G. 128 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. have subscribed this protestation with mine ownhand, the 26th day of April, 1571, by me, " CHRISTOPHER GOODMAN.". In the year 1584, Mr. Goodman, we find, lived in his native county, where he was most probably silenced for nonconformity. During that year, Archbishop Whitgift having pressed subscription to his three articles, upon the godly ministers in those parts, Mr. Goodman Wrote to the Earl of Leicester, informing him how the papists in Cheshire and elsewhere, rejoiced at the proceedings and severities of the archbishop. This the archbishop, indeed, resented and denied, and charged Mr. Goodman with perverseness, in refusing subscription, and an exact conformity to the estab- lished church.+ We have notbeen able to obtain any further account of this excellent divine, till the pious and learned Mr. James Usher, afterwards the famous archbishop, came to England to pur- chase books for the college library at Dublin, when he, visited him on his death-bed. Usher was so deeply impressed with the holy conversation of this venerable divine, that, when he himself became an old man, and the Archbishop of Armagh, be often repeated thewise and grave speeches which he had heard from him.f. Mr. Goodman died in 1602, aged eighty-three years, and his remains were interred in St. Werburg's church, in the city of Chester. Fuller denominates him a leader of the fierce nonconformists.§ Wood says, he was a most violent non- conformist, and more rigid in his opinions than his friend John Calvin, who speaks of him in his epistles.II Mr. Leigh calls him a learned, good, and holy divine.% Dr. Bancroft says, that he, with the rest of the Geneva accomplices, urged all estates to take up arms, and by force to reform religion themselves, rather than to suffer superstition and idolatry to remain in the land... Mr. Thomas Merburie of Christ's college, Cambridge, in his last will and testament, dated December 1, 1571, and proved the same month, appointed " his well-beloved in Qhrist, hisfather-in-law, Mr.Christopher Goodman, preacher Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 95, 96. + Ibid. vol. iii. p. 245, 246. t Bernard's Life of Usher, p. 42. Edit. 1656. § Fuller's Church Hist. b. is. p. 77. 11 Wood's Athena; OXOn. vol i. p. 273. 11Leigh's Religion and Learning, p. 211. Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, p. 62. Edit. 1640.
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