William Perkins (1558-1602) was born in Marston Jabbet, Warwickshire, the same year Elizabeth acceded to the throne, and died only months before the death of the queen.

Upon completing a B.A. degree (1581) and an M.A. (1584) at Cambridge, Perkins served as both lecturer (preacher) at St Andrew's Church parish, Cambridge, from 1584 until his death (October 1602), and a Fellow of Christ's College from 1584 to 1595. On the basis of the number of editions of his works published outside Britain, William Perkins became the first English theologian to gain an international reputation. Within England, only Henry Smith circulated more publications than Perkins. Those influenced directly by his teaching and preaching include the illustrious William Ames and John Cotton.

William Perkins has been called 'the principal architect of Elizabethan Puritanism', though he himself never left the Church of England. This was because his ultimate concern was with the doctrines of salvation, not the doctrines of the Church. Puritans like Perkins and Richard Greenham were not doctrinal opponents of episcopacy and the existing ecclesiastical order of the Church of England, but were more concerned to rectify the pastoral deficiencies and the unserviceability of discipline of the Church of England. He believed reform of the ecclesiastical structure of the Church of England was on the periphery of evangelical concern, and that what changes were needed governmentally could come about through the revitalisation of the members, both lay and clerical, who truly constituted the Body of Christ. Remaining a loyal member of the national Church he defended her against the Brownists and Sectarians by maintaining the Church's composition of regenerate and unregenerate individuals after the biblical pattern. He wrote of the church as a,

company of God's people called by the doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles unto the state of salvation ... (T)his our Church of England (through God's mercy) does maintain, believe, and profess this Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles: for the proof thereof, let him that doubts have recourse to our English confession, and to a book entitled, the Articles of Religion established in the Church of England; in which are set down the foundations of Christian Religion, allowed and held by all Evangelical Churches.

For Perkins, the Church of England met the biblical qualifications of a true church. The true Church, composed of the complete number of the elect, was known only to God: for the continuity of the church was in God, not in its visible organisation, as Rome professed. Thus, with the visible church's composition of the regenerate and reprobate or unregenerate it was the minister's responsibility, according to Perkins, to lead the people to a right understanding of the difference between the visible and invisible church. More importantly, the minister was to admonish them out of a state of presumption or complacency of outward membership to patterns of actions and introspective examination purposed to ensure union with Christ by making their 'calling and election sure'.

Presumption of Salvation by the Individual⤒🔗

Commenting on the flaccid condition of the Church of England,

Perkins complained, the body of our people seem to be alive by their outward profession, but indeed they are dead in respect of the power of godliness.

His accusation was that the spiritual life of grace, which is necessarily commen­surate with regeneration, 'is not to be seen' within the Church. 'We shall find in the body of our Nation, but a lip-faith, and a lip-repentance'. He also produced a brief listing of the Church's sins which are expounded at length in his treatise, An Exhortation to Repentance. Near the top of this list is 'carnal security', which he elsewhere calls presumption. A great portion of people wrongly supposed that they were redeemed 'because',

Perkins said, they are baptised and live in the Church, therefore they are in God's favour, and in very good estate; when as they never yet were reconciled to God: and are so far from it, that they never yet saw any sins in themselves whereof they should repent.

Perkins found the divine injunction in Scripture to seek and strive to enter the kingdom of God to be antithetical to spiritual complacency or lethargy and presumption of salvation. Perkins directed his evangelistic preaching toward not only the ungodly who were unchurched but also the longstanding church member who may have presumed his salvation because of his social status in the church community. For this reason he believed that man's professions of faith cannot be trusted in general. 'We may not trust men upon fair pretences that they make to us, without further trial'. This is because dedication and conversion are not the same thing. Though a person must dedicate himself if he is converted, he may dedicate himself without being converted. Individual self-examination was paramount, but also the minister needed to exercise prudence and discernment concerning member­ship and admittance to the Lord's Supper and not irresponsibly to permit the error of presumption to lull the congregation to sleep. Perkins held it necessary for the minister to feed Christ's flock with 'the whole counsel of God'.

Presumption of salvation is an exceedingly dangerous state, one which can be more difficult to 'awaken' the individual from. Wherefore William Perkins was quick to remind the presumptuous individual that every sin is equally mortal.

And here it must be remembered, that men of years living in the Church are not simply condemned for their particular sins, but for their continuance and residence in them.

To die in a state of erroneous presump­tion, devoid of saving grace, resulted in just condemnation. Presumption was the problem of the five foolish virgins of Matthew 25:1-13. According to Perkins, they only 'carried the burning lamps of Christian profession' but did not 'diligently endeavour ... to be found of God in the day of judgment'. The conscious, unconverted sinner could more easily be admonished to seek the mercy and grace of God in Christ, but the presumptuous soul would not suspect himself devoid of grace, neither would he be inclined to utilise the means of grace properly and incline his ear attentively to the preaching of the Word.

'Presumption and the illusions of Satan use well to tell a man that he is the child of God, as the true testimony of regenerate conscience'. Perkins differentiates between the presumptuous unregenerate 'believer' and the spiritually conscious, regenerate believer by the following:

1. Presumption is natural and from the very womb; but this testimony of conscience (in the redeemed) is supernatural.

2. Presumption is in them that make no account of the ordinary means of salvation: This (spiritual) testimony comes by the reverent and careful hear­ing of God's word.

3. Presumption is in them that usually do not call on the name of God: but this testimony of conscience (in the redeemed) is joined with the spirit of adoption which is the spirit of prayer.

4. Presumption is joined with looseness of life: this testimony brings with it always a happy change and alteration. For he who has a good conscience (in Christ) has also care to keep good conscience in all things.

The unregenerate conscience plagues the individual through the preach­ing of the Law and the holiness of God, while the regenerated conscience gives testimony and excuses in conjunction with the Holy Spirit to their state and standing with God, but the conscience which presumes his accept­ability with God is unresponsive to preaching toward genuine internal renovation and falsely reclines into a state of complacency. Although the Word which converts is 'contrary to the wicked natures of man', Perkins directed his evangelistic teachings at the presumptuous church member as well as the obviously ungodly. Because, for either the glaring sinner or the religiously refined unconverted 'believer', the potential penetration of the Word of God accompanied by the effectual operation of the Holy Spirit was their only hope; for all 'must use the means, or else should not be saved'. The Word of God is the sole instrument of God 'in the right use whereof, we receive the testimony of the Spirit, of our adoption, and are converted unto God'. The exceptional character of the influence of Scripture to convert individuals lies in two things:

1. Its power to penetrate into the spirit of man;

2. Its divinely empowered ability by the Holy Spirit to bind the conscience, that is, to constrain it before God either to excuse or accuse man of sin; therefore, mankind must seek salvation in Christ through the true preaching of it.

Perkins spells out in three fundamental arguments the case for seeking salvation through the hearing of preaching. First, there is the basic and sufficient fact that God commands all through the Scriptures to seek the kingdom of God. Second, committing oneself to the prescribed means of seeking, namely the hearing of the Word; for 'faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God' (Romans 10:17). This secures against the danger of presuming one's salvation. Third, and most important, there is the hope of 'finding' or securing the assurance of eternal life and gaining knowledge of one's election following the reception of saving faith, bestowed sovereignly and graciously by God through Christ Jesus.

The Divine Command in Scripture←⤒🔗

The command to repent and seek the mercy and grace of God encompassed in the doctrines of redemption is directly linked to the command to believe found in Scripture.

We are often commanded in God's Word, to draw near unto God, to seek him, to fear him, and to walk before him in his presence.

In stating this, Perkins, all throughout his Works, cites a very large number of Scripture verses. In his consideration of Matthew 7:13-14, Perkins reasons that the word 'finding' presupposes seeking. Wherefore those who presume their salvation without any previous notion of seeking (non-meritoriously) the mercy and grace of God in Jesus Christ are excluded from 'finding'. When Perkins states his case from Luke 21:36, we are bidden 'first to seek the kingdom of heaven', he says 'the kingdom of heaven is to be understood as mystical union with Christ or to be in Christ. And it is therefore the duty of man to 'hunger and thirst after Christ, and his righteousness'. For, accord­ing to Perkins' usage of Matthew 23:46, Christ and his kingdom are the 'fountain of all blessedness'. When Perkins reads John 5:29, 'search the Scripture', as commanding that 'we are hereby admonished with all care and diligence to read and meditate on God's Word', he is apprehending a divine command through Scripture conveying man's duty.

Hence, Perkins writes:

Duty. Having found out, and rightly valued this true treasure, we must seek to get it for ourselves, and make it our own; so did the man in the parable (Matthew 13:44) when he had found the treasure hid in the field; and so Christ here commands, lay up treasures for your selves.

Perkins follows with a prescription of how to obtain this treasure:

We must constantly use such means as God has appointed for this purpose: to wit, Hear the word of God preached, with all reverence, care and diligence, labouring to mix it with faith in our hearts ... (and) pray to God in faith earnestly and constantly for the pardon of our sins, and the fruition of this treasure.

The charge from Scripture to seek the righteousness of God and prepare for the kingdom of God is universal in scope. None are exempt, neither should those reared in the church assume their spirituality acceptable if it is deficient. Our profession of Christ must be able to stand up to examination. The seeker needs to acknowledge the depravity of man, come to humiliation and despair of his own ability, and rest in the sovereign grace of God through the atoning and justifying work of Christ.

Let us be found, therefore, conscious of these natural tendencies toward presumption and its dangers, and labouring to make our 'calling and election sure' through the Word of God.