New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 26 by K. Boulding

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:

26. Who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life

While yet we see with eyes, must we be blind?

Is lonely mortal death the only gate

To holy life eternal—must we wait

Until the dark portcullis clangs behind

Our hesitating steps, before we find

Abiding good? Ah, no, not that our fate;

Our time-bound cry “too early” or “too late”

Can have no meaning in the Eternal Mind.

The door is open, and the Kingdom here—

Yet Death indeed upon the threshold stands

To bar our way—unless into his hands

We give our self, our will, our heart our fear.

And then—strange resurrection!—from above

Is poured upon us life, will, heart, and love.

New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 25 by K. Boulding

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:

25. I had fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth

can I have fellowship with them that fed

on desert locusts, or the husks of swine,

slept without tent, went naked as a sign,

and made the unforgiving earth their bed?

When I in gentle raiment have been led

Through pastures green, and have sat down to dine

At banquets, and have let my limbs recline

On easy couches, and slept comforted?

How can we pray for daily bread, with lip

Still smacking from a comfortable meal

Or how, from Dives lofty table feel

With Lazarus the glow of fellowship,

Unless, with spirits destitute, we find

Fellowship in the deserts of the mind.

New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 24 by K. Boulding

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:

24. I found it alone, being forsaken

There is no death but this, to be alone,

Outside the friendly room of time and space,

Forsaken by the comfortable face

Of things familiar, human, measured, known.

Not in raw fires, not in the imagined groan

Of tortured body-spirits, do we trace

The shape of Hell; but in that dreadful place

Where in the vision nought but self is shown.

And yet—he found it there, as on the cross

When even God had fled, Love did not die:

So from the last despair, the extremest cry,

Flows the great gain that swallows all our loss.

And from the towers of Heaven calls the bell

That summons us across the gulf of Hell.

New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 23 by K. Boulding

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:

23. For with the world’s joy it is murdered

I will not shout for victory, nor praise

The bloody laurels of returning hosts

Above the throaty cries I conjure ghosts

Of slain to pave the ceremonial ways.

And neither will I mourn defeated days,

When the stiff pomp that martial grandeur boasts

Cracks into chaos on forsaken coasts,

And the balk, craven bead is stripped of bays.

Not with the world’s joy will I raise my heart,

Nor with the world’s grief bow it down to dust;

I will not sell it in an earthly mart,

For every earthly love is kin to lust.

The living soul must find securer worth

In grief of Heaven than in joy of earth.