The situation is aptly illustrated by a little book of 184 pages which
is included in the first volume of the _Tracts_. This work is specially
noteworthy as one of the first English books to use the name
'Unitarian,' though the use is here so free and without apology or
explanation that we must suppose it had already attained a certain vogue
before 1687, the date of the book. The title is _A Brief History of the
Unitarians, called also Socinians_. Neither author nor publisher is
named, but the former is known to have been the Rev. Stephen Nye, a
clergyman, whose grandfather, Philip Nye, was noted in his day as one of
the few Independents in the Westminster Assembly. Stephen Nye's book
takes the form of four Letters, ostensibly written to an unnamed
correspondent who has asked for an account of the Unitarians, 'vulgarly
called Socinians.' The opening letter states their doctrine, after the
model of Socinus--God is One Person, not Three; the Lord Christ is the
'Messenger, Servant, and Creature of God,' also the 'Son of God, because
he was begotten on the blessed Mary by the Spirit or Power of God'; 'the
Holy Ghost or Spirit, according to them, is the Power and Inspiration of
God.' (We may notice here that Bidle, otherwise agreeing with Socinus,
regarded the Holy Spirit as a living being, chief among angels.) Nye,
writing as if an impartial observer, presents the Scripture argument in
support of the doctrine of the Unitarians, 'which,' says he, 'I have so
related as not to judge or rail of their persons, because however
learned and reasonable men (which is their character among their worst
adversaries) may be argued out of their errors, yet few will be
swaggered or chode out of them.' He traces the doctrine to the earliest
Christian times, and shows the stages of Trinitarian growth.
Incidentally he says that Arian doctrines are openly professed in
Transylvania and in some churches of the Netherlands, and adds that
'Nazarene and Arian Churches are very numerous' in Turkish, Mahometan,