John Goodwin and the Puritan Revolution Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction: ‘A Man by Himself’
- 1 ‘A Tryar of Men's Doctrines’, 1594–1632
- 2 ‘Goodwin of Colman-Street’, 1633–39
- 3 ‘The Anti-Cavalier’, 1640–43
- 4 ‘A Bitter Enemie to Presbyterie’, 1643–45
- 5 ‘The Grand Heretick of England’, 1645–48
- 6 ‘Champion of the Army’, 1648–51
- 7 ‘The Great Spreader of Arminianism’, 1647–53
- 8 ‘A Man of Strife’, 1652–59
- 9 ‘Infamous Firebrand’, 1660 & Beyond
- Conclusion: ‘A Harbinger of the Lockean Age’
- Appendix Anonymous Works Attributed to Goodwin
- A Goodwin Bibliography
- Index
Introduction: ‘A Man by Himself’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction: ‘A Man by Himself’
- 1 ‘A Tryar of Men's Doctrines’, 1594–1632
- 2 ‘Goodwin of Colman-Street’, 1633–39
- 3 ‘The Anti-Cavalier’, 1640–43
- 4 ‘A Bitter Enemie to Presbyterie’, 1643–45
- 5 ‘The Grand Heretick of England’, 1645–48
- 6 ‘Champion of the Army’, 1648–51
- 7 ‘The Great Spreader of Arminianism’, 1647–53
- 8 ‘A Man of Strife’, 1652–59
- 9 ‘Infamous Firebrand’, 1660 & Beyond
- Conclusion: ‘A Harbinger of the Lockean Age’
- Appendix Anonymous Works Attributed to Goodwin
- A Goodwin Bibliography
- Index
Summary
John Goodwin was one of the most prolific and controversial writers of the English Revolution. Between 1640 and 1663, he published around sixty books and pamphlets, and had almost as many written against him. The journalist and propagandist, Marchamont Nedham, once compared Goodwin to a neighbour's dog, barking furiously at every passer-by. He offered a list of Goodwin's ‘Duels’.
The single persons he hath been in the field with in Print, as his Adversaries, and whom he used accordingly when he got them under the Presse, are these, viz. Mr Gataker, Mr Walker, Mr Roborough, Dr Williams, Bishop of Ossory, Mr Pryn, Sir Francis Nethersole, Mr John Geree, Mr Herbert Palmer, Dr Thomas Goodwin, Mr Resbury, Dr Hammond, Dr Burgess, Dr Hill, Dr Jenkins, Mr Edwards, Mr Barlow, Mr A Steward (in particular Books printed) besides several members of his own Church.
These gladiatorial contests were fought out in three arenas of controversy: the theological, the ecclesiastical and the political. In terms of theology, Goodwin's Treatise of Justification (1642) was the culmination of several years of controversy over his ideas among London Puritans, and his major work on the Divine Authority of the Scriptures (1647) also attracted hostile criticism. But it was his conversion to Arminianism in the late 1640s that caused the greatest consternation among the godly – no fewer than ten books were published in response to Goodwin's Arminian magnum opus, Redemption Redeemed (1651).
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- John Goodwin and the Puritan RevolutionReligion and Intellectual Change in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 1 - 12Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006