Godly sorrow causeth grief for sin, because it is sin. It makes any man in whom it is to be of this disposition and mind, that if there were no conscience to accuse, no devil to terrify, no Judge to arraign and condemn, no hell to torment, yet he would be humbled and brought on his knees for his sins, because he hath offended a loving, merciful, and longsuffering God.

William Perkins (1558–1602) was an influential English cleric and Cambridge theologian, receiving both a B.A. and M.A. from the university in 1581 and 1584 respectively, and also one of the foremost leaders of the Puritan movement in the Church of England during the Elizabethan era. Although not entirely accepting of the Church of England's ecclesiastical practices, Perkins conformed to many of the policies and procedures imposed by the Elizabethan Settlement. He did remain, however, sympathetic to the non-conformist puritans and even faced disciplinary action for his support. Perkins was a prolific author who penned over forty works, many of which were published posthumously. In addition to writing, he also served as a fellow at Christ's College and as a lecturer at St Andrew's Church in Cambridge. He was a firm proponent of Reformed theology, particularly the supralapsarian theology of Theodore Beza and John Calvin. In addition, he was a staunch defender of Protestant ideals, specifically the five solae with a particular emphasis on solus Christus and sola Scriptura.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Perkins_(theologian)

Election is God’s decree “whereby on his own free will, he hath ordained certain men to salvation, to the praise of the glory of his grace.” Reprobation is “that part of predestination, whereby God, according to the most free and just purpose of his will, hath determined to reject certain men unto eternal destruction, and misery, and that to the praise of his justice.”

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William Perkins (1558-1602) -Soul-winning champion of orthodoxy

October 2002 | by Jonathan Moore

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Picture the scene. On a tall, wooden scaffold stands a man dressed in rags and with his hands bound. His dark eyes are full of horror as he flinches before the jeering crowd, many of whom have brought rotten eggs and fruit to throw at him.

The hangman’s noose is set round his neck and he is brought to stand over the trap door. Chilling cries arise from a few among the teaming crowd. ‘Die, thou man of death!’ ‘Filthy villain!’ ‘To hell with thee!’

But as the hangman’s hand is raised, and the people hold their breath for the final execution, a piercing voice of authority ascends over the top the crowd. ‘Halt forthwith!’

Worse than death

A stout Puritan minister, with stiff white collar and Geneva Bible clutched under his arm, appears at the base of the scaffold. Awkwardly but quickly he climbs the ladder, one of his hands being malformed, and steps onto the platform in front of the doomed criminal.

The wretched convict already appears to be in agony of mind. The Puritan minister demands: ‘What is the matter with thee? Art thou afraid of death?’

The prisoner denies it, shaking his head, and says he is afraid of something far worse. ‘Sayest thou so?’ asks the minister. ‘Come down again man, and thou shalt see what God’s grace will do to strengthen thee’.

So, with the hangman’s consent, the minister takes him back down the ladder and makes him kneel with him at the foot of the scaffold.

According to the Puritan biographer Samuel Clarke, ‘that blessed man of God made such an effectual prayer in confession of his sins … with the horrible and eternal punishment due to the same by God’s justice, as made the poor prisoner burst out into abundance of tears’.

Hand of mercy

Clarke continues: ‘Finding that [the minister] had brought him low enough, even to hell gates, he proceeded to the second part of his prayer, and therein to show him the Lord Jesus (the Saviour of all penitent and believing sinners) stretching forth his blessed hand of mercy and power to save him in that distressed estate, and to deliver him from all the powers of darkness.

‘Which he did so sweetly press with such heavenly art and powerful words of grace upon the soul of the poor prisoner, as cheered him up again to look beyond death, with the eyes of faith, to see how the black lines of all his sins were crossed and cancelled with the red lines of his crucified Saviour’s precious blood.

‘So graciously [did the minister apply the gospel] to his wounded conscience, as made him break out into new showers of tears for joy of the inward consolation which he found, and gave such expression of it to the beholders, as made them lift up their hands, and praise God to see such a blessed change in him;

‘Who (the prayer being ended) rose from his knees cheerfully, and went up the ladder again so comforted, and took his death with such patience and alacrity, as if he actually saw himself delivered from the hell which he feared before, and heaven opened for the receiving of his soul, to the great rejoicing of the beholders’ (Clarke, Marrow of Ecclesiastical History, 1654, pp. 852-53).

Crossed swords

This was one day in the life of Master William Perkins, an outstanding Puritan divine of late sixteenth-century Cambridge. His preaching every Lord’s Day at the local jail was blessed to the conversion of many prisoners, Perkins ‘being moved with pity towards their souls’ (Clarke, p.851).

But surely such a zealous and evangelistic preacher was an Arminian? Surely his conviction that the most unlikely sinners could be saved, must have been borne of a belief in the innate goodness of man and human free will?

At the very most, Perkins would have been an exceedingly moderate Calvinist, who would say little about predestination and would quietly withhold such things from the people? For belief in predestination is incompatible with such a concern for souls and such an attitude of expectancy — right?

Wrong! Perkins was a strict Calvinist and a renowned champion of a full-orbed Reformed orthodoxy. In fact it was Perkins who crossed swords most fiercely with Jacobus Arminius himself, in a series of rival publications and international debates.

Unambiguous

Perkins abhorred Arminianism for, in his view, it made Christ only a ‘half redeemer’ (Perkins, Works, 1616-18, II:622). Perkins was consumed with a desire for the glory of God in salvation, and clearly taught to a Christocentric, ‘double-predestinarian’ scheme.

The latter term refers to the teaching that God predestines the non-elect to hell as truly as he predestines the elect to heaven. Perkins argued from Romans 9:21 that everyone ‘is unto God, as a lump of clay in the potter’s hand: and therefore God according to his supreme authority doth make vessels of wrath, he doth not find them made’ (II:610; emphasis added).

For Perkins, redemption was unambiguously ‘particular’. Concerning the substitutionary death of Christ, he taught that ‘the price is appointed and limited to the elect alone by the Father’s decree, and the Son’s intercession and oblation’.

Christ (he continues) ‘doth not sacrifice for those for whom he doth not pray: because to make intercession and to sacrifice are conjoined: but he prayeth only for the elect’ (II:609).

Perkins did not shy away from stating bluntly of the reprobate that God ‘giveth them no Saviour. For Christ is only the Redeemer of the Elect, and of no more’ (I:415).

“The heart of all preaching is to preach One Christ, By Christ to the praise of Christ.” – William Perkins

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Distinctives

Nor did Perkins feel it necessary to soften his Reformed distinctives in the realm of preaching the gospel to sinners.

He taught that ‘ministers of the gospel ought indifferently to exhort all and every one to repent’ (II:608). But he did not resort to the kind of equivocal language which suggests that God somehow desires to save those whom he had already foreordained to destruction. Such an approach, Perkins believed, could lead only to Arminianism.

According to Perkins, God does not desire to save the reprobate, nor does God suffer frustration or conflict of will concerning them. Yet this does not render the gospel call insincere, ‘for by this means’, declares Perkins, ‘he shows unto them the riches of his grace, and declares that they perish by their own fault’ (II:625).

But if God would have all men to be saved, he asks, then why are they not all saved? The answer would have to be that ‘men will not keep the condition [accept God’s terms] and believe’. But that, he protests, ‘is flat to hang God’s will upon man’s will; to make every man an emperor, and God his underling’ (I:295).

Rather, he continues, ‘God sometimes giveth a commandment [to repent and believe] not that it should be actually done, but that men may be tried, and that they may be convicted of their natural infidelity before God in the last judgement’ (II:625).

Standard fare

This theology was not closet Calvinism, confined to the ivory towers of Cambridge colleges. True enough, Perkins moved in academic circles throughout his working life. Born in Warwickshire in 1558, Perkins entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1577.

Having been made Fellow in 1584, he took up the only other position of his career in 1595, namely, lecturer at St Andrew the Great, Cambridge, a post he held until his death on 22 October 1602, exactly 400 years ago.

Yet Perkins’ theology was standard and popular fare in Elizabethan England. Between 1590 and 1618 the primary publishing house in Cambridge printed approximately 210 books. Of these Perkins wrote no fewer than fifty.

These books comprised not only weighty Latin tomes for the benefit of European scholars, but also plain English devotional volumes suited to the spiritual needs of the simplest believer.

Modern scholars today concur in styling Perkins as the most eminent English Reformed theologian of the late sixteenth century. But Perkins was also formative in promoting a deeply experiential and practical Calvinism, which was characterised as much by a compassion for souls as a zeal for correct doctrine.

At the four-hundredth anniversary of this great man’s death, we would do well to reconsider the life and teaching of this father of Puritanism. Let us pray that God in his mercy would raise up in our day what Perkins was in his — soul-winning champions of orthodoxy

INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.evangelical-times.org/27554/william-perkins-1558-1602-soul-winning-champion-of-orthodoxy/

"He who would be a faithful minister of the gospel must deny the pride of his heart, be emptied of ambition, and set himself wholly to seek the glory of God in his calling." – William Perkins

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When the word of God takes place in our hearts by faith, and brings forth in our lives the fruits of righteousness and true repentance, then we may truly say, the Kingdom of heaven is in us.” – William Perkins

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Quote in context

Taken from the link below.

https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/perkins/perkins_prophesying2.pdf

XI. PUBLIC PRAYER

We have been considering the preaching of the Word. Now, finally, something

should be said about leading in public prayer. This is the second aspect of

prophesying. In it the minister is the voice of the people in calling upon God (1 Sam.

14:24; Luke 11:1).

In this connection we should note the following points:

1. The subject of public prayer should be, first, the deficiencies and sins of the

people, and then the graces of God and the blessings they stand in need of (1 Tim. 2:1,

2). Tertullian says, 'We do all pray for all emperors, that they may obtain a long life, a

quiet reign, a safe family, courageous armies, a faithful council, loyal subjects, a

peaceable world, and whatsoever things are desired of a man and of Caesar.' Again,

'We pray for emperors for their ministers and powers, for the state of the time, for the

quietness of their affairs, and for the delaying of their death.' The Lord's Prayer covers

these areas under six headings: God's glory, God's kingdom, and our obedience, the

preservation of life, the forgiveness of sins, and the strengthening of the spirit.

2. The form of prayer should be as follows: One voice, that of the minister alone,

should lead in prayer, the congregation joining in silently but indicating their

agreement at the end by saying, 'Amen' (Neh. 8:6; Acts 4:24; 1 Cor. 14:16). This was

the practice in the early church, as Justin says: 'When the president has finished his

prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present cry out with a favourable

approbation, saying, Amen.'

3. But the one voice which expresses the corporate prayers of the congregation

needs to be understood (1 Cor. 14:15). It should not lead in prayer in a jagged and

abrupt fashion, but with a steady flow of petitions, so that empty repetitions are

avoided (Matt. 6:7).

4. There are three elements in praying: (i) Carefully thinking about the

appropriate content for prayer; (ii) Setting the themes in an appropriate order; (iii)

Expressing the prayer so that it is made in public in a way that is edifying for the congregation.

To the Triune God be the glory!

SUMMARY

Preaching involves:

1. Reading the text clearly from the canonical Scriptures.

2. Explaining the meaning of it, once it has been read, in the light of the

Scriptures themselves.

3. Gathering a few profitable points of doctrine from the natural sense of the

passage.

4. If the preacher is suitably gifted, applying the doctrines thus explained to the

life and practice of the congregation in straightforward, plain speech.

The heart of the matter is this:

Preach one Christ,

by Christ,

to the praise of Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria

To God alone be the glory!

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Predestination is God's eternal decree by which He foreordained to glorify Himself in some people as vessels of mercy and to show His justice in others as vessels of wrath. – William Perkins

Predestination is not meant to make Christians cold.

It should make us humble.

If salvation rests ultimately on God’s mercy, then there is no room for boasting. We were not wiser, stronger, or more deserving than those who remain in unbelief. We were dead in sin, and God showed mercy.

That truth should not produce arrogance toward the lost.

It should produce compassion.

We do not know whom God will call tomorrow. The bitter skeptic may become a brother. The hardened sinner may become a worshiper. The person who seems furthest from Christ may be one sermon, one conversation, or one providence away from being brought to life.

So we preach Christ freely.

We pray for the unbelieving.

We plead with sinners to repent.

And when anyone comes to faith, we give God the glory.

Election reminds us that mercy is truly mercy.

Justice reminds us that God owes salvation to no one.

And the gospel reminds us that everyone who comes to Christ will be received.

So hold these doctrines with trembling hands, a humble heart, and tears for the lost.

The God who saves sinners is still saving them.

- Cody Hurd
The Pilgrim’s Post