Thomas Goodwin (1600 - 1679) was fellow-laborer and co-pastor with the incomparable John Owen in the kingdom of Jesus Christ during the mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit in those infamous days of cruel persecution against the Puritans, of which Goodwin and Owen were two of the most notable specimens. When reading Owen and Goodwin, it is easy to see why they were such close friends, for both men displayed a theological and doctrinal acumen which was clearly and perceptively energized and tempered by the Spirit of Christ, and which was certainly unequaled in the annals of Christian history. Additionally, both Owen and Goodwin were pillars of the faith during troublous times, standing stedfast and unmovable in every gap that opened up. For example, for their unwavering positions against heresy and their refusal to comply with the Church of England after the issuance of the Act of Uniformity, even at great personal risk, and at a time when the eyes of the nation were on these two men in particular, owing to their skill as theologians and their personal piety, they adamantly held their ground and declined to budge one iota and were therefore styled by Anthony Wood as "the two Atlases and patriarchs of Independency." At present, Volume VIII of Goodwin's Works appears to be the only volume in print, and it is published by The Banner Of Truth Trust.

"The mercies of his [God's] nature, thus joined with the declarations of his gracious willingness to shew mercy to us men, is now become a just and meet ground and object for a sinner's faith." The Object And Acts Of Justifying Faith

"God's shewing, or his actual exercising of mercy, dependeth upon an act of his will, and is not a mere, sole, single effect of his nature. For if it were solely and act of his nature, it would have been, and would still be necessary, for him to shew mercy on the devils... so some revelation or manifestation of his good will (at least indefinite to mankind) is necessary to our faith, and not merely the knowledge of the mercy in his nature." The Object And Acts Of Justifying Faith

"All our faith for forgiveness may at any time be readily and finally resolved into the mercies of God, as the ultimum objectum in quod, as the ultimate object or foundation." The Object And Acts Of Justifying Faith

"Election is the first foundation of our salvation -- it is the first act of God's going forth in intentions to save us, and hath no cause but the pleasure of his will, and the praise of the glory of his grace." Ephesians - Sermon V

"There is a great deal of difference between God's doing a thing in Christ and through Christ... God redeemeth through Christ, justifieth through Christ, and saveth through Christ; but he chooseth in Christ." Ephesians - Sermon V

"What is the cause of all God's purposes towards us? Himself. There is no other cause." Ephesians - Sermon V

"Yes, both Christ and we too were distinctly and particularly thought of, and so individually elected." Ephesians - Sermon V

"As in the womb, head and members are not conceived apart, but together, as having relation each to other, so were we and Christ, as making up one mystical body unto God, formed together in that eternal womb of election." Ephesians - Sermon V

"Our salvation had a sure foundation given it in election, not only in God's eternal love and purpose, (the foundation of the Lord remains sure, he knows who are his) but further also, this his first choice of us was a founding us on Christ, and in and together with choosing us, a setting us into him, so as then to be represented by him... Other men, as likewise the angels that fell, were ordained to be in themselves -- to stand or fall by themselves -- but we were, by a choice act of God's, culled out of the lump, and chosen in Christ, and not in ourselves apart." Ephesians - Sermon V

"Learn to give Jesus Christ his full honour, which God his Father hath given him." Ephesians - Sermon V

"And were you so chosen in Christ, as that God never purposed you a being but as in Christ, and then gave you this subsistence in Christ, never casting a thought upon you out of him; then reckon of no other being but what you have in Christ. Reckon not of what you have in honours, or what you are in greatness or parts, but reckon of what you were in him before this world was, and of all the spiritual blessings wherewith he then blessed you; and likewise of what you are now in him, by an actual union, as then by a virtual and representative one." Ephesians - Sermon V

"Glory in nothing, but only in this, that you are in Christ. For God chose you in him; the being you had was in him before the world was." Ephesians - Sermon V

"Value God and his love more than all the world, though there were millions of them. He valued you before the world, and therefore is beforehand with you in his love. He not only loved you from everlasting, (whereas your love is but of yesterday,) but in the valuation of it, he loved you before all worlds, and preferred you to all worlds: though you loved the world first, before you loved him." Ephesians - Sermon V

"God ordained our being and condition of living in this world, in subordination to that other world... we were chosen to salvation, and then God allotted or destinated the several times we should live in, who should be our parents, and what our conditions; and all as means subordinate to election, so to illustrate his grace the more. And therefore care not what thy parentage or what thy condition is here. Thou wert by God considered as that which he meant to make thee, even a brave and glorious creature, ere ever the consideration of what thy condition here should be came in; this estate of thine here being but the way unto that thy country and inheritance." Ephesians - Sermon V

"You must run through sanctification of the Spirit, or you shall never come to heaven." Ephesians - Sermon V

"To be holy before him [God] in love, this is the foundation of the glory in heaven. If I should spend millions of years in describing heaven unto you I could say no more, but only open these three things couched in the text -- perfect holiness in God's presence, and enjoying and loving of him, even as we are beloved of him. This is heaven, and this is that which God hath pitched upon to bring us to. This is the chief thing in election, in which work of God's he looks to this unblameableness in holiness and love before him, as the end of it." Ephesians - Sermon V

"It is God's first aim that we should be holy before him. Let it therefore he our great care too. That which was first in God's eye, let it be chiefly in ours. Though we be ordained to adoption and glory, yet we were first chosen to be holy before him in love." Ephesians - Sermon V

"Without God's mercy we cannot be saved; and without holiness we are not under mercy." Ephesians - Sermon V

"It is not a profession of faith joined with morality, and no grand scandal, but a profession of such a strictness as will rise to holiness, that you are to judge men saints by." Ephesians - Sermon I

"Seek to be pardoned, but above all seek to be beloved." Ephesians - Sermon I

"God must not only take us to be his, but keep us to be his, and continue to be merciful to us, according to this his great name, or we shall be utterly lost and undone." The Object And Acts Of Justifying Faith

"Now, election was the first act that did put us into Christ, and then predestination was that which conveyed unto us all those privileges which we have through him, and union with him, whereof adoption and holiness are the highest and most eminent." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"Now, election is that which first gives you a being in Christ, and then God by the act of predestination did appoint you a well-being through him." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"As God in his decrees about the creation did not consider the body of Adam singly or apart from his soul, nor yet the soul without his body, (I speak of his first creation and state thereby), neither should either have so much as existed, but as the one in the other; so nor Christ and his Church in election, which gave the first existence both to Christ as a Head, and to the Church as his body, which each had in God's decrees. And holiness, which is the fruit of election here, is the image of God, and a likeness unto him, which makes us capable of communion with him." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"It were an absurdity to say that God did ordain a man to be in Christ, and not ordain him to be holy. Because if God ordains him to be in Christ, he ordains him to be a member of Christ, and the spouse of Christ. Now the head and members must be homogeneal, and husband and spouse must be of the same kind and image." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"As God by election putteth us into Christ, so he hath a further business about us; he predestinated us to glory and to the adoption of sons in him. It is a new grace, and therefore it is expressed to be the fruit of a new and second act, even predestination." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"God never at first cast a thought on us to be in Christ, but with an intention that we should be holy." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"Christ being the natural Son, we are made sons like him, even as, in many other things, in that which he is in himself, we are made the like in him, and conformed therein to him. Is he chosen? so are we. Is he beloved? so are we. He first, and then we in a conformity to him; even as he is a Son, so are we in him. The first particular then is, that Jesus Christ was set up by God as the exemplary cause of us in our predestination." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"What Adam was in creation, that was Christ in election, when we were put into him. God first made Adam; and then, seeing it was not fit for Adam to be alone, he brought Eve as a companion for him. So could God bring the Church unto Christ as a meet companion for him, for it was not meet that he should be alone; and so we were chosen for him." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"God's chief end was not to bring Christ into the world for us, but us for Christ. He is worth all creatures. And God contrived all things that do fall out, and even redemption itself, for the setting forth of Christ's glory, more than our salvation." Ephesians - Sermon VI

"The work of redemption itself was ordained principally for Christ's glory, more than for our salvation... The plot of redemption therefore was subjected to the glory of Christ, and not Christ to it." Ephesians - Sermon VI