An exact history of the life of James Naylor with his parents, birth, education, profession, actions, & blaspheemies [sic].: Also how he came first to be a Quaker, and received his commission from heaven (as he saith) when he was in the field at plow. Taken from his own mouth. With the doctrines, tenets and practises of some other of the same sect. / By John Deacon.

As peremptory a passage almost is that if not as blasphe∣mous of Edward Burrows in a Letter of his from Waterford in Ireland; in which are these words,

I live saith he, in a Land where the Divel rules Lords and Kings, but I am reserved in eternal power and glory, and righteousness over all to reign for ever. And to reigne over all in that sense, can be none under Christ; for of him the Apostle saith, that when he is said to have all things made subject unto him; yet God that subjecteth all is excepted: and if we favour him so much in construction as to exempt the Father, its evident he assumes the place of the Son; which to doe, is blasphemy: And little less is that boldness of the same Seducer when he setteth this expression to his Pamphlet, Sealed by the eternal spirit of God: which expression of his if seriously considered, little cause had some persons not now mean in Authority so much to justifie that grand seducer James Naylor, as to say, (though unjustly) his accusations were rather of ma∣lice then matter of fact. If he or they that so said would but weigh what back-friends, not onely Naylor but all their Sect are in general to them; because they deny authority; but in particular in that here Borowes saith, he lives in a Land where the Divel (not God) rules Lords and Kings: when que∣stionless

by the latter is meant, his Highnesse, but that he dares not speak out: as more plainly ap∣pears by that of Francis Howgal in the North, who told one Mr. Burton a Magistrate there, that the Law (said Howgal) by which thou actest, is Tyranny and Oppression. And if the Law be Tyranny, What then (by his account) is the Law-maker & maintainer but a Tyrant? I hope the supreme Authority will take their own honour and safety into serious con∣sideration with the glory of Christ and his Gospel, which is deeply interested in this business.

And a strong witnesse of the unsanctity of their spirit, is their unstability; for God is unchangeable, for he changes not; and as is he, so is his spirit: and that theirs is no stable but mutable one is evident in that a man in the North in a town called Kerby∣lansdale that had been of their society, a good while falling sick of an Ague, of which being kept in a moneth, & being recovered went to their meeting again, he professed he found them so much altered in their Judgements and Principles in that time, that he could onely by their faces, but not by their Principles know them to be the same men.

And one Mr. Geor. Emot in his Northern blast, p. 6. ingeniously confesseth, that since he left them and returned to his right senses, (he testifyeth who had tried the experience) that though (whilst he was a Quaker) he thought himself to be all light; he knew nothing really (but imaginary) but what he knew before, and had learned of the Ministers.

And as stability is an evidence of the spirit of godlyness, as witnesseth that of Jude concerning Michael's Disputation with the Divel about the body of Moses, he durst offer neither violence of words or deeds further, then the Lord reward thee, and this I have heard them preach (if their confused nonsensical prating may be so tearmed) but I never knew them practice it, and therefore to me their unbridled and libertaine-like words and actions, is an evidence that if their spirit be infallible as they pretend, its not impiety but in∣quity; and since God and Christ, and their spirit is meeknesse, joy, peace and love, what is contrary (as violent discourse but turbulent and malici∣ous) is not of God, but in opposition to him; and since the spirit in Naylor, and the other of his Fra∣ternity, is such a spirit, its cleer they are not of God or goodnesse.

And to demonstrate this is so easie that super∣fluities of matter for proof makes mee pause which to insert and which to omit; therefore I shall only make use of what hath passed between them and me, or but little else.

One time being at the Bull and Mouth, and ha∣ving by chance the day before seen a sheet of prin∣ted paper containing there informations given in upon oath proving that one Borows & Howgall, and chiefly one Hoberthorn had bewitched or inchan∣ted Mary White to death; which having about me at that time, after some discourse had with him, that then and at that time there spoke (who be∣fore I never saw) I produced this sheet, and stan∣ding

on a place with my feet about a story from the ground, I went to read, and in some places to comment upon it, the Quakers by violence pluckt me down by the legs, when (had not Gods preser∣vance been stronger then the Divell and their ma∣lice, I might have been in danger of death; but God in mercy preserved me that I had no hurt.

The party then speaking was Richard Hobber∣thorn, who though he heard himselfe so much in question, and I often asked him his name, yet hee would neither confess nor deny it, or say any thing to the clearing the matter of fact.

They call'd me then dog, serpent, and divel, &c.

An other time one of their mankind women puld a lock of hair from off my head in their so∣ciety in a great quantity, with several blows and thrusts; with cursings and judgements I thinke innumerable.

But I wonder the lesse at this, in respect Mr. Bourn in his Defence of the Scriptures, in the Epistle Dedicatory, he testifies that a Quaker told him that his house was formerly plunder'd but ere long should be pulled down about his ears.

And in Glocestershire, the Quakers making a di∣sturbance at the burial of an Inhabitant of Panes∣wick in the said County, and going to offer vio∣lence or at least uncivilities to the Minister at the grave, and one Mr. R. P. a known honest Chri∣stian, then high Constable, doing his duty to keep

the pence: a Quaker then presently strikes the said Officer over the side of the head so violently, that he received much dammage. This I am sure is a truth.

Much more I might speake, and have truth my protector; but I had rather be sparing then to a∣bound.