Thomas Goodwin

Thomas Goodwin spent seven years, by his own account, unsettled about his own soul before he found peace, and it marked everything he later wrote. He gave up his Cambridge lectureship rather than conform, spent time among English exiles in Holland, and returned to become one of the small group of Independents at the Westminster Assembly who argued that each local congregation governs itself — a minority position that they published rather than bury.

Cromwell made him president of Magdalen College, Oxford, and he was at Cromwell's bedside when he died. Ejected at the Restoration, he pastored a congregation in London and kept writing; his collected works run to twelve volumes, much of it careful exposition of Ephesians. The book people still reach for is The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth, which asks a simple question — what is Christ feeling toward failing believers right now — and answers it from Scripture at length.