Thomas Goodwin

Thomas Goodwin (Rollesby, Norfolk, 5 October 1600 – 23 February 1680), known as "the Elder", was an English Puritan theologian and preacher, and an important leader of religious Independents.

He ministered for some years to the Independent congregation meeting at Paved Alley Church, Lime Street, in the parish of St Dunstans-in-the-East, and rapidly rose to considerable eminence as a preacher.

[6] In 1643 he was chosen a member of the Westminster Assembly, and at once identified himself with the Independent party, generally referred to in contemporary documents as the "dissenting brethren" and was one of the authors of An Apologeticall Narration.

He frequently preached by appointment before the Commons, and in January 1650 his talents and learning were rewarded by the House with the presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, a post which he held until the Restoration of 1660.

[7] From 1660 until his death, he lived in London, in the parish of St Bartholomew-the-Great, and devoted himself exclusively to theological study and to the pastoral charge of the Fetter Lane Independent Church.

[7] Edmund Calamy the Elder's estimated Goodwin's qualities as "a considerable scholar and an eminent divine, and had a very happy faculty in descanting upon Scripture so as to bring forth surprising remarks, which yet generally tended to illustration.

"[7] A memoir, derived from his own papers, by his son Thomas Goodwin the Younger, Independent minister and author of the History of the Reign of Henry V, is prefixed to the fifth volume of his collected works.