Philip Nye

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Philip Nye (c. 1595-1672) was a leading English Independent theologian.

Contents

[edit] Life

He graduated with an M.A. from Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1622. He spent the years 1633 to 1640 in exile, in Holland.[1].

He was one of the Five Dissenting Brethren in the Westminster Assembly, and a leader of the group alongside Thomas Goodwin[2]. With support from Lord Kimbolton[3] he had influential connections with the Parliamentary Army[4], and also had the living of Kimbolton, then in Huntingdonshire. He acted as an adviser to Oliver Cromwell on matters around regulation of the Church[5]. According to Ivan Roots, the eventual ecclesiastical settlement under the Protectorate followed closely proposals from 1652, outlined by Nye with John Owen and others[6].

He later had the parish of Acton. He was employed by Parliament, on a mission to the imprisoned Charles I, and as a trier of preachers. He is mentioned in Hudibras[7].

[edit] On toleration

He was a co-author of the Apologeticall Narration, pleading for toleration of Calvinist congregations outside a proposed Presbyterian national church[8]. In the Whitehall Debates of 1648, however, he supported Henry Ireton’s view that toleration should be limited by the state. He was one of those agitating successfully against the Racovian Catechism[9].

[edit] Views

He was an opponent of astrology[10].

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  2. ^ The Westminster Confession of Faith
  3. ^ The future Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester.
  4. ^ [1], PDF, p. 6.
  5. ^ G. E. Aylmer, Rebellion or Revolution? (1986), p. 179.
  6. ^ The Great Rebellion (1995 edition), p. 176.
  7. ^ Acton | British History Online
  8. ^ Claire Cross, The Church of England 1646-1660 p. 101, in The Interregnum (1972), edited by G. E. Aylmer.
  9. ^ [2], [3]
  10. ^ Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (1993), p. 24; Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 436.