William Perkins’s (1558–1602) Case Divinity as a School of Christian Prudence

Abstract This article engages with the moral theology of William Perkins of Cambridge (1558–1602), with particular attention to his celebrated and influential case divinity. Perkins’s case divinity set the stage for a Protestant return to casuistical ethics, following the eschewal and neglect of such applied moral reflection in the initial phases of the Reformation. While his cases originally received a positive reception, more modern evaluations have been less approving. Perkins has been accused of attempting to curtail Christian liberty by forging codes of piety and morality that crowd out space for personal deliberation and judgment. This essay argues that such evaluations misapprehend Perkins’s casuistical enterprise, overlooking or obscuring its chief and ultimate aim, which is didactic rather than prescriptive.