To all ignorant people that desire to be instructed.

Poor people, your manner is to soothe up yourselves, as though ye were in a most happy state: but if the matter come to a just trial, it will fall out far otherwise. For you lead your lives in great ignorance, as may appear by these your common opinions which follow:

1. That faith is a man's good meaning, and his good serving of God.
2. That God is served by the rehearsing of the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed.
3. That ye have believed in Christ ever since you could remember.
4. That it is pity that he should live which doth any whit doubt of his salvation.
5. That none can tell whether he shall be saved or no certainly: but that all men must be of a good belief.
6. That howsoever a man live, yet if he call upon God on his death-bed, and say, "Lord have mercy upon me," and so go away like a lamb, he is certainly saved.
7. That if any be strangely visited, he is either taken with a planet, or bewitched.
8. That a man may lawfully swear, when he speaks nothing but the truth, and swears by nothing but that which is good, as by his faith, or troth.
9. That a preacher is a good man no longer than he is in the pulpit. (They think all like themselves.)
10. That a man may repent when he will, because the Scripture saith "At what time soever a sinner doth repent him of his sins, &c."
11. That it is an easier thing to please God than to please our neighbour.
12. That ye can keep the commandments as well as God will give you leave.
13. That it is the safest to do in Religion as most do.
14. That merry ballads and books, as "Scoggin," "Bevis of Southhampton," &c. are good to drive away the time, and to remove heart-qualms.
15. That ye can serve God with all your hearts, and that ye would be sorry else.
16. That a man need not hear so many Sermons, except he could follow them better.
17. That a man which cometh at no Sermons, may as well believe, as he which hears all the Sermons in the world.
18. That ye know all the Preacher can tell you. For he can say nothing, but that every man is a sinner, that we must love our neighbours as ourselves, that every man must be saved by Christ: and all this ye can tell as well as he.
19. That it was a good world, when the old Religion was, because all things were cheap.
20. That drinking and bezeling in the ale-house or tavern, is good fellowship, and shews a good kind nature, and maintains neighbourhood.
21. That a man may swear by the Mass, because it is nothing now, and by the Lady, because she is gone out of the Country.
22. That every man must be for himself, and God for us all.
23. That a man may make of his own whatsoever he can.
24. That if a man remember to say his prayers every morning (though he never understand them) he hath blessed himself for all the day following.
25. That a man prayeth when he saith the Ten Commandments.
26. That a man eats his Maker in the Sacrament.
27. That if a man be no adulterer, no thief, no murderer, and do no man harm, he is a right honest man.
28. That a man need not have any knowledge of religion, because he is not book-learned.
29. That one may have a good meaning, when he saith and doth that which is evil.
30. That a man may go to wizards, called wise men, for counsel: because God hath provided a salve for every sore.
31. That ye are to be excused in all your doings, because the best men are sinners.
32. That ye have so strong a faith in Christ, that no evil company can hurt you.

Those and such like sayings, what argue they but your gross ignorance? Now where ignorance reigneth, there reigns sin: and where sin reigns, there the devil rules: and where he rules, men are in a damnable case.

Ye will reply unto me thus: that ye are not so bad as I would make you. If need be you can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments: and therefore ye will be of God's relief, say all men what they will, and you defy the devil from your hearts.

I answer again, that it is not sufficient to say all these without book, unless ye can understand the meaning of the words, and be able to make a right use of the Commandments, of the Creed, of the Lords Prayer by applying them inwardly to your hearts and consciences, and outwardly to your lives and conversations. This is the very point in which ye fail.

And for an help in this your ignorance, to bring you to true knowledge, unfeigned faith, and sound repentance, here I have set down the principal points of Christian religion in six plain and easy rules - even such as the simplest may easily learn - and hereunto is adjoined an exposition of them word by word. If ye do want other good directions, then use this my labour for your instruction. In reading of it, first learn the six Principles; and when you have them without book, and the meaning of them withal, then learn the exposition also: which being well conceived, and in some measure felt in the heart, ye shall be able to profit by Sermons, whereas now ye cannot; and the ordinary parts of the Catechism, namely the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the institution of the two Sacraments, shall more easily be understood.

Thine in Christ Jesus,

William Perkins.