- Philip Nye
Philip Nye (c. 1595-1672) was a leading English Independent theologian.
Life
He graduated with an M.A. from
Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1622. He spent the years 1633 to 1640 in exile, inHolland . ["Concise Dictionary of National Biography"] .He was one of the Five Dissenting Brethren in the
Westminster Assembly , and a leader of the group alongsideThomas Goodwin [ [http://www.puritannica.com/front/demo/wk/HodgeAA/CommentaryWCF/0033-0042.html The Westminster Confession of Faith ] ] . With support from Lord Kimbolton [The futureEdward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester .] he had influential connections with the Parliamentary Army [ [http://www.reformed.org/books/hetherington/west_assembly/index.html?mainframe=/books/hetherington/west_assembly/chapter_2.html] , [http://www.kuyper.org/main/uploads/volume_13_no_4.pdf PDF] , p. 6.] , and also had the living of Kimbolton, then inHuntingdonshire . He acted as an adviser toOliver Cromwell on matters around regulation of the Church [G. E. Aylmer , "Rebellion or Revolution?" (1986), p. 179.] . According toIvan Roots , the eventual ecclesiastical settlement under the Protectorate followed closely proposals from 1652, outlined by Nye with John Owen and others ["The Great Rebellion" (1995 edition), p. 176.] .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 " [ [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=45401 Acton | British History Online ] ] .On toleration
He was a co-author of the "Apologeticall Narration", pleading for toleration of Calvinist congregations outside a proposed
Presbyterian national church [Claire Cross, "The Church of England 1646-1660" p. 101, in "The Interregnum" (1972), edited by G. E. Aylmer.] . In theWhitehall Debates of 1648, however, he supportedHenry Ireton ’s view that toleration should be limited by the state. He was one of those agitating successfully against the "Racovian Catechism " [ [http://www.anglicanbooksrevitalized.us/Peter_Toons_Books_Online/History/statesman2.htm] , [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=23976] ] .Views
He was an opponent of
astrology [Christopher Hill, "The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution" (1993), p. 24; Keith Thomas, "Religion and the Decline of Magic", p. 436.] .Notes
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