Life
He was born in Stratford-le-Bow, Middlesex, and baptised on 6 November 1575. He was educated at Felsted, St. Paul's School, Eton College, and King's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1598 and M.A. in 1601.
Before moving to London, he was a Fellow and lecturer at Cambridge, where he caused a near-riot by his advocacy of Ramism over the traditional methods of Aristotle. (This story about Gouge, who lectured on logic, is related in Wilbur Samuel Howell's Logic and Rhetoric in England 1500-1700 (1956) as an account from Samuel Clarke, and is not reliably dated.)
At Blackfriars, he was initially assistant to Stephen Egerton (c.1554-1622), taking over as lecturer.
He proposed an early dispensational scheme. He took an interest in Sir Henry Finch's Calling of the Jews, and published it under his own name; this led to a spell of imprisonment in 1621, since the publication displeased James I of England.
Already nearly 70 years old, he attended the Westminster Assembly regularly, and was made chairman in 1644 of the committee set up to draft the Westminster Confession. The other original members of the committee were John Arrowsmith, Cornelius Burges, Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Gataker, Thomas Goodwin, Joshua Hoyle, Thomas Temple, and Richard Vines He also acted as an Assessor.
Read more about this topic: William Gouge
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“I think it beats the heck out of life after death, that’s for sure.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“All my life I’ve been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence.”
—Luis Buñuel (1900–1983)