William Perkins was an Elizabethan divine and the author of an influential manual on preaching. Prophetica, sive De sacra et unica ratione concionandi tractatus (1592), which was translated by Thomas Tuke as The Arte of Prophecying, or A Treatise Concerning the Sacred and Onely True Manner and Methode Of Preaching (1607), was known throughout Protestant Europe and in the American colonies. Theologically Perkins was a Puritan, though he repudiated the label. His writings emphasize the importance of faith and individual conscience to daily life; he also believed that worship and church structure should be governed by Scripture and was negative toward religious images. For the most part he repudiated separatism because it undermined the authority of the magistrate, advocating reform from within the established Church of England; and although he remained attentive to theological controversy, he focused chiefly on the importance of preaching and pastoral care.

As a theologian Perkins...