Thomas Goodwin
(1600-1679)
Thomas Goodwin was born October 5, 1600, in Rollesby, near Yarmouth in Norfolk.When he was only a child, Goodwin had a tender conscience. From the age of six, he had such vivid impressions of the Holy Spirit that he wept for his sin and had “flashes of joy upon thoughts of the things of God.” By age thirteen, Goodwin was enrolled at Christ’s College, Cambridge, a “nest of Puritans.” The memory of William Perkins still permeated Cambridge. Richard Sibbes, the “sweet dropper of Israel,” was also a strong influence. Sibbes regularly preached at Trinity Church, attracting those who yearned for spiritual edification rather than fancy rhetoric.
At age fourteen, Goodwin looked forward to Easter, when he hoped to partake of the Lord’s Supper. When the day arrived, however, his tutor, William Power, lovingly restrained the boy from receiving Communion because of his age and spiritual immaturity. Feeling rejected, Goodwin stopped attending Sibbes’s sermons and lectures, ceased praying and reading the Scriptures and Puritan literature, and set his heart on becoming a popular preacher. He determined to study the rhetoric of preachers who cared more for style than substance and were inclined to embrace the Arminianism that was coming in from the Netherlands.
Goodwin graduated from Christ’s College with a bachelor’s degree in 1616. In 1619, he continued his studies at St. Catherine’s Hall in Cambridge, probably in hopes of obtaining early promotion. He graduated with a master’s degree in 1620 and became a fellow and lecturer. Other fellows who served there were John Arrowsmith, William Spurstowe, and William Strong. All would one day serve with Goodwin in the Westminster Assembly. Several of these Puritans tried to persuade Goodwin that rhetoric and Arminianism were not edifying and did not serve the truth. In addition, Goodwin could not shake the influence of Sibbes’s preaching and the sermons of John Preston in the college chapel. His interest in Puritanism fluctuated for another year, often rising just prior to the Lord’s Supper.
Finally, God brought Goodwin to a profound conviction of sin. He was converted October 2, 1620, just after his twentieth birthday. On that afternoon, he met with some friends to have a good time. One of the friends convinced the group to attend a funeral. Thomas Bainbridge preached at that service on Luke 19:41-42, focusing on the need for personal repentance. God used the message to show Goodwin his dreadful sins, the essential depravity of his heart, his averseness to all spiritual good, and his desperate condition, which left him exposed to the wrath of God. A few hours later, “before God, who after we are regenerate is so faithful and mindful of his word,” Goodwin received a “speedy word” of deliverance from Ezekiel 16.
After his conversion, Goodwin aligned himself with the theological tradition of Perkins, Baynes, Sibbes, and Preston. He resolved not to seek personal fame, but “to part with all for Christ and make the glory of God the measure of all time to come.” He abandoned the polished style of preaching favored by Anglican divines, since it served only to call attention to the preacher, and adopted the Puritan “plain style of preaching,” which sought to give all glory to God. His preaching became earnest, experimental, and pastoral.
From 1620 to 1627, Goodwin sought personal assurance of faith. Through letters and conversations with a godly minister, Rev. Price of King’s Lynn (who Goodwin said “was the greatest man for experimental acquaintance with Christ that ever he met”), he was led to see his need to “live by faith in Christ, and to derive from him life and strength for sanctification, and all comfort and joy through believing.” Later, he said about this time of spiritual struggle: “I was diverted from Christ for several years, to search only into the signs of grace in me. It was almost seven years ere I was taken off to live by faith on Christ, and God’s free love, which are alike the object of faith.”
Shortly before this time, in 1625, Goodwin had been licensed as a preacher. The following year, he helped bring Sibbes to St. Catherine’s Hall as master. In 1628, Goodwin was appointed lecturer at Trinity Church, succeeding Sibbes and Preston at age twenty-seven. From 1632 to 1634, Goodwin served as vicar of the church. Then, because he was unwilling to submit to Archbishop William Laud’s articles of conformity, Goodwin was forced to resign his offices. He left Cambridge, although many people, including several who later became influential Puritan pastors, were converted under Goodwin’s preaching and lecturing there.
In 1641, after Laud was impeached, Goodwin responded to Parliament’s invitation to Nonconformists to return to England. Goodwin preached before Parliament on April 27, 1642. He was subsequently appointed as a member of the Westminster Assembly. There he is said to have been “the most decisive figure and the great disturber of the Westminster Assembly,” due to his continual promotion of Independent church government.
Despite Goodwin’s prolonged debate on church government, he retained the respect of the Presbyterian majority as a capable and irenic Puritan. He was chosen to pray in the solemn seven-hour meeting prior to the assembly’s discussion on church discipline. He was also asked in 1644 to present The Directory for the Public Worship of God to Parliament. That was one of several times that Goodwin preached before Parliament.
When he began his college presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, Goodwin married for the second time. In 1638, he had married Elizabeth Prescott, the godly daughter of a London alderman, but she died in the 1640s, leaving him with one daughter. In 1649, he married Mary Hammond, “of ancient and honorable Shropshire lineage.” Goodwin was forty-nine and Mary Hammond seventeen, but she was wise beyond her years. The Goodwins had two sons, Thomas and Richard, and two daughters, both of whom died in infancy. Richard died as a young man on a voyage to the East Indies. Thomas followed in his father’s footsteps as an Independent pastor and later established a private academy for training ministers.
Goodwin’s years at Oxford were productive. He and John Owen lectured on Sunday afternoons to students, and both were chaplains to Cromwell. Spiritual fervor spread among the students. Philip Henry, father of Matthew Henry, the famous Bible commentator, attended Oxford in those days. He said, “Serious godliness was in reputation and beside the public opportunities they had, many of the scholars used to meet together for prayer and Christian conference, to the great comforting of one another’s hearts in the fear and love of God, and the preparing of them for the service of the church”
Goodwin also started an Independent church, preaching to a unique congregation that included Stephen Charnock, fellow of New College, and Thankful Owen, president of St. John’s. In 1653, Goodwin was awarded a doctorate in divinity at Oxford University. During this decade, Goodwin was probably closer to Cromwell than any other Independent divine. He attended the Lord Protector on his deathbed.
Before Cromwell died on September 3, 1658, Goodwin secured his permission to hold a synod of Independents and to draft a confession of faith. On September 29, 1658, Goodwin, Owen, Philip Nye, William Bridge, Joseph Caryl, and William Greenhill drew up the Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order, an edited version of the Westminster Confession of Faith, for some 120 Independent churches. Owen almost certainly wrote the lengthy introduction, but Goodwin was probably responsible for most of the first draft. The document was presented for approval to representatives from the Independent churches and was unanimously approved on October 12, 1658.The document became the confessional standard for British congregationalism. With slight changes, it was adopted by American congregational churches at Boston, on May 12, 1680.
With the accession of Charles II in 1660 and the accompanying loss of Puritan power, Goodwin felt compelled to leave Oxford. He and most of his Independent congregation moved to London, where they started another church. Despite assurances to the contrary, the new king enacted strict acts of conformity. In 1662, two thousand godly ministers were ejected from the national church. Since he was in an Independent church and held no government-appointed offices, Goodwin did not suffer from the ejection. He continued preaching through many years of persecution under Charles II. He also stayed with his London congregation through the dreaded plague, when most clergy of the established church abandoned the city. He devoted his last years to preaching, pastoral work, and writing.
Goodwin died in London at age eighty. Buried in Bunhill Fields, his epitaph, is most moving when read in full. It summarizes well his most important gifts, stating that he was knowledgeable in the Scriptures, sound in judgment, and enlightened by the Spirit to penetrate the mysteries of the gospel; he was a pacifier of troubled consciences, a dispeller of error, and a truly Christian pastor; he edified many souls whom he had first won to Christ. Indeed, the closing section of his epitaph is being fulfilled today by the reprinting of his works:
“His writings…, the noblest monument of this great man’s praise, will diffuse his name in a more fragrant odor than that of the richest perfume, to flourish in those distant ages, when this marble, inscribed with his just honor, shall have dropt into dust.”
Published Works
CHRIST SET FORTH
THE HEART OF CHRIST
THE RETURN OF PRAYERS
THE WORKS OF THOMAS GOODWIN, 12 VOLUMES
