William Perkins and the Making of a Protestant England

Abstract

This book presents a new interpretation of the thought and historical significance of William Perkins (1558–1602), a prominent Cambridge scholar and teacher during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Usually seen as a Puritan, Perkins is shown here to be an apologist for the Elizabethan Church of England. He wrote on the nature of salvation, including predestination, reflecting the teachings of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. In A Reformed Catholike (1597), he distinguished the theology upheld in the English Church from that of the Roman Catholic Church, while showing the extent to which the two churches shared common concerns. His pioneering books on conscience and ‘practical divinity’ helped to create a tradition of Protestant casuistry in England and on the Continent. In The Arte of Prophecying (1607), published in translation from the Latin original after his death, Perkins provided preachers with a guidebook to the study of the Bible and the presentation of its teachings from the pulpit. In several books he wrote provocatively and constructively about the need to achieve social justice in an era of severe economic distress. After Perkins’s death, the English Roman Catholic theologian William Bishop attacked A Reformed Catholike, and Robert Abbot, a prominent theologian at Oxford, defended it, suggesting that the work was seen as an authoritative treatment of the teachings of the established Church. Perkins was the best-known English religious writer of his time. As a theologian, teacher, and preacher, he was a leading Reformer, who contributed significantly to the making of a Protestant England.

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