William Perkins' LIfe & Ministry (Part 4)

Synopsis of Post-Conversion Years: Youth to Adulthood (Continued)

Perkins was not an insipidly isolated-ivory-tower academician, however. As much as he was a scholar among scholars, he was also a scholar for the common people. For example, his success as an across-the-board writer was largely due to his inimitable ability “to extract ideas from others, to combine them with his own insights and to relate the result to the needs of laity, ministers and scholars over a wide range of subjects." Breward notes that an examination of his writings suggests two main reasons why he was so popular internationally and extensively—“an ability to clarify and expound complex theological issues which aroused the respect of fellow scholars and a fit for relating seemingly abstruse theological teaching to the spiritual aspirations of ordinary Christians.” Hence, he possessed what might be called a “ministerial scholarship” or “relevant scholarship” or even “significant scholarship.”

Perkins’ ministry also extended beyond the common people. He was known as one who, following his conversion, dealt sympathetically with those in dire spiritual need. But his sympathy was externalized in gospel-ministry, not merely in charitable deeds. For instance, upon his first entrance into the ministry of the Gospel, “the first beam he sent forth shined to those which sat in darknesse and the shadow of death,” that is, the prisoners incarcerated in the castle of Cambridge. These were individuals living detached from Christ, bound in their fallen flesh and seared in their consciences—the epitome of Rom 3:10-18. Yet, he made it his personal business to obtain permission to convene with these prisoners so that he might minister to them even as he did among the large crowds that came to hear him preach at St. Andrews. Fuller provides the following details regarding this personal ministry:

"Perkins prevailed so far with their jaylour, that the prisoners were brought… to the Shire-house hard by, where he preached unto them every Lords day. Thus was the prison his parish, his own Charity his Patron presenting him unto it, and his work was all his wages. Many an Onesimus here he begat, and as the instrument freed the prisoners from the captivity of sin."

Clark also adds that it was his “manner to go with the prisoners to the place of execution when they were condemned, and what successe his labours were crowned with… by this example.” Perhaps, it would be fair to reckon that Perkins’ sympathetic ministry is akin to the ministry model of Jesus Christ Himself, who “did no come to be served, but to serve (Matt 20:28)” and was also “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matt 11:19).

This was the post-conversion William Perkins. A man radically transformed and renewed by the grace of God. A former reckless and profane individual and a drunkard, who became the most esteemed Elizabethan Puritan—whose ministry influenced both his contemporaries and those of the ensuing generations, even in the international domain. One whose theology did not cause him to become cold or callous towards sinners but mercifully brought his theology to both the learned and the unlearned, the scholarly and the laity, the minister and the commoner, even the socially outlawed and communally confined—those who were cold and callous against his God even as he once was.

Notes:

1. Breward, 116.
2. Ibid., 113.
3. www.apuritansmind.com/williamperkins/williamperkins.htm
4. Fuller, The Holy State, 81.
5. Hulse, Who Are The Puritans?, 44.
6. Fuller, The Holy State, 81.
7. Clark, 416.
   

William Perkins' LIfe & Ministry (Part 3)

Here is part 3 of the series on William Perkins. Bear in mind that there are some misspelled words by modern English standards.

Synopsis of Post-Conversion Years: Youth to Adulthood

Perkins’ scholarly ability demonstrated during his rebellious years was now put to valuable use. Samuel Clark provides an example of his intellectual aptitude: “He had a rare felicity in reading of Books, and as it were, but turning them over, would give an exact account of all that was considerable therein: He perused Books so speedily that one would think he read nothing, and yet so accurately that one would think he read all.”

He also collaborated with other intellectually and spiritually able men such as Chaderton, Richard Greenham (1531-1591), and Richard Rogers (1550-1620) to form a spiritual brotherhood at Cambridge that advocated Calvinistic Puritan convictions. This amalgamation of God-gifted ability with spiritual and theological accountability proved expeditiously effective. Fuller notes:

"The happy houre was now come wherein the stragling sheep was brought home to the fold, and his vanity and mildnesse corrected into temperance and gravity. It is certainly known and believed, that if Quick-silver could be fired (which all coufesse difficult, and most conclude impossible) it would amount to an infinite treasure; so when the roving parts, the giddy an unstable conceits of this young Scholar began to be settled, his extravagant studies to be confined and centered on Divinity, in a very short time he arrived at an incredible improvement."

Schaefer adds that Perkins continued to mature “after the Cambridge and southeastern England controversies over vestments and church government.”

Perkins rapid maturity both spiritually and academically eventually made him “the most influential of Elizabethan puritans,” and “the prince of puritan theologian and the most eagerly read” among his contemporaries. According to Curt Daniels, Perkins “became the Cambridge Calvin. To be more precise, he was the Beza of Cambridge. Perkins closely modelled [sic] his theology after Beza… Though not as well known today, Perkins exercised far more influence among the later Puritans than anyone else. His books sold like theological hotcakes.” Breward explains just how popular his writings were and why they were so popular:

"Perkins was the first theologian of the reformed Church of England to achieve an international reputation on the basis of editions published outside Britain… A check in major European libraries for editions for Perkins published outside Britain has revealed fifty printed in Switzerland, nearly sixty in various parts of Germany and over 100 in the Netherlands. Smaller printings were made in France, Bohemia and Hungary… Perkins shared his knowledge of and dependence upon Reformed and Lutheran Scholars, but what makes him so important is that by the end of the sixteenth century his writings had begun to displace those of Calvin, Beza and Bullinger. Though he was not a scholar of the first rank, his gift for rapid and retentive reading, clarity of thought and expression, felicity with his pen and influence in Cambridge enabled him both to reach a wide audience and fill some of the yawning gaps in the theological equipment of the Elizabethan Church."

Indubitably, such comparisons to and even surpassing the achievements of the giants of the Protestant Reformation, coupled with his distinctive academic ability, corroborates his impressive scholarship regarding things divine.

Notes:

1. Samuel Clark, The Marrow of Ecclesiastical History, 3d ed. (London: W.B., 1675), 416.
2. “In 1570 Greenham left the academic atmosphere of Cambridge, where he had been a tutor, to take up pastoral work in the humble village of Dry Drayton about five miles from Cambridge. There he laboured for twenty years, only occasionally preaching away from home. Greenham was pastor par excellence, a physician able to discern the deep experiences of the soul, an expert in counseling and comforting. He constantly rose, winter and summer, at 4 a.m. He refused several lucrative offers of promotion and abounded in acts of generosity to the poor. Young men came to live at Dry Drayton, forming a ‘School of Christ’ and devoting themselves to the Scriptures and to the outworking of the Word in their own souls and the souls of others. Why should a village situation be exciting? The answer is that here we see a microcosm of a wider work, the rooting of the gospel in rural England. Richard Greenham was criticized for his nonconformity and the manner in which he conducted worship services. He was passive in his resistance. He did not wish to argue about things he regarded as adiaphora, that is, things different. He preached Christ, and him crucified, and simply pleaded for tolerance that he should continue to be a faithful minister of Christ. He enjoyed the friendship of men of influence who always managed to put in a good word for him and thus keep him out of trouble” (Hulse, 41).
3. “In 1574 Richard Rogers became a preacher of God’s Word in the village of Wethersfield, Essex, there to labour for the conversion of souls, but also to work at the mortification of sin in his own soul. Like Greenham, he kept a school for young men in his house. Having first committed himself to the rigours of the godly life, he wrote in detail on practical godly living. This was called The Seven Treatises, a work which went through seven editions before 1630. His close friend and neighbour Ezekiel Culverwell expressed the wish that readers of the book could have seen it author’s practice with their own eyes and heard his doctrine with their own ears. Here we see illustrated a fascination with the essence of godliness. Rogers kept a diary and from it can be seen a man walking as closely as possible with God. One of his series of expositions gained fame, namely, discourse on the book of Judges. We should not imagine that Rogers led an easy life, being waited on by servants, so that he could give himself to spiritual exercises. Besides the care of his immediate large family we read of him that ‘He did regard it as his duty to meditate, study and write but at the same time he carried on no less conscientiously the activities of a householder, a farmer, a figure in the countryside, a preacher, a pastor, a reformed and the head of a boarding school’” (Hulse, 42-43).
4. Beeke, www.apuritansmind.com/williamperkins/beekejoelperkinspredestinationpreaching.htm
5. Fuller, Abel Rendevivus or The Dead Yet Speaking, 433.
6. Paul R. Schaefer, “The Arte of Prophesying” in The Devoted Life, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Randall C. Gleason (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2004), 38.
7. John Morgan, Godly Learning (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 25.
8. Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 125.
9. Curt Daniels, The History and Theology of Calvinism (Springfield: Good Books, 2003), 41.
10. Schaefer adds, “Perkins’s fame spread well beyond the borders of his England. Churchmen from other lands translated his treatises into a number of languages including Dutch, German and Polish. In the land of his birth, salves of his works soon eclipsed even those of Calvin and lined the bookshelves of “the godly.” (“The Art of Prophecying” in The Devoted Life, p.40).
11. Ian Breward, “The Significance of William Perkins,” 113, 116.
12. The following are two possibilities why Perkins is scantly known in the twenty-first century Christianity: “Although William Perkins was one of the most widely read preachers of his own age, and one of the most outstanding theological thinkers of the Elizabethan era, many, even among those who regularly buy and read Puritan reprints, scarcely know of him. Part of the reason for this might be that unlike the writings of notables such as Owen, Baxter and Sibbes, few of Perkins’s works actually have been reprinted in either of the Puritan reprint revivals of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Another reason for this might be the quandary of exactly how to under Perkins, a man whose scant forty-four years (1558-1602) nevertheless spanned almost he entirety of the religiously tumultuous reign of Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603) (Schaefer, 38).
    

Are You Appointed to Eternal Life?

"When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."

-Acts 13:48 NASB

"After the detailed account of Paul's sermon in Pisidian Antioch, we are told that many Gentiles 'honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed' (13:48). An excellent exercise is to discover all the ways Acts, or even the entire New Testament, speaks of conversion and of converts--and then use all those locutions in our own speech. For our ways of talking about such matters both reflect and shape the way we think of such matters. There is no biblical passage that speaks of 'accepting Jesus as your personal Savior' (though the notion itself is not entirely wrong). So why do many adopt this expression, and never speak in the terms of verse 48? (D.A. Carson, For the Love of God, Vol.1, July 27)"

William Perkins' LIfe & Ministry (Part 2)

Here is my second installment on the life and ministry of the great Elizabethan Puritan, William Perkins:

Synopsis of Personal Conversion: Youth

Perkins’ conversion is somewhat evocative of the apostle Paul’s Damascus Road experience, but in a much less shocking and frightening manner. Just as the apostle heard a voice, so did Perkins. Just as the apostle was made known of his sin, so was Perkins. Just as the Damascus Road experience was the first step toward conversion on the part of the apostle, so was a particular experience on the part of Perkins. What makes Perkins’ conversion less shocking and frightening is that the voice he heard was not the voice of a divine but a young mother chiding her child. His sin made known to him was not the persecution of Christ but more so an absence of Christ in his life. And although the Damascus Road experience of Paul outshines most conversion experiences, his experience was alarming enough to lead him to take his first step towards his own spiritual conversion. The following is a recount of this “first step” experience:

"He was much devoted to drunkenness. While he was walking through town, he heard a young woman say to her child, “Hold your tongue, or I will give you to drunken Perkins, yonder.” Finding himself as a byword among the people his conscience gripped him and became so deeply impressed by it that it was a first step to his conversion. After his conversion he became a strong exponent of Calvinism and always dealt sympathetically with those in spiritual need."

Fuller offers an interesting possibility as to why God may have allowed Perkins to persist in his godlessness for so long:

"Probably divine Providence permitted him to run himselfe with the prodigal Son out of breath, that so he might be the better enabled experimentally to reprove others of their vanity, effectually sympathizing with their sad condition, and be the better skil’d how to comfort and counsell them on their repentance. Why should God’s arme, which afterwards graciously overtook Master Perkins, be too short to reach others in the same condition."

Perkins’ new spiritual voyage had begun. He fled to Christ under the spiritual influence of the great Puritan leader Laurence Chaderton (1537-1635), also known as the pope of Cambridge Puritanism, his personal tutor and a lifelong friend. He heaved his debauched ways and began to bear spiritual fruits worthy of God. Moreover, he relinquished his quest for mathematical studies and fascination with the practice of magic. In their place, he took up what was to suffuse the remaining years of his life, theology and ministry, particularly in writing and preaching. In the words of Fuller: “True it is he was very wild in his youth till God… graciously reclaim’d him.”

Notes:

1. Dr. Willaim Perkins, www.apuritansmind.com/williamperkins/williamperkins.htm
2. Fuller, Abel Rendevivus or The Dead Yet Speaking, 432.
3. “Laurence Chaderton…lived to be almost a hundred years old and published little. He came from a wealthy Roman Catholic family by whom he was ‘nuzzled up in Popish superstition.’ He suffered disinheritance when he embraced the gospel and Puritanism. A well-known benefactor at the time was Sir Walter Mildmay, who founded Emmanuel College at Cambridge. Sir Walter chose Chaderton to be master of that college, a position which he filled for forty years. He was a lecturer for fifty years at St Clement’s Church, Cambridge. When he eventually came to give up his lectureship at St Clement’s, forty ministers begged him to continue, claiming that they owed their conversion to his ministry. There is a description of him preaching for two hours, after which he announced that he would no longer trespass on his hearer’s patience, whereupon the congregation cried out, ‘For God’s sake, sir, go on! Go on!’” (Erroll Hulse, Who Are The Puritans? [Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2000; reprint, 2001], 44).
4. Beeke, www.apuritansmind.com/williamperkins/beekejoelperkinspredestinationpreachin preaching.htm
5. Fuller, The Holy State, 81.
   

William Perkins' LIfe & Ministry (Part 1)

Several years ago, I've had the privilege learning about and from the great Elizabethan Puritan and preacher, William Perkins. I was first introduced to him by reading Erroll Hulse's introductory book, Who Are The Puritans? (Buy It Here), and remember that for some reason he stood out to me more so than the rest of the puritan greats (perhaps, due to his excellence in the pulpit). Well, by God's providence I was provided the opportunity to read of him and study him more. It is probably true that many Christians have never heard of the man. This blog-series is my modest effort to make him more well known. Note: there are some misspelled words by modern English standards but they are accurate quotations of the seventeenth-century English resources utilized. Enjoy!

WILLIAM PERKINS' LIFE & MINISTRY

"It was through the pulpit that Puritanism made its mark on the English nation in the early seventeenth century."

–Leland Ryken

This observation by Ryken is remarkably true. The more notable Puritans, such as John Cotton, Thomas Goodwin, John Preston, and Richard Sibbes, were primarily preachers of the scriptures. These men were not without a paradigm, however. Elizabethan Puritans, such as Laurence Chaderton, Richard Greenham, and Richard Rogers, were all model preachers, yet none were as influential as William Perkins. Sinclair B. Ferguson comments, “In his preaching at Great St. Andrews, Perkins proved to be an outstanding example of the principles he enunciated, and he set the standards which… pulpit giants… would emulate.” But such impact was not first without an internal reformation on the part of Perkins.

Synopsis of Pre-Conversion Years: Childhood to Youth

William Perkins was born to Thomas and Hannah Perkins in the village of Marston Jabbett in Bulkington Parish of the Warwickshire County in the year of 1558. Virtually nothing is known about his childhood years. Thomas Fuller notes in one of his biographical works that Perkins’ childhood “is a matter before dated in the Register of my Intilligence, whereof I can receive no instruction. Onely I dare be bold to conclude, that with Saint Paul, 1 Cor. 23.11. When he was a childe, he spake as a childe he understood as a childe, he thought as a childe… so we passe it over with silence.” Ian Breward concurs that between his birth and admittance into Christ’s College in Cambridge “Almost no details of this period survived."

A few things are known about Perkins’ youthful years in Cambridge, however, albeit mostly atrocious. Simply put, he was a young man given to drunkenness, profanity, and recklessness. It was not long after his admittance into Christ’s College in Cambridge that, despite possessing scholarly ability, his concentration was given to and his life was absorbed by untamed vileness. It was an age in which one may call it “the Mid-Summer Moon” or “the Dog-Days” of a man’s life. And although it is a mystery as to how and when Perkins exactly started to engage in such decadence, it is nevertheless certain that he took “such wild liberties to himselfe as oft him many a sigh in his reduced age.”

The Mid-Summer Moon days or the Dog-Days of Perkins’ life continued until his early graduate years. It was then that he became much more addicted to the study of natural magic. So intense was his addiction that people thought of him as bordering the very hell itself with regards to his curiosity for magic and equated it to “black art” or “blackness.” Fuller, however, while not conveying tolerance for his addiction, expresses that such an equation is an exaggeration and an ignorant observation of Perkins’ practice of magic:

"There goeth an uncontroll’d tradition, that Perkins, when a young scholar, was a great studier of Magick, occasioned perchance by his skill in Mathematicks. For ignorant people count all circles above their own sphere to be conjuring, and preferently cry out those things are done by black art for which there dimme eyes can see no colour or reason. And in such case, when they cannot flie up to heaven to make it a Miracle, they fetch it from hell to make it Magick, though it may lawfully be done by natural causes."

Hence, his addiction to magical practices was not what should be deemed as satanic or occultic but rather resultants of his trickery of hand or even careful calculation. Even so, his addiction was still that, an addiction. Coupled with his alcohol-prone lifestyle, he persisted in a debauched state of godlessness.

Notes:

1. Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 91.
2. Sinclair B. Ferguson, foreword to The Art of Preaching (1595; trans. 1606; reprint, Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 2002), x.
3. Thomas Fuller and Other Eminent Divines, Abel Rendevivus or The Dead Yet Speaking (1652), 431-432
4. Ian Breward, “The Significance of William Perkins,” The Journal of Religious History 4, no. 2 (Dec 1966): 116.
5. Joel R. Beeke, Perkins on Predestination and Preaching, www.apuritansmind.com/willia mperkins/beekejoelperkinspredestinationpreaching.htm
6. Fuller, 432.
7. Ibid., 432.
8. Thomas Fuller, The Holy State, 4d ed. (London: Printed by John Redmayne for John Williams, 1663), 81.
   

Humility is No Accident!

"However, humility cannot be attained and explained solely by honest self-assessment, for Christ understood that he was able, perfect, and sinless in every way, and yet he was the very example of humility. Therefore, like other Christian virtues, humility is deliberate. One is not compelled to be humble, and one does not become humble by accident. Christ acknowledged that he was Teacher and Lord to his disciples, but he stooped to serve them, even to wash their feet (John 13:13-14). And this explains how we can remain humble before others even when we know that, by God's grace, we are genuinely superior to them in some respects. Humility is not an acknowledgement of inferiority, although it can include this when it reflects reality. But in its higher expression, it is thedeliberate act of stooping in one's attitudes and actions in order to serve others according to the will of God.

Our modern corporate world considers it healthy to always compete and compare, but this attitude can prove destructive to the Christian community. Yet one can often find it in the contexts of Christian discipleship and ministry. To the extent that we are concerned about becoming better and bigger than our brothers, and exhibiting our superiority before men, we are no longer serving God, but self. A humble man has a true assessment of himself, but there is also the spiritual strength to practice deliberate abasement and service before others."

-Vincent Cheung, Commentary on First Peter, pp.142-143

Check out Vincent Cheung's Website: Click Here

Calvin Turns 500 Today!

In light of John Calvin's 500th...

Almost His Birthday!

"Every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, a master craftsman of idols."

-John Calvin

I wonder if Calvin cared much for birthdays.

James White Vs. George Bryson

A long while back I posted a link to the following videos. Now that I figured out how to post the actual videos on my blog (I am not tech-savvy), I decided to post the following two. They are both from the same debate that was held at Anaheim Vineyard (I think). You'll quickly discern that the debate is about Calvinism and Arminianism with James White (Alpha & Omega Ministries) espousing the former and George Bryson (Calvary Chapel Theology) the latter. In the first video White cross-examines Bryson regarding John 6:44. I think it's fair to say that this is a very good example of when one's presuppositions that are brought to the biblical text do not, in fact, cannot, withstand the scrutiny of it and yet the subject (i.e., the one holding to his presuppositions) persistently does all that he can to make sense out of his no longer sustainable preconceived ideas. After all, admitting to it would necessitate radical ramifications for one's view of God, man, and the Bible, especially when it comes to the good ol' Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate. I do not think it's necessarily fair to say that Bryson wasn't trying to honor God, however. That much I think we should give him credit for.


Note: The title of this video, "Why George Bryson Won't Debate Anymore," is inaccurate and unfair as Mr. Bryson is willing to debate James White again. Here is what Mr. Bryson wrote me, "I have also offered to debate White on the question 'Does Calvinism teach that God is the author is sin?' He has declined so far which is his right to do." It'll be nice to verify this with James White.

Note2: Here is what James White wrote me recently: "I recently devoted some time on the DL to taking apart some of his most recent attempts to get around John 6, for example. We have tried to get him to commit to debate, but he has one caveat: no cross examination. Well, that's where a debate takes place, of course. He also does not want to debate a biblical topic, but only something where he has nothing to defend and can only attack."


The second video is James White's closing statement. Simply biblical and quite powerful!


Credit: Dr. Oakley 1689