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 served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and was appointed by Parliament as President of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1650. Christopher Hill places Goodwin in the "main stream of Puritan thought".

Early life

He studied at Cambridge from August 1613. He was an undergraduate of Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating with a B.A. in 1616.

In 1619 he removed to Catharine Hall, where in 1620 he was elected fellow. At this time he was influenced by John Rogers of Dedham. Goodwin rode 35 miles from Cambridge to Dedham to hear this Puritan preacher. In 1625 he was licensed a preacher of the university; and three years afterwards he became lecturer of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, successor to John Preston, to the vicarage of which he was presented by the king in 1632.

Dissenter

Worried by his bishop, who was a zealous adherent of William Laud, he resigned all his preferments and left the university in 1634; he became a Congregationalist. He lived for some time in London, where in 1638 he married the daughter of an alderman. In 1639 he fled to Holland to escape persecution. For some time he was pastor of a small congregation of English merchants and refugees at Arnhem. He returned shortly after the inception of the Long Parliament. 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.