GOODWIN, JOHN (c.1594-1665). An eminent Puritan divine. He was born in the county of Norfolk about 1594, graduated at Queen's Col lege, Cambridge, and obtained a fellowship there in 1617. Having married, he gave up his fellow ship and took orders, officiating in various places in the county with much acceptance. In 1632 he removed to London, and in 1633 succeeded John Davenport (q.v.) at Saint Stephens. In 1635 he was admonished for leanings toward inde pendency. In 1639 he occasioned dissatisfaction by insisting on the need of a learned ministry. In 1642 he published in sup port of the Parliamentary cause, which received further commendation in Might and Right Well Met (1643). In 1643 he assailed the theory of the divine right of kings in his Os Ossorianum; or, A Bone for a Bishop, and in 1644 denounced the Presbyterians as a persecuting party in Ceol.caxia; or, The Grand Imprudence of Fighting
Against God. In 1645 he was ejected from his living for refusing to administer the sacrament to all indiscriminately, and formed an independ ent church, which was largely attended. At the Restoration he was one of eighteen incapacitated from holding any public trust. He died in 1665. Many of his publications, though all in English, have Greek or Latin titles. He has been a favor ite with Methodists, and been called the `Wiclif of Methodism.' John Wesley abridged his Trea tise of Justification (London, 1642). Samuel Dunn, a Wesleyan minister, edited his Christian Theology (London, 1836), from Goodwin's works, and wrote his life. The standard life of Good win is by Thomas Jackson, another Wesleyan minister (London, 1872).