1648 to 1651 were the climactic years of the English Revolution. They marked the height of Goodwin's political career, and the apotheosis of his political theology of liberation. In his mind, the English were completing their Exodus from Egypt, crossing the Red Sea and entering the Promised Land. He found himself in the vanguard of a revolutionary minority, which purged Parliament, executed the King, abolished the House of Lords, established a republic, crushed the Irish, and vanquished the Scottish Covenanters. For Goodwin these astonishing events were proof positive of the providential hand of God behind the Independent cause. At no point during this extraordinary upheaval did he display the slightest hesitation or discomfort at the questionable legality or violence of the army's actions. On the contrary, he gloried in the triumphs of the army, and was one of the few ministers prepared to justify Pride's Purge and the regicide in print. He and his congregation were trusted servants of the ruling junta, and their writings reveal the mentality of the Puritan revolutionaries.

Independents and the Army Coup

At the height of the Second Civil War, Goodwin's congregation was actively involved in the struggle to keep London within Parliamentary control. Parliament appointed Philip Skippon as commander-in-chief of the City militia. A Norfolk man, he had fought under Sir Horace Vere in the Palatinate and the Netherlands, and may have known Goodwin through his Norfolk connections or through Lady Mary Vere.