The Restoration marked the destruction of Goodwin's dreams. Yet as this chapter shows, he somehow escaped with his life despite a royal proclamation against him. He continued to publish significant works and was under surveillance by the authorities. Although his followers were scattered, his books remained in circulation after his death and former disciples continued to promote his principles. And thanks to John Wesley (whose father Samuel had called Goodwin ‘that Infamous Firebrand’), our subject was to be rescued from obscurity, and hailed as the ‘Wycliffe of Methodism’.

Restoration

In February 1660, General Monck marched into London and reinstated the MPs excluded from Parliament in 1648. This decisive reversal of Pride's Purge effectively ended the revolution. Increasingly, the old monarchy seemed to offer the best prospect for a permanent political settlement.

Tobias Conyers was now minister at St Ethelbert's. In a controversial sermon before General Monck and the Lord Mayor in February 1660, on the very eve of the Restoration, he preached eloquently on the text ‘Be ye therefore merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful’ (Luke 6.36). Conyers could see which way the wind was blowing. With Presbyterians and Episcopalians poised to regain their former dominance, the prospects for dissenters looked bleak. He urged his listeners to imitate the ‘almost incredible clemency and mercy’ of God. The Lord was ‘a tender-hearted Father’, ‘full of bowels, pitiful and compassionate towards the children of men … the Father of Compassions’.