Philip Nye

Philip Nye (c. 1595–1672) was a leading English Independent theologian and a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines He was the key adviser to Oliver Cromwell on matters of religion and regulation of the Church.

Philip Nye was born into a middle class family in Sussex in England, in 1596. He entered Oxford as a commoner of Brazen-noze College, July 21, 1615. Afterwards he went to Magdalen Hall, Oxford where he studied under a puritanical tutor. He graduated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford with an Arts degree in 1619 and with M.A. in 1622. Afterwards he entered holy orders and became curate of St. Michael's Church in Cornhill, near London. He fell afoul of the episcopal court and fled to Holland, spending the years 1633 to 1640 in exile.

He later had the parish of Acton. He was employed by Parliament, on a mission to the imprisoned Charles I.

He was one of the Five Dissenting Brethren in the Westminster Assembly, and a leader of the group alongside Thomas Goodwin. With support from Lord Kimbolton he had influential connections with the Parliamentary Army, and also had the living of Kimbolton, then in Huntingdonshire. According to Ivan Roots, the eventual ecclesiastical settlement under the Protectorate followed closely proposals from 1652, outlined by Nye with John Owen and others.

Samuel Butler wrote the poem Upon Philip Nye's Thanksgiving Beard about him and mentioned him in Hudibras.

With Goodwin, he was a co-author of the Apologeticall Narration, pleading for toleration of Calvinist congregations outside a proposed Presbyterian national church. The presented the text to parliament on 3 January 1644. They argued that the congregational churches were closer to the practice of the early Christians and also that they were more suited to the changeability of contemporary times. This tactic meant they could avoid having their views debated at the Westminster Assembly, where they would have been readily outnumbered, and perhaps outvoted. 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.

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