The Life of Dr. Thomas Goodwin

THOMAS GOODWIN, the eldest son of Richard and Catharine Goodwin (the name of whose family was Callingwood), was born October the 5th, 1600, at Roselby, a little village in Norfolk. He was brought up religiously by his parents; and they, devoting him lr» the ministry of the gospel, gave him also a learned education. After some time spent in school, having got the knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues, he was sent to Cambridge, August 25, 1613, and placed in Christ’s College, under the tuition of Mr. William Power, one of the Fellows. He continued about six years in that college, which flourished in a fullness of all exercises ot learning and in the number of scholars, there being two hundred of them But in Anno Domini 1619, he left it and removed to Catherine Hall, the state of which seemed so contemptible to him, (there being no more than 16 scholars and few acts or exercises of learning,) that though he was chosen Fellow and also Lecturer for the year 1620, yet he had some thoughts of leaving it. He had by an unwearied industry in his studies, so much improved those natural abilities which God had given him, that though so very young he had gained a great esteem in the Univerpity. But all this time he walked in the vanity of his mind, and ambitious hopes entirely possessing him, all his aim was to get applause, to raise his reputation, and in any manner lo advance himself by preferments But God, who had destined him to higher ends than what he had projected in his own thoughts, was graciously pleased to change his heart, and to turn the course of his life to his own service and glory. But as the account of the work of the Holy Spirit on bis own soul will be most viii THE LIFE OF

acceptable as related by himself, I shall present it in his o*n words.

“Though by the course of nature (saith the Doctor) in my first birth, I was not like to live, being born before my time, and there fore of a weak constitution; yet God so strengthened me, that he preserved me, as DawV/ saith, when I hung upon my mother’s breasts: as one in whom he meant to manifest his grace in the miraculous conversion of my soul Unto himself. He did often stir up in me, in my childish years, the sparks of conscience, to keep me from gross sins, and to set me upon performing common duties. I began to have some slight workings of the Spirit of God from the time that I was six years old. I could weep for my sins, and I had flashes of joy when I thought upon God and his goodness. I was affected with good motions and affections of love to God and Christ, for their love revealed to men; and I felt grief for sin at displeasing God. This shewed how far goodness of nature might go, as well in myself as in others to whom yet true sanctifying grace never comes.

“But these feelings of mine I then thought was grace; for I reasoned myself into a belief that it -was not nature. 1 received the sacrament at Easter when I was but fourteen years old, and lor that service prepared myself as I was able. I set myself to examine whether I had grace or not, and by all the signs in Ursin’s Catechism, which was then much in use among the Puritans in the College, and I found them all, as 1 thought, in me. And at that first sacrament I received, with what inward joy and com* fort did I sping with the rest the 103d Psalm * which was usually sung during the administration. And after having received it, 1 felt my heart chcared after a wonderful manner, thinking my self sure of heaven, and judging all these workings to be infallible tokens of God’s love to me, and of grace in me. All this while, not considering that these were but mere strong fits of nature’s working; God hereby making way to advance the power of his grace llw? more in me, by shewing me how far j might, go and yet deceive .iiiybdf, and making me know that grace is a thing surpassing the power of nature. And, therefore, lie suffered me to fall away, not from these good notions, for I could raise them when I would, but from the practice of them; insomuch as then my heart began to suspect them as counterfeit.

“I made a great preparation for the next ensuing sacrament at Whitsiintide,and in the mean time I went to hear Mr. Sibbs, after wards Dr. Sibbs, then Lecturer at Trinity church to the town of Cambridge, whose Lecture the Puritans frequented. I also read Calvin’s Institutions; and Oh! how sweet was the reading of some of that book unto me! How pleasing was the delivery of truths in a solid manner then to me? Before the sacrament was administered, I looked about upon the holy men in Christ’s College where I was bred; and how affected was I, thai I should go to heaven with them! I particularly remember at that time Mr. Bentley, a Fellow of that College, (who was a dear child of God, and so died), and I then looked on him with joy, as one with whom I should live for ever in heaven.

“When I was in my place in the Chapel ready to receive the sacrament, being little of stature, the least in the whole University then, and for divers years, it fell out that my tutor, Mr. Power, seeing me, sent to me that I should not receive it, but go out with all the College, which I did. This so much damped me, as I greatly pitied myself, but chiefly for this, that my soul, which was full of expectation from this sacrament, was so unexpectedly disappointed of the opportunity. For I had long before verily thought, that if I received that sacrament, I should be so confirmed that I should never fall away. But after this disappointment I left off praying; for being discouarged, I knew not how to go to God. I debisted from going to hear Dr. Sibbs any more. I no more studied divinity, but gave myself to such studies as should enable me to preach after the mode then of high applause in the University, which Dr. Senhouse brought up, and was applauded above all by the scholars.”

“It now fell out that the doctrine of free will was set a foot in Holland, and the rest of those provinces, and it continued hottest at that very time when I was thus wrought upon. I

perceived by their doctrine, which I understood, being inquiai- 1 B

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tivc, that they acknowledged a work of the Spirit of God to begin with men, by moving and stirring the soul; but free will then, from its freedom, carried it, though assisted by those aids and helps. And this work of the Spirit they called grace, sufficient in the first beginnings of it, exciting, moving, and helping the will of man to turn to God, and giving him power to turn, when lpeing thus helped he would set himself to do it. But withal they affirmed that though men are thus converted, yet by the freedom of the said will, they may, and do, often in time fall away totally. And then upon another fit, through the liberty of the will, again assisted with the like former helps, they return again to repentance.

“Furthermore, I am yet to tell you, how I was withal acquainted, during this season, with several holy youths in Christ’s College, who had made known unto me the workings of God upon them, in humiliation, faith, and change of heart. And I observed that they continued their profession stedfast, and fell not off again.

“Though tliefree zcill doctrines suited my own experience, in these natural workings of conscience, off and on, in religion, yet the example of these godly youths, in their constant perseverance therein, made so strong an impression upon me, that in my very heart and judgment I thought the doctrine of free will was not true. And I was fixed under a conviction that my state was neither right nor sound. But yet I could not imagine wherein it failed, and was defective. But notwithstanding my falling thus away, yet I still upon every sacrament set myself anew to examine myself, to repent, and to turn to God. But when the sacrament was over, I returned to a neglect of prayer, and to my former ways of unregenerate principles and practices, and to live in hardness of heart and profaneness.”

The Doctor relates, in the successive pages of his Memoirs, how his mind was affected under the preaching of the word, and how he found himself constrained to leave his fellows of the College, and seek in retirement the somezshat he was in pursuit of, but had not yet found. And after a long account of these things, he adds, “I remember,” said he, u some two yeais after, while I was preaching at Ely, in the Minster, as they call it, in a turn of preaching for Dr. Hill, Prebend of that church, master of our college, I told the auditory (meaning myself in the person of another,) that a man to be converted, who is ordinarily ignorant of what the work of conversion should be, and what particular passages it consists of, was yet guided through all the dark corners and windings of it, as would be a wonder to think on. It would be as if a man were to go to the top of that lanlhorn, to bring him into all the passages of the Minster, within doors and without; and knew not a jot of the way, and were in every step in danger to tread awry, and fall down. So it was with me. I knew no more of the work of conversion, than those two general heads; that a man was troubled in conscience for his sins; and afterwards was comforted, by the favor of God manifested to him. And it became one evidence of the truth of the work of grace upon me, when 1 reviewed it, that I had been so strangely guided in the dark.

“In all this intercourse, and those that follow to the very end, I was acted all along by the Spirit of God being upon me, and my thoughts passively held fixed, until each head and sort of thoughts were finished: and then a new thought began, and continued; that I have looked at them as so many conferences the Lord had with me by way of reproof and con viction. An abundant discovery was made unto me, of my in ward lusts and concupiscence, and how all sorts of concupiscence had wrought in me; at which I was amazed to see with what greediness I had sought the satisfaction of every lust.

“Indeed, natural conscience will readily discover grosser acts, against knowledge: as in the dark, a man more readily sees chairs and tables in a room, than flics and motes. But the light which Christ now vouchsafed me, and this new sort of illumination, gave discovery of my heart in all my sinnings, carried me down to see the inwards of my belly, as Solumon speaks, and searched the lower rooms of my heart, as it were with candles, as the Prophet’s phrase is. Zeph. i. 12.

“I saly the violent eagerness and unsatiubleness of my lusts;

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and, moreover, concerning the dispensation of God in ill is new light, I found the apparent difference, by experience, of what I had received in former times. Before this I had had cnlightenings, and great stirrings of the Holy Ghost, both unto, and in the performance of holy duties, prayer, and hearing the word, and the like; but yet I had not the sinful inordinacy of my lusts discovered, which had been the root and ground oi? all my other sinnings. And these forcmentioned devotions were different also in this respect, from the present sight of my inward corruptions; that in all the former, though I felt myself much stirred, yet I had this secret thought run along, that God could not but accept those real services which I thought I did perform; and so I fell into the opinion of merit, which thought, I could not get rid of, though the common received doctrine taught me otherwise. But now, when I saw my lusts and heart, in ihat clear manner as I did, God quitted me of that opinion which vanished without any dispute, and 1 detested myself for my former thoughts of it. And the sinfulness of these lusts, I saw chiefly to lie in ungodliness as the spring of them: forasmuch as I had been * a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God;’ according to that in Jeremy; * My people have com mitted two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have made unto themselves cisterns which will hold no water.’ Jer ii. 13. And these lusts I discerned to have been acted by me in things that were most lawful, answerably to that saying in Scripture, ’ the very plowing of the wicked is sin.’ Prov. xxi, 4. And by the clear light thereof, the sinfulness of my sin was exceedingly enlarged; for that light accompanied me through all and every action that I could cast my rememberance upon, or that my view went over. And by and through the means of the discovery of these lusts, a new horrid view and cause of sin was revealed also to me, that I saw lay at the bottom of my heart in the rising and working of all my lusts; namely, that they kept my heart in a continual course of ungodliness, that is, that my heart was wholly obstructed from acting towards God in any way, or from having any holy or good movings at all.

DU. cooDwiy. xni

“God having proceeded thus far, I perceived c I was humbled under his mighty hand,’ as James speaks, with whom only, and immediately, I had to do, and not with my own bare single thoughts. But the Lord continued orderly to possess my thoughts, with a further progress, as to this subject; I being made sensible of God’s hand in it, and myself passive. But still the Lord continued his hand over me, and held me to consider, and to pierce into what should be the first causes of so much actual sin fulness; and he presented unto me as in answer (hereunto, (for it was transacted as a conference by the Lord with me) the original corruption of my nature, and inward evil constitution and depraved state of all my faculties; the inclinations, and disposedness of heart, unto all evil; and the aversion to all spiritu.il good, and acceptableness unto God. I was convinced, that in this respect I was flesh, which was to my apprehension, as if that had been the definition of a man: c That which is born of t lie flesh is flesh.*

“And here let me stand awhile astonished, as I did then. I can compare this sight, and the workings of my heart rising from thence, to be, as if I had in the heat of summer looked down into the filth of a dungeon, where by a clear light, and piercing eye, I discerned millions of crawling living things, in the midst of that sink and liquid corruption. Holy Mr. Price’s comparison was, that when he heard Mr. Chatterton preach the Gos pel, his apprehension was, as if the Sun, namely Jesus Christ, shined upon a dunghill. But my sight of my heart was to my sense, as a sink, utterly without Christ.

“How much and deeply did I consider, that all the sins that were ever committed by the wickedest men that have been in the world, had proceeded from the corruption of their nature; or that the sins which any, or all men did commit, at any time, were from the same root: and 1 by my nature, if God had left me to m?/self, and withdrawn from me, should hare committed the same, as any temptation should hate induced me unto the like.

“But next I was brought to enquire into, and consider, what should have been the original cause, at the bottom of this forexiv THE MFE OF

mentioned sinfulness, both in my heart and life. And after 1 had well debated with myself, that one place, Rom. v. 12: 1 By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and fo death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; that is, in whom, OT in that all hare sinned; meaning, that it was in him they all sinned; for they had not, in and of themselves, committed any actual transgression (as those that die infants) after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. Which limitation is cautiously there added by the Apostle <o shew, that they had not actually sinned of themselves, but were simply involved in his act of sinning. This caused me necessarily to conceive thus of it, that it was the guilt, or demerit, of that one man’s disobedience, that corrupted my nature. Under such like apprehensions as these did my spirit lie convicted so strongly of this great truth, that being gone to bed some hours before, and filled with these meditations, I in the end of all rose out of bed being alone, and solemnly fell down on my knees before God the Father of all the family in heaven, and did on my own accord assume and lake on me the guilt oj that sin, as trudy as ant, of my own actual sins.

“When God now, by a true work of grace, effectually converted me to himself, the vanity of my former religion was, by serious reflections, sufficiently manifested. By the prospect of all these heads of sinning which I lay under, I was surrounded and shut up, and saw no way to escape; but together with the sight of all this sinfulness, Hell opened his mouth upon me, threatning to devour and destroy me; and I began to consider the eternity of time 1 was to pass under this estate, that it was to be for ever and ever. How long my soul lay filled with these thoughts, I remember not; but it was not long before that God, who after regeneration is faithful and mindful of his word, delivered my soul out of temptation.

“And the word of promise which he let fall into my heart, and which was but as it were whispered to my soul, yet made a noise over my whole heart, and filled and possessed all the faculties of my soul. The Lord took me aside, and as it vere privately said to me, Do you now turn to me, and I will

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pardon your sins, (hough ever so many, as I forgave and pardoned my servant Paul; and convert you unlo me as 1 did Mr. Price, (who was the famous convert and example of religion in Cambridge1)- Of these two secret whispers and speeches of God to me, I about a year after did expressly tell Mr. Price, in declaring to him this my conversion, *hile it was fresh with me, as I well remembered; and I have since repeated them to others I know not how often, for they have ever stuck in my mind.”

This reverend man of God goes on to declare the blessed effect the work of regeneration had wrought on his person and ministry. He tells us, that “he now altered his way of preaching, which before had been for the most part, if not wholly, for conviction and (error. But now, his experience of the refreshing comforts which the knowledge of Christ, and free justification by his righteousness alone afforded him, made him zealous to preach the Go«|X’l, for the consolation of consciences afflicted as his had been.”

Of his preferments in the church he thus speaks: “I was brought in my own thoughts to be content wiih the meanest condition all my days, so as I might fullil the course of my life, though never so mean, with uprightness and sincerity towards God. I took my leave for all my life of all ecclesiastical preferments; and though afterwards I became President of’Magdalene College, my great motive to it, from the bottom of my heart, was the opportunity, it afforded me of doing good in my ministry in the University.”

He was chosen, in 1628, to preach the lecture to the town of Cambridge at Trinity church. But he remained here no longer than the year 1634, wheo, from motives of conscience, he gave it up.

In February 1679 a fever seized him which in a few days put an end to his life. In all the violence of it he discoursed with that strength of faith and assurence of Christ’s love; with that holy admiration of free grace; with that joy in believing and such thanksgivings and praises as extremely moved and affected all that heard him. That excellent man, Mr. Collins,

who was then pastor of the same Church which he had formerly been over, prating eanestly for him, offered up this petition; That God would return into his bosum nil those comforts which he had by his ministry of free grace betn instrumental in pouring into so mam) distressed souls. The Doctor felt the sweet, savor of this prayer answered in the abundant consolations he received. He rejoiced in the thought that he was dying, and that he was going to have a full and uninterrupted communion with God. I am going (said he) to the Holy Three with whom I hate had communion. They have taken me, I did not take them. 1 shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye. All my lusts and corruptions I shall be rid of. All these croaking toads will jail off in a moment. And mentioning those great examples of faith, which the Holy Ghost haih recorded in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews; he said; All these died in faith. 1 could not have imagined I should ever have had such a measure of faith in this hour. No! 1 could never have imagined it. JJi, bow abides in strength. Is Christ divided? No! 1 have the whole of his righteousness. I am found in him, not in my own righteousness which is of the law, but in the ’ righteousness which is of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, who loved me and gave himself for me. Christ cannot love me letter than he doth. I think I cannot love Christ better than I do. I am swallowed up in God.

Directing his speech to his two sons, he exhorted them to value the privilege of the Covenant. It hath taken hold on me (said he) my mother was an holy woman. She spake nothing diminishing of it. It is a privilege which cannot be valued enough nor purchased with a great sum of money: alluding to the words of the chief Captain to Paul, Acts xxii. 28. Then he exhorted them that they did nothing to provoke God.” Now (said he) I shall ever be with the Lord.

With this assurance of faith, and fullness of joy, his soul left

the world, and went to see and enjoy the everlasting reality of

‘that blessed state ol glory 3which in a discourse of hh he had so

well demonstrated. He died in February 1679, in the eightieth

year of his age.