John Goodwin (preacher) - Civil War Period

Civil War Period

Goodwin was one of the earliest clerical supporters of the democratic puritans, and then of the army against the Parliament. His Anti-Cavalierisme (1642) proclaims the need of war to suppress the party 'now hammering England to make an Ireland of it.' The doctrine of the divine right of kings he assailed in his Os Ossorianum, or a Bone for a Bishop, against Griffith Williams, bishop of Ossory (1643). He also attacked the presbyterians as a persecuting party in his Θεομαχία, or the grand imprudence of ... fighting against God (1644). In May 1645 he was ejected from his living for refusing to administer indiscriminately in his parish the baptism and the Lord's Supper, setting up a covenanted community within his parish. Goodwin immediately set up an independent church in Coleman Street, which had a large following. William Taylor, his appointed successor at St. Stephen's, was in his turn ejected in 1649, to be restored in 1657. Goodwin obtained the use of the church, but with a diminished revenue. Among his hearers at this period was Thomas Firmin, who took down his sermons in shorthand.

The Gangraena (1646) of Thomas Edwards included Goodwin among the subjects of attack; in the second and third parts, published in the same year, Edwards was provoked into savage onslaughts by Goodwin's anonymous reply Cretensis. Goodwin is 'a monstrous sectary, a compound of Socinianism, Arminianism, antinomianism, independency, popery, yea and of scepticism.' He and several of his church 'go to bowls and other sports on days of public thanksgiving.' Cretensis also defended Jeremiah Burroughs and William Greenhill whom Goodwin knew, and also Robert Cosens and John Ellis where the connection was prompted by Edwards (who hit back at them all bracketed together). Goodwin, by his Hagiomastix, or the Scourge of the Saints (1647) came into collision with William Jenkyn, vicar of Christ Church, Newgate, whose Testimony was endorsed (14 December 1647) by fifty-eight presbyterian divines at Sion College. Sixteen members of Goodwin's church issued (1647) an Apologetical Account of their reasons for standing by him.

Jenkyn was aided by John Vicars, usher in Christ Church Hospital, who published (1648) an amusing description of 'Coleman-street-conclave' and its minister, 'this most huge Garagantua,' the 'schismatics cheater in chief.' This contains a likeness of Goodwin (engraved by William Richardson) surmounted by a windmill and weathercock, 'pride' and 'error' supplying the breeze.

Goodwin translated and printed (March 1648) a part of the Stratagemata Satanae of Acontius with recommendatory epistles by himself and John Durie. Acontius, an advocate of religious tolerance, was now stigmatised by Francis Cheynell as a 'sneaking Socinian'. Cheynell sought in vain in the Westminster Assembly to obtain a condemnation of Goodwin's book, but printed (1650) his thoughts about it by request. The translation was reissued with a new title, Darkness Discovered; or the Devil's secret Stratagems laid open (1651).

Goodwin defended the most extreme measures of the army leaders. In his Might and Right Well Met (1648), which was answered by John Geree, he applauded Pride's Purge. He was one of the puritan divines who, in the interval between the sentence and execution of the king, offered him their spiritual services. Goodwin mentions in his Ὑβριστοδίκαι. The Obstrvctovrs of Justice (30 May 1649), that he had an hour's conversation or more with Charles, but was not impressed by his visit. He firmly contended in the same tract for the sovereign rights of the people, quoted approvingly John Milton's Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (13 February 1649), and maintained that the proceedings against Charles followed the spirit of the law if not the letter. Two Hymns or Spiritual Songs (1651) were sung in his congregation on 24 October 1651, the thanksgiving day for the victory at the Battle of Worcester.

Meanwhile, he pursued theological controversies. His defence of general redemption, Ἀπολύτρωσις ἀπολύτρωσεως, or Redemption Redeemed, appeared in 1651 (reprinted 1840); his 'Water-Dipping no Firm Footing' (1653) and 'Cata-Baptism' (1655) were polemics against baptists. The circumstance that Oliver Cromwell's 'Triers' were mostly independents did not reconcile him to the new ecclesiastical despotism; he arraigned it in his Bασανισταί. Or the Triers Tried (1657).

Goodwin speaks of himself as having to contend in a manner with the whole earth' (dedication to Cata-Baptism). His ideas were often anticipations. His rational temper made him the opponent of Seekers and Quakers, and gave him some affinity with the Cambridge Platonists. He rejected the distinction allowed by Acontius, between tolerance of error in fundamentals and in other points. He would have men 'call more for light and less for fire from heaven' (epistle in Satan's Stratagems, 1648). In his Divine Authority of the Scriptures Asserted (1648), which won the commendation of Richard Baxter, he maintains, anticipating George Fox and Robert Barclay, that the word of God 'was extant in the world, nay in the hearts and consciences of men, before there was any copy of the word extant in writing.' In his Pagans Debt and Dowry (1651; 1671, a reply to Thomas Barlow), which led to a controversy with Obadiah Howe, he argues that without the letter of the gospel heathens may be saved.