Truth To Wonder: Mini Biographies of Evangelicals

Born in Warwickshire, in 1558, William Perkins was one of the great forming minds of Puritanism. His theological insights and understanding would go onto to become part of the bedrock of Christianity in the New World of the American Colonies. As a result, the impact of his life is still felt by hundreds of millions to this day.

Though William was a gifted academic, studying at Christ’s College in Cambridge, William was far from being a model student. His drunkenness, lewd language, and debauched behaviour made him the talk of the area. It is said that on one of William’s drunken nights, he was in his room at university and heard an angry mother scolding her child outside the window. He heard the mother say to the child, that if they didn’t start behaving, she would hand them over to “drunken Perkins”. Dismayed at hearing this, William determined to change his ways, so that no longer was he the scourge of the town. Whether or not this tale is correct is unknown, but what we do know is that his depraved behaviour did dramatically change when William came to faith in Christ, during his Masters studies.

William fervently applied his faith as he visited local jails so that he could share the Gospel with the inmates. Alongside his earnest witnessing, William became lecturer at Great St Andrew’s Church (a post he held up to his death in 1602). He also became a fellow at Christ’s Church College, a post he held from 1584 to 1595. During his time as preacher/lecturer of Great St Andrew’s, William’s popularity grew and grew, with his ministry becoming one of the most impactful throughout England. 

William’s primary concern was that faith should be lived, and that theological study should have the goal of strengthening ‘personal piety’. William wanted his students to study the Scriptures diligently, but to then apply this Biblical knowledge to their lives, so that they grew in fellowship and communion with God. This application of Scriptural knowledge would therefore become the foundation for a correct and consistent living witness of the power of the Gospel. 

William’s experience as a church pastor had been crucial in this desire for the everyman to have a rich and daily lived faith, based upon the Biblical truths recovered in the Reformation. Part of this desire was also fuelled by the rigidity of faith that had descended on the Church of England in the latter half of the 1500’s. William was keen to emphasise the need of personal renewal in faith, and that this was the source of the strength of the Church, not legislative enforcement of religion. 

William’s intellectual ability was evident for all to see in his published work, A Golden Chaine (1590). In this impressive work, William looked to explore the life of a Christian in view of God’s eternal decrees of predestination. This investigation was broken down into a detailed chart of salvation that furthered the work of Theodore Beza’s insights from his 1555 publication, Tabula Praedestinationis. Though a remarkably intellectual work, William’s investigation and sub-division of a Christian’s life in Christ, and therefore the building of their relationship with Jesus, was designed to reflect the rich existence that a life of faith can yield. It looked to explore the commonly faced issues of a believer’s life and place them in relation to the life of Jesus in the flesh of man. Thus, giving a reference point to look to and be encouraged by in our life of struggles and stages as a Christian.

This then highlighted how Puritanism, as taught by William Perkins, looked to give personal relevance to the great theological issues explored in the Reformation. William took weighty, daunting intellectual topics and heavy theological insights, and made them relevant and understandable to the average believer. 

His work then, furthered the work of the Reformation by releasing its glories from the university halls and giving it to the average Christian. All so that they could live its merits in their daily life, and thereby reap its deep spiritual fruits. Indeed, the merits of Puritanism in the western world cannot be discussed without acknowledging the immense significance of William Perkins. A man delivered from true wickedness of ways, so that the grace and mercy of God could be known by many at a deep and personal level. This he shared through his own experience of the glory of Jesus Christ.