William Perkins — translated by Thomas Tuke from Perkins’ Latin Prophetica (1592) and printed in 1607; from the Text Creation Partnership’s transcription of that edition, keyed by hand from the page images.
The first Protestant manual of preaching in English, and the book that shaped the Puritan pulpit: the preacher is to read the text, give the sense, gather the doctrine, and apply it to the seven kinds of hearer. Perkins died in 1602, seven years before this translation; he is the elder to whom the Puritan divines in this section trace their method.
Spelling is as printed in 1607, where u and v, and i and j, are each still one letter — so vnto, haue and iudge are unto, have and judge. Note titles use the modern letterforms. A few words the transcribers could not read, and the Greek and Hebrew their transcription does not carry, are marked […].
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Contents (14)
- The Dedication to Sir William Armin
- To the Faithful Ministers of the Gospel
- What the Art of Prophesying Is
- Of the Preaching of the Word
- Of the Word of God
- Of the Interpretation of the Scriptures
- Of the Ways of Expounding
- Of the Right Dividing of the Word
- Of the Ways How to Use and Apply Doctrines
- Of the Kinds of Application
- Of Memory in Preaching
- Of the Uttering of the Sermon
- Of Conceiving of Prayer
- The Order and Sum of the Sacred and Only Method of Preaching