Now that Christ reigns in glory, is his heart still tender toward sinners like us - or has his exaltation left him distant and cold?

It is a fear few believers wholly escape. Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680) - chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and one of the foremost Puritans of his age - wrote this book to lay it to rest.

Beginning with the disciples whom Christ loved to the last - washing their feet, forgiving their desertion, blessing them as he ascended - and then turning to the great promise of Hebrews 4:15, that we have a High Priest "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," Goodwin sets out to prove a single, steadying truth: the heart of the Christ now in heaven beats exactly as it did on earth.

What sets the book apart is its tenderness. Goodwin writes not as a distant theologian but as a man who had once searched his own heart in vain for comfort, and learned at last to look instead to Christ's. He presses the boldest question - how a Saviour now glorified can still be moved by our griefs, and even by our sins - and answers it without flinching: Christ pities us as one who has himself lived through our sorrows, been tempted in all the ways we are, and remembers it still. Even our sins, Goodwin dares to say, draw out his pity sooner than his anger.

First published in 1642, The Heart of Christ remains one of Goodwin's best-loved works, and stands - with Richard Sibbes's The Bruised Reed - among the Puritan sources behind Dane Ortlund's Gentle and Lowly.

About this edition

This is the complete and unabridged text, faithfully reproduced from the 1642 first edition. The spelling has been lightly modernised for ease of reading, while Goodwin's own words and voice have been carefully preserved. It includes a new introduction to the author and his work.

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