OR SKETCHES OF THE LIVES AND WRITINGS OF DISTINGUISHED ANTITRINITARIANS; EXHIBITING A VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE UNITARIAN DOCTRINE AND WORSHIP IN THE PRINCIPAL NATIONS OF EUROPE, FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A HISTORY OF UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND DURING THE SAME PERIOD. BY ROBERT WALLACE, F.G. S., = AND MEMBER OF THE HISTORICO-THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LEIPZIC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY. HARVARD UNIVERSITY LONDON: E. T. WHITFIELD, 2, ESSEX STREET, STRAND. ANTITRINITARIAN BIOGRAPHY. 196. NICHOLAS DÜMLER was the son of honest, but poor parents, his father being a common mechanic. He was born at Nuremberg towards the end of the sixteenth century, and went to the University of Altorf in the year 1608. Joachim Peuschel was among the first of his fellow-students, who attempted to shake his faith in the doctrine of the Trinity; but for a time his efforts proved unsuccessful. Dümler was first led to entertain serious doubts of the truth of that doctrine, by a conversation which he had with George Richter, while they were walking together; and his doubts were confirmed by subsequent conversations with Peuschel and Martin Ruarus. He afterwards became a strenuous advocate of the Unitarian doctrine, which nothing could induce him to relinquish; and was actively instrumental in propagating it among his fellow-students, both by argument and the loan of books. In the autumn of 1615, when an inquiry was made into the opinions of the students by the Curators of the University, Dümler alone confessed, without hesitation, that he could not believe the doctrine of the Trinity, as publicly taught; and produced, without premeditation, many reasons for dissenting from it. After this, he debated the VOL. III. B |