Tag Archives: Thomas Goodwin

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Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679) on the Trinitarian nature of the pactum salutis

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In this short excerpt, Thomas Goodwin exemplifies the Trinitarian nature of the pactum salutis, or covenant of redemption:

I will chuse him to Life, saith the Father, but he will fall, and so fall short of what my Love designed to him: but I will redeem him, says the Son, out of that lost Estate: but yet being fallen he will refuse that grace, and the offers of it, and despise it, therefore I will Sanctify him, said the Holy Ghost, and overcome his unrighteousness, and cause him to accept it.

– Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679), Works, 3:19

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Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679): Our perfection in His perfection

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“By His death, Christ purchased all the grace and glory that the God of all grace had designed for us. That is clear in Scripture: ‘For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified’ (Heb. 9:14). Alas for us poor creatures! For a long time after we are sanctified, we remain imperfect, lacking all and everything in comparison. How, then, are we perfected? Because Jesus Christ, by that one offering, perfectly purchased all that ever shall make up our perfection. It is finished in that sense. He so abundantly procured all by His death that He needed to offer Himself but once. If there were anything necessary to perfect a saint that Christ did not purchase, His offering must have been imperfect.”

– Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679), Ephesians, Works, 1:170, 173

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Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679): Faith as habitual sight of Christ

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“…faith is to look at once with one eye to heaven, to Christ there as risen, ascended, interceding, so to look down with another eye to that Christ as once crucified and hanging on the cross, as made sin and a curse.”

– Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679), Works, 5:292

“The Indwelling of Christ by faith…is to have Jesus Christ continually in one’s eye, a habitual sight of Him. I call it so because a man actually does not always think of Christ; but as a man does not look up to the sun continually, yet he sees the light of it…. So you should carry along and bear along in your eye the sight and knowledge of Christ, so that at least a presence of Him accompanies you, which faith makes.”

– Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679), Works, 2:411