Oedipus Perkins The Ironman Analysis

Since Perkins’s wrote the homiletic handbook of his day, it is safe to assume that he followed the method he proposed therein. The purpose of this section is to determine if Perkin’s practiced his own homiletic laid out in The Art. As a result, those interested in the study of Perkins’s preaching will have a model of his method, a minor deficiency of The Art.
Though Perkins’s definitely practiced the art of prophesying, few of his sermons exist. The main reason may be attributed to his belief and practice of delivery. Perkins’s held to a position that sermons should be extemporaneous. Furthermore, he dissuaded student from the memorization of manuscripts. Also, many of Perkins’s exegetical work and expositions were later compiled, edited, and published as commentaries. Therefore, the only extant sermon “An Exhortation to Repentance” will be analyzed.
Perkins’s offered a summary of what preaching involved at the end of The Art. According to Perkins, Preaching involves:
1. Reading the text clearly from the canonical Scriptures.
2. Explaining the meaning of if, once is 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.

Perkins’s sermon will be analyzed in light of this summary. The structure of the sermons will be assessed according to explanation, doctrine, and application. Then, the nature of the passage (analogical or cryptic) and Perkins’s exposition of it according to the principles he set forth will be discussed, including his practice of unfolding the doctrine of a passage. Finally, His application of the biblical doctrine will be considered.
Perkins based his sermon entitled “An Exhortation to Repentance” on Zephaniah 2:1–2.
Perkins classified Zephaniah as a prophetic book. Perkins began his sermons with exegetical material. He set both the historical and textual context of the text. In holding to his teaching regarding the interpretation of Old Testament prophecy, he addresses both God’s judgment on the sins of the people as well as the deliverance of the church.
Perkins started with and explanation of the text and moved to his listeners as he explained judgment and deliverance. For example, he explained that Zephaniah called the people of Israel to search themselves due to the coming judgment God had decreed. In the same manner, Perkins called England to “search themselves” in light of coming judgment. He then pointed his hearers to the only source of deliverance, Christ. “Humble your hearts to God cry and call for pardon as for life and death,” Perkins pleaded with his hearers, “purpose and promise to leave them [your sins], begin a new course of life, believe steadfastly and doubt not of pardon and forgiveness in the blood of Christ.” In the end, Perkins structured his sermon according to the genre of the text.
During his explanation of the text, Perkins used an analogy.

Though he advised against the used of such devices, he argued that they might be used sparingly, appropriate to the matter at hand, brief, and for instruction. One of the two he used met all requirements. He used the illustration of traveling along a narrow bridge at night to illustrate the idea man is not able to discern his state of misery unless he first searches himself. At first this might have seemed out of place, however, considering the context, it makes perfect sense. Perkins was preaching at a buyer and sellers fair. Therefore, people would have been traveling along dangerous

roads.
Perkins then proceeded to address the doctrines he had gathered from the text, repentance:
1. The duty to be performed, Search.
2. Who must be searched, yourselves.
3. Who must do it, the Jews, who are further described to be a nation not worthy to be beloved of God: these are in the first verse.
4. In the second verse, the time limiting them when to repent, before the decree come forth; that is before God hath put in execution the judgments which are already decreed and appointed for them.
5. A forcible reason urging them to do it which lieth hid and is necessarily implied in the fourth point, namely that there is a decree against them which wants nothing but execution.

Perkins’s doctrine teachings exhibited clear and direct biblical authority, discernable by numbers three and four’s textual references.
He then unfolded each of the five doctrinal points, moving from generals to particulars. For example, Perkins stated that Zephaniah called Israel to search themselves twice, emphasizing the need to search oneself with regard to repentance. “In thus repeating and urging the exhortation the Holy Ghost gives them and us to understand that the true searching of a man’s heart and life is a duty of great moments and special necessity. . . . Thereby showing that it is a principal duty in repentance, even the beginning and foundation of all true grace.” Perkins’s moved from the general idea of searching oneself in regard to repentance to a more particular understanding that such practice is the beginning and foundation of repentance.
Perkins application came after his unfolding of the doctrines. He introduced this section by reference to the “use.” The category of hearers Perkins sought to apply the text to was the church (saved/lost). Perkins discernment of such practiced matched his context. In the introduction to this sermon, Breward noted that Perkins preached it at a buyer and sellers fair, which Puritans used to “propagate” their idea among the people. It follows, then that Perkins listeners would have been either lost or saved.
Perkins sought to bring the lost to repentance by humbling them. He toiled to make sinner aware of their state of misery:
Entertain the Word of God in thy heart, submit thy soul unto it, let it pierce and try and ransack they heart, and lay before thee thy wretched estate by sins: and when thou seest they nakedness and misery, confess it, bewail it, be humbled for it, cry and call for mercy and forgiveness, pray against they special sins, strive to purge them out as the poison of they soul, crave grace from God against thy sins.

Perkins sought to spur those who were saved on towards sanctification and a pursuit of holiness. As an example, Perkins addressed those who “fear the Lord,” saying, “I turn unto you that fear the Lord and to you I direct my warning. Search, O search and try your hearts and lives, renew and revive your faith and repentance.”
In the analysis of one of Perkin’s sermons, His exhibited the use of all the principles he developed in The Art. His explanation of the text was straightforward. He did not use many illustrations or analogies. Though some were evident, Perkins employed them according to the method he suggested. He unfolded the doctrine of the text in a manner that moved from the generals to the specifics. His use of application coincided with the appropriate category of hearer, the church. In the end, Perkin’s sermons on Zephaniah 2:1–2 provides a great example of Perkins’s homiletic method.