850 
JAMES NAYLER. 
pen, ink, and paper, he wrote letters to the parliament, the magistrates 
of Bristol, and his friends, in which he acknowledged and condemned 
his extravagant behaviour, and asked forgiveness of all to whom he 
had given offence. He likewise wrote several small books, in which 
he retracted his past errors, and other^ pieces that are particularly 
mentioned by Sewell. 
After the protector’s death, Nayler was released from prison, and 
went to Bristol, where, in a public meeting, he made confession of his 
offence and fall, in a manner so affecting as to draw tears from most 
of those who were present, and having afforded satisfactory evidence 
of his unfeigned contrition, was again received into the communion of 
his friends. “ Because God,” says Sewell, forgiveth the transgres- 
sions of the penitent, and blotteth them out, and remembereth them 
no more, so could James Nayler’s friends do no other than forgive his 
crime, and thus take back that lost sheep into their society.” 
Nayler did not long survive his enlargement, for having left London 
in October 1660 , with the intention of going home to his wife and 
children at Wakefield, he was taken ill in Huntingdonshire, where, 
it is said, he was robbed, and left bound in a field. Whether he 
received any personal injury is not known, but being found towards 
evening by a countryman, he was carried to a friend’s house at Holm 
near King’s Rippon, where he expired in the month of December, 
when about forty-four years of age. The expressions uttered by him 
about two hours before his death, both in justice to his name, which 
is so conspicuous in the history of the reveries of human imagination, 
and on account of their own excellence, ought not to be omitted in 
the memoirs of his life. 
“ There is a spirit which I feel,” said he, “ that delights to do no 
evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in 
hopes 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 what- 
ever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temp- 
tation : 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, and 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 pity to 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.” His writings were' 
collected together, and published in an octavo volume in 1716 . 
John Lilburne, 
This remarkable character in the republican party, during the time 
of Charles I. and Cromwell, was born in 1618 , of an ancient family in 
the county of Durham. Being a younger son, he was sent at an early 
