast down cloathes, and sang praises to the Lord, such songs as the Lord put into their hearts; and its like it might be the song of Holy, holy, holy, &c.
Q. Whether or no didst thou reprove those women?
A. Nay, but I bad them take heed that they sang nothing but what they were moved to of the Lord.
Q. Dost thou own this letter (whereupon a letter was showed him) which Hannah Strange sent unto thee?
A. Yea, I do own that letter.
Q. Art thou (according to that letter) the fairest of ten thousand?
A. As to the visible, I deny any such attribution to be due into me; but if as to that which the Father has begotten in me, I shall own it.
Q. Art thou the only Son of God?
A. I am the Son of God, but I have many Brethren.
Q. Have any called thee by the name of Jesus?
A. Not as unto the visible, but as Jesus, the Christ that is in me.
Q. Dost thou own the name of the King of Israel?
A. Not as a creature, but if they give it Christ within I own it, and have a Kingdom but not of this world, my Kingdom is of another world, of which thou wast not.
…
Q. Was your birth mortal or immortal?
A. Not according to the Natural birth, but according to the Spiritual birth, born of the immortal seed.
Q. Wert thou ever called the Lambe of God?
A. I look not back to things behind, but there might be some such thing in the letter; I am a lamb, and have sought it long before I could witnesse it.
Q. Who the mother, or whether or no is she a virgin?
A. Nay, according to the naturall birth.
Q. Who is thy mother according to thy spirituall birth?
A. No carnal creature.
Q. Who then?
A. ----------------To this he refused to answer.
…
Q. Art thou the everlasting Son of God?
A. Where God is manifest in the flesh, there is the everlasting Son, and I do witness God in the flesh; I am the Son of God, and the Son of God is but one.
Q. Art thou the Prince of peace?
A. The Price of everlasting peace is begotten in me.
…
Q. Art thou the everlasting Son of god, the King of righteousness?
A. I am, and the everlasting righteousness is wrought in me, if ye were acquainted with the Father, ye would also be acquainted with me.
…
Q. How dost thou provide for a livelihood?
A. As the lillies without care, being maintained of my father.
Q. Who dost thou call thy Father?
A. He whom thou callest God.
Q. What business hadst thou at Bristoll or that way?
A. I was guided and directed by my father.
…
Q. What estate hast thou?
A. I take no care for that.
Q. Doth God in an extraordinary manner sustain thee, without any corporal food?
A. Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Father: 6 the same life is mine that is in the Father; but not in the same measure.
Q. How art thou cloathed?
A. I know not.
Q. Dost thou live without bread?
A. As long as my heavenly Father will: I have tasted of that bread, of which he that eateth shall never die.
Q. How long hast thou lived without any corporal sustenance, having perfect health?
A. Some fifteen or sixteen days, sustained without any other food except the Word of God.
Q. Was Dorcas Erbury dead two days in Exeter? And disdt thou raise her?
A. I can do nothing of myself : the Scripture beareth witness to the power in me which is everlasting; it is the same power we read of in the Scripture. The Lord hath made me a signe of his coming: and that honour that belongeth to Christ Jesus, in whom I am revealed, may be given to him, as when on earth at Jerusalem, according to the measure.
Q. Art thou the unspotted Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world?
A. Were I not a lamb, wolves would not seek to devour me.
Q. Art thou not guilty of horrid blasphemy, by thy own words?
A. Who made thee a Judge over them?
Q. Wherefore camest thou in such an unusual posture, as, two women leading thy horse; others singing Holy, holy, &c. with another before thee bare-headed, knee-deep in the high-way-mud, when thou mightst have gone in the Causey; and at such a time, that it raining, thy companions received the rain at their necks and vented it at their hose and breeches?
A. It tended to my Father’s praise and glory; and I ought not to slight any thing which the Spirit of the Lord moves.
Q. Dost thou think the Spirit of the Lord moved or commanded them?
A. Yea
…
The upshot was that he was sent to Parliament, and there received a series of savage punishments. More bitter than those, I should imagine, was an estrangement with George Fox and the Society, which was only partially healed. George Fox would have seen instantly what James Nayler was doing, so what was his problem? The examination of Martha Simonds gives major clues:
Q. What made thee lead his horse into Bristol, and sing, Holy,holy, holy, &c. and to spread thy garments before him?
A. I was forced thereto by the power of the Lord.
…
Q. Oughtest thou to worship James Nayler, as thou didst upon thy knees?
A. Yea, I ought so to do.
Q. Why oughtest thou so to do?
A. He is the Son of Righteousness; and the new Man within him, is the everlasting Son of Righteousness; and James Nayler will be Jesus when the new life is born in him.
…
Q. Tell me, Doth that Spirit of Jesus, which thou sayest is in Nayler, make him a sufficient Jesus to others?
A. I tell thee, there is a seed born in him, which above all men I shall (and every one ought to) honour.
…
That was the most intelligent and searching question by the Magistrates. It is possible that James Nayler did not sufficiently consider it. Certainly Martha Simonds and James Nayler’s other companions did not consider it. His purpose in riding into Bristol was presumably to proclaim Christ within. They should therefore have looked for Christ within themselves, and have honoured James Nayler, but not worshipped him.
The magistrates did not consider their own question either. They never asked themselves whether Jesus was or could be sufficient Christ to others.
As for the mother in the spiritual birth, which James Nayler would not discuss in the adversarial context of the court room, we can consider it in the calm of the study. God can never be born, as there is nothing other than himself, so nothing that could be a mother. The awareness of God within can be viewed as being brought to birth, for it was not, then it becomes and grows as from a seed, then reaches fullness. There is no other person involved, and no mechanism, so after all, Gervais believes in the virgin birth.
What is known about the entry, supplemented by intelligent guesses, is given in James Nayler, The Quaker Indicted by Parliament by William Bittle. The split with Fox occurred before the entry, and may have been caused by disillusion with Fox’s leadership due to a perception of autocracy. At one point he offered Nayler his foot to be kissed. Nearly all his letters are in the imperative mood. One cannot submit to another in Spirit, because there is no other. As separate selves, there are always greater and lesser persons than yourself, as it says in Desiderata. But Fox also had good reason to suspect Nayler. Martha Simonds had a history of disrupting meetings, exhibiting party spirit, and expecting a high place in the movement, just like the sons of Zebedee who asked Jesus for high places in the Kingdom. (3) Despite repeated warnings, Naylor had done nothing about her. On the contrary, he had gone to her house to brood and rest, and when his friends whisked him away to Bristol, she followed, whether from devotion to him or determination not to lose her influence I cannot say. She had her own millennial agenda, as shown in her answer about the life going to be born in him, in the future. 1656 was going to be the year of the Second Coming. For her the entry may have signified Nayler’s emergence as Christ the Lord, the leader. Quite possibly he regarded her as absolutely autonomous, and pleased that, as he thought, she had discerned Christ in him. He did not know the advice in Desiderata to “Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit.”
Her destructive power should not be underestimated. She beat him, in a war that he did not understand. He came to understand: He had given himself “wholly to be led by others, whose work was wholly to divide me from the children of light.” (4)
There are some people to whom one's real ability to relate is zero. Others are cannibals as we have seen. There are others, like jellyfish, soft and yielding on the outside, and deadly on closer acquaintance.
Dogberry’s political philosophy, in “Shakespeare’s” Much Ado about Nothing is:
“Well, God’s a good man; an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.”
Interestingly, Dogberry’s concentration on this issue was in a context where it was totally irrelevant, moreover it prevented him from delivering his message, which was one of salvation.
Not far from my house is the battlefield of Towton, where on 29th March 1461 some 28,000 men were killed. The issue was who would be king, who would ride in front. The clash between Fox and Naylor was just as futile, and far more damaging still.
James Nayler later denied that he had raised Dorcas Erbury from death, so it appears that this was another miracle story designed to prove a point.
In 1660, having resumed his successful preaching ministry in London, he began to walk home to Yorkshire to visit his family. He got near to Huntingdon where he was mugged. A friendly doctor took him to his home in Kings Ripton, where he died, so the ministry and life of this incandescent man were lost to the world.
This is what he said before he died:
"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 thoughts to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies 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 them who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life."
1. cf Mark 11: 7-10
2. From The Grand Impostor Examined: or, The Life, Tryal and examination of James Nayler the seduced and seducing Quaker: With the Manner of is riding into Bristol (1656). Facsimile by EEBO Editions. The spelling of the surname has been standardised.
3. Mark 10:37
4. William Bittle: James Nayler, the Quaker Indicted by Parliament
He was brought before the Bristol magistrates. His examination follows in part:(2)
Being asked his name, or whether he was not called James Nayler, he replied: The men of this world call me James Nayler.
Q. Art not thou the man that rid on horseback into Bristol, a woman leading thy horse, and others singing before thee Holy, holy holy, Hosannah, &c.
A. I did ride into a Town, but what its name was I know not, and by the Spirit a woman was commanded to hold my horses bridle; and some there were that cast down cloathes, and sang praises to the Lord, such songs as the Lord put into their hearts; and its like it might be the song of Holy, holy, holy, &c.
Q. Whether or no didst thou reprove those women?
A. Nay, but I bad them take heed that they sang nothing but what they were moved to of the Lord.
Q. Dost thou own this letter (whereupon a letter was showed him) which Hannah Strange sent unto thee?
A. Yea, I do own that letter.
Q. Art thou (according to that letter) the fairest of ten thousand?
A. As to the visible, I deny any such attribution to be due into me; but if as to that which the Father has begotten in me, I shall own it.
Q. Art thou the only Son of God?
A. I am the Son of God, but I have many Brethren.
Q. Have any called thee by the name of Jesus?
A. Not as unto the visible, but as Jesus, the Christ that is in me.
Q. Dost thou own the name of the King of Israel?
A. Not as a creature, but if they give it Christ within I own it, and have a Kingdom but not of this world, my Kingdom is of another world, of which thou wast not.
…
Q. Was your birth mortal or immortal?
A. Not according to the Natural birth, but according to the Spiritual birth, born of the immortal seed.
Q. Wert thou ever called the Lambe of God?
A. I look not back to things behind, but there might be some such thing in the letter; I am a lamb, and have sought it long before I could witnesse it.
Q. Who the mother, or whether or no is she a virgin?
A. Nay, according to the naturall birth.
Q. Who is thy mother according to thy spirituall birth?
A. No carnal creature.
Q. Who then?
A. ----------------To this he refused to answer.
…
Q. Art thou the everlasting Son of God?
A. Where God is manifest in the flesh, there is the everlasting Son, and I do witness God in the flesh; I am the Son of God, and the Son of God is but one.
Q. Art thou the Prince of peace?
A. The Price of everlasting peace is begotten in me.
…
Q. Art thou the everlasting Son of god, the King of righteousness?
A. I am, and the everlasting righteousness is wrought in me, if ye were acquainted with the Father, ye would also be acquainted with me.
…
Q. How dost thou provide for a livelihood?
A. As the lillies without care, being maintained of my father.
Q. Who dost thou call thy Father?
A. He whom thou callest God.
Q. What business hadst thou at Bristoll or that way?
A. I was guided and directed by my father.
…
Q. What estate hast thou?
A. I take no care for that.
Q. Doth God in an extraordinary manner sustain thee, without any corporal food?
A. Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Father: 6 the same life is mine that is in the Father; but not in the same measure.
Q. How art thou cloathed?
A. I know not.
Q. Dost thou live without bread?
A. As long as my heavenly Father will: I have tasted of that bread, of which he that eateth shall never die.
Q. How long hast thou lived without any corporal sustenance, having perfect health?
A. Some fifteen or sixteen days, sustained without any other food except the Word of God.
Q. Was Dorcas Erbury dead two days in Exeter? And disdt thou raise her?
A. I can do nothing of myself : the Scripture beareth witness to the power in me which is everlasting; it is the same power we read of in the Scripture. The Lord hath made me a signe of his coming: and that honour that belongeth to Christ Jesus, in whom I am revealed, may be given to him, as when on earth at Jerusalem, according to the measure.
Q. Art thou the unspotted Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world?
A. Were I not a lamb, wolves would not seek to devour me.
Q. Art thou not guilty of horrid blasphemy, by thy own words?
A. Who made thee a Judge over them?
Q. Wherefore camest thou in such an unusual posture, as, two women leading thy horse; others singing Holy, holy, &c. with another before thee bare-headed, knee-deep in the high-way-mud, when thou mightst have gone in the Causey; and at such a time, that it raining, thy companions received the rain at their necks and vented it at their hose and breeches?
A. It tended to my Father’s praise and glory; and I ought not to slight any thing which the Spirit of the Lord moves.
Q. Dost thou think the Spirit of the Lord moved or commanded them?
A. Yea
…
The upshot was that he was sent to Parliament, and there received a series of savage punishments. More bitter than those, I should imagine, was an estrangement with George Fox and the Society, which was only partially healed. George Fox would have seen instantly what James Nayler was doing, so what was his problem? The examination of Martha Simonds gives major clues:
Q. What made thee lead his horse into Bristol, and sing, Holy,holy, holy, &c. and to spread thy garments before him?
A. I was forced thereto by the power of the Lord.
…
Q. Oughtest thou to worship James Nayler, as thou didst upon thy knees?
A. Yea, I ought so to do.
Q. Why oughtest thou so to do?
A. He is the Son of Righteousness; and the new Man within him, is the everlasting Son of Righteousness; and James Nayler will be Jesus when the new life is born in him.
…
Q. Tell me, Doth that Spirit of Jesus, which thou sayest is in Nayler, make him a sufficient Jesus to others?
A. I tell thee, there is a seed born in him, which above all men I shall (and every one ought to) honour.
…
That was the most intelligent and searching question by the Magistrates. It is possible that James Nayler did not sufficiently consider it. Certainly Martha Simonds and James Nayler’s other companions did not consider it. His purpose in riding into Bristol was presumably to proclaim Christ within. They should therefore have looked for Christ within themselves, and have honoured James Nayler, but not worshipped him.
The magistrates did not consider their own question either. They never asked themselves whether Jesus was or could be sufficient Christ to others.
As for the mother in the spiritual birth, which James Nayler would not discuss in the adversarial context of the court room, we can consider it in the calm of the study. God can never be born, as there is nothing other than himself, so nothing that could be a mother. The awareness of God within can be viewed as being brought to birth, for it was not, then it becomes and grows as from a seed, then reaches fullness. There is no other person involved, and no mechanism, so after all, Gervais believes in the virgin birth.
What is known about the entry, supplemented by intelligent guesses, is given in James Nayler, The Quaker Indicted by Parliament by William Bittle. The split with Fox occurred before the entry, and may have been caused by disillusion with Fox’s leadership due to a perception of autocracy. At one point he offered Nayler his foot to be kissed. Nearly all his letters are in the imperative mood. One cannot submit to another in Spirit, because there is no other. As separate selves, there are always greater and lesser persons than yourself, as it says in Desiderata. But Fox also had good reason to suspect Nayler. Martha Simonds had a history of disrupting meetings, exhibiting party spirit, and expecting a high place in the movement, just like the sons of Zebedee who asked Jesus for high places in the Kingdom. (3) Despite repeated warnings, Naylor had done nothing about her. On the contrary, he had gone to her house to brood and rest, and when his friends whisked him away to Bristol, she followed, whether from devotion to him or determination not to lose her influence I cannot say. She had her own millennial agenda, as shown in her answer about the life going to be born in him, in the future. 1656 was going to be the year of the Second Coming. For her the entry may have signified Nayler’s emergence as Christ the Lord, the leader. Quite possibly he regarded her as absolutely autonomous, and pleased that, as he thought, she had discerned Christ in him. He did not know the advice in Desiderata to “Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit.”
Her destructive power should not be underestimated. She beat him, in a war that he did not understand. He came to understand: He had given himself “wholly to be led by others, whose work was wholly to divide me from the children of light.” (4)
There are some people to whom one's real ability to relate is zero. Others are cannibals as we have seen. There are others, like jellyfish, soft and yielding on the outside, and deadly on closer acquaintance.
Dogberry’s political philosophy, in “Shakespeare’s” Much Ado about Nothing is:
“Well, God’s a good man; an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.”
Interestingly, Dogberry’s concentration on this issue was in a context where it was totally irrelevant, moreover it prevented him from delivering his message, which was one of salvation.
Not far from my house is the battlefield of Towton, where on 29th March 1461 some 28,000 men were killed. The issue was who would be king, who would ride in front. The clash between Fox and Naylor was just as futile, and far more damaging still.
James Nayler later denied that he had raised Dorcas Erbury from death, so it appears that this was another miracle story designed to prove a point.
In 1660, having resumed his successful preaching ministry in London, he began to walk home to Yorkshire to visit his family. He got near to Huntingdon where he was mugged. A friendly doctor took him to his home in Kings Ripton, where he died, so the ministry and life of this incandescent man were lost to the world.
This is what he said before he died:
"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 thoughts to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies 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 them who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life."
1. cf Mark 11: 7-10
2. From The Grand Impostor Examined: or, The Life, Tryal and examination of James Nayler the seduced and seducing Quaker: With the Manner of is riding into Bristol (1656). Facsimile by EEBO Editions. The spelling of the surname has been standardised.
3. Mark 10:37
4. William Bittle: James Nayler, the Quaker Indicted by Parliament