Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 54 and New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 3 by K. Boulding

Isaiah 54 – A time of growth and prosperity is coming, “Enlarge your house; build an addition. Spread out your home, and spare no expense! For you will soon be bursting at the seams. Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle the ruined cities” (54:2-3).

You will no longer live in shame or dwell on the “sorrows of widowhood. For your Creator will be your husband” (54:4-5). “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will take you back. In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while. But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you” (54:7-8).

As the Lord promised with Noah, He will no longer be angry with you, “For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken” (54:10).

 The Lord will rebuild Jerusalem and decorate the “storm-battered city” with jewels and sparkling gems. He will “teach all your children, and they will enjoy great peace” (54:13).

The government will be fair and stable. Enemies will not come near; if anyone does attack you, it will not be because the Lord sent them. “[I]n that coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. Your will silence every voice raised up to accuse you” (54:17).

New Testament Inspired:

Beautiful Quaker Words: James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony

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 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 of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.

Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.

Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler Sonnets:

3. Nor to revenge any wrong

Now am I veined by an eroding doubt,

Insidious as decay, with poison rife.

Is love indeed the end and law of life,

When lush, grimacing hates so quickly sprout?

I thought in ignorance I had cast out

The sneaking devils of continuing strife,

But as the cancer thwarts the surgeon’s knife,

So does revenge my sword of reason flout.

But though hate rises in enfolding flame

At each renewed oppression, soon it dies;

It sinks as quickly as we saw it rise,

While love’s small constant light burns still the same.

Know this: though love is weak and hate is strong,

Yet hate is short, and love is very long.