Naylor, Jamks, an English religious enthusiast, no- ted for liis fanatical excesses, was born at Ardsley, near AVakefield, in Yorkshire, about the year IGIG. James, of humble but honorable parentage, with a limited edu- cation, started out in life, and married and settled in Wakefield parish about 1G38. In 1G41 he became a private soldier in the Parliamentary army, in which he was afterwards made a quartermaster, but quitted it on account of sickness in 1049. After his return home he was converted under the preaching of the Quaker George Fox (1051), and became so enthusiastic a relig- ionist that the next year he believed himself divinely required to quit his relations and go abroad to preach Quakerism, Though poor, he started out unhesitating- ly, relying on that divine aid which he believed himself sure to receive. He was a man of excellent natural parts, and acquitted himself so well, both in word and writing, that many joined his society through his min- istry, lie came to London towards the beginning of 1055, in which city a meeting of Quakers had been establislied by the ministry of Edward Burrough and Francis Ilowgill, two eminent Quakers from Westmore- land, Here Naylor preached with so much applause that the distinction which he acquired occasioned his fall ; for some inconsiderate women, setting him up in their esteem above Howgill and Burrough, went so far as to disturb them in their preaching. These men, besides giving to the women a deserved reproof, complained of it to Naylor, But he, instead of passing censure, suf- fered himself to be wrought upon by the reiterated and passionate complaints of the inconsiderate women, es- pecially one ^lartha Simmons (the chief engine of the mischief), and became estranged from tlie leading (Quak- ers, who would not suffer him to give ear to the flatter- ies of such misadvised adherents. In the year 1050 he suffered imprisonment in Exeter; and about this time several deluded persons addressed him by letter in terms of great extravagance. He was called " tlie everlasting Son of Righteousness," " Prince of Peace," " the only- begotten Son of God," "the fairest often thousand ;" and during his confinement in Exeter jail some women knelt before him and kissed his feet. About this time George Fox, returning from the West, where he had himself suf- fered a rigorous imprisonment, called on James Naylor in the Exeter prison and reproached him for his defec- tion and excesses. On his release from imprisonment Naylor repaired to Bristol, where his followers formed a ])rocession, and led him into that city in a manner which they intended to resemble the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem. His (Quaker friends turned away from him disheartened, and the British authorities, displeased with such exhibitions of religious extrava- gance, brought him soon to trial, and he was declared guilty of blasphemy by Parliament, and sentenced to a double whipi)iiig at different limes, liranding, boring of the tongue with a hot iron, an<l imprisonment and hard labor during pleasure. This sentence, though illegal and barljarous, and as wide from the mark of good- sense as Naylor's own excesses, was fidly inflicted upon the unliai)py man, who, when the delirium dl fanaticism was over, humbly acknowledged and lanientcd tlie de- lusion under wliich he had lalxired. He wrote while in jirison at Bridewell to his friends, regretting his past conduct. After his confinement, which lasted for two years, he again held fellowship with the (Quakers, and
enjoyed their confidence and esteem. He died in IGGO. The severe measures of Parliament against Naylor have been frequently condemned. It is urged by Noncon- formists that the punishment was inflicted in order to prove a terror to all Quakers, who were greatly hated at that time in England. The probability is that Nay- lor was not in his right mind when he perpetrated those wild, fanatical excesses ; at least so judges Southey, who says in The (Lond.) Quarterly lievietc (vol. x, p', 107), " He (i. e. Naylor) recovered both from his madness and his sufferings, and his after-life was a reproach to those who, in the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their understandings, had treated insanity like guilt." Naylor's writings were collected into an octavo volume, and printed in 171G. Of his theological treatises, which bear dates from 1G53 to 1G56, some were in answer to others by Ellis Bradshaw, Enoch Hewitt, Richard Bax- ter, Thomas IVIoore, Jeremy Ives, Thomas Collier, etc. A relation of his Life, Conversion, Examination, Confis- sion, and A- i,ii nr,- « as )mblished in 1G57 (4to). A Me- moir of his /.{/:. .]/;„l.<fr//, Trial, and Sufferings was brought out ill iri'.i (.svo); and more recently his Life has been published by the eminent Quaker apologist, Joseph Gurney Bevan. See Biog. Brit, s, v, ; Sewel, Hist, of the Quakers; Watts, Biblioth. Brit.s.v.; Gen. Biog. IJict. s. v, ; Neal, Bist. of the Puritans, vol. iii (Supplem.) ; Burton, I'arliam. JJiaiy, i, 4G-173 ; Baxter, Ch. Bist. of England, p. Oil ; an<l "W'hittier, in the Dem- ocratic Review, JIarch, 1840.
Nazaraeans is the name of a .Jewish sect men- tioned by Epiphanius {liter, xviii). The name is prob- ably derived from netsir, a branch (Epiphanius also writes it Xasara-ans and Nassaraians), and, if we are right in identifying this sect with the Genistas (([. v,), signifies a branch of the true stock. The sect aimed at a patriarchal religion in place of a Mosaic Judaism. They canonized tlie patriarchs, and did not exclude Moses and Joshua from that society. They allowed that a law was given to Moses, but asserted that this law was lost, and that the Pentateuch is corrupt or supposititious. They practiced circumcision, kept the Sabbath and the Jewish festivals, rejected the sacrKice of animals, and ate no flesh. It follows from this that they rejected the history of Genesis as well as the laws of Moses; but whether they professed to found their doctrine on tradition or on a new revelation is not tuld. They were found in Galaadiiis, Basanitis, and other parts beyond Jordan. See Nazakexks.