In his very influential book, and one of the first of its kind, The Act of Prophesying, Perkins sums up his idea of the plan a preacher should follow. Perkins did not invent this plan, although he did popularize it and it is the basis for all his sermons. Perkins said the preacher should plan:

1. To read the text distinctly out of the canonical scriptures.

2. To give the sense and understanding of it, being read, by the scripture itself.

3. To collect a few and profitable points of doctrine out of the natural sense.

4. To apply, if he have the gift, the doctrines rightly collected, to the life and manner of men in a simple and plain speech.

The sum of the sum

Preach one Christ by Christ

to the praise of Christ.11

Although Perkins placed a great deal of stress on the interpretation and message of the gospel; he was equally concerned about the messenger of the gospel. The lifestyle of many of the Anglican clerics was a constant scandal to the Puritans. In Perkins' A Commentary on Hebrews 11 he emphasizes the importance of the minister's life as well as his doctrine. Commenting on the phrase in Hebrews 11:4, "being dead yet speaketh" Perkins writes that "There is a double teaching, namely, in word, or deed ... It sufficeth not for him to teach by vocall sermons, that is, by good doctrine; but withall by reall sermons, that is, by good life: His faith, his zeale, his patience, his mercy, and all other his vertues must speake, and cry, and call to other men to be like him: which if he practise carefully in his life as Abel did, then shall his vertues speak for him to all posterities when he is dead."12 (my emphasis)

Perkins summed up the call for godly pastors when he said that the preacher "... must first be godly affected himself who would stir up godly affections in other men."13 The pastor's duty was to preach, minister the sacraments, and to pray.

Characteristic of most Puritan preaching, and Perkins as well, was the centrality of the word of God in preaching. The Puritans were opposed to preaching that was ornate, artificial, and that exalted the preachers intellect rather than Christ. Perkins was a true scholar who studied the arts, philosophy and read widely; yet in the pulpit he concealed all of his study so as "not to make the least ostentation." Seventeenth-century church historian, Thomas Fuller, pays Perkins the greatest tribute when he states that Perkins "did distill and soak much deep scholarship into his preaching, yet so insensibly that nothing but familiar expressions did appear."14

Utmost in William Perkins' preaching was the application of the word of God to everyday life. His goal in preaching was nothing less than "holy reformation" of character and action. The need for personal application of biblical teachings was one of many reasons the Puritans gave for rejecting the prescribed homilies of the Anglican liturgy. The homilies of Perkins' day often failed to give specific application to the local situations that pastors and congregations faced.