II. Shepard Kingdom to Be Established by Second Advent

The second New World interpreter of prophecy was THOMAS SHEPARD, or Shepheard (1604-1649), Calvinist pastor at Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was born in Towcester, England. Possessed of a precocious mind, he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, when only fifteen. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in 1623 and 1627 respectively. In the latter year he was ordained and became a lecturer at Earles-Colne for three years, and for the same period at his native Towcester, with many conversions resulting. But he, too, was silenced and unfrocked by Bishop Laud of London, for his nonconform ity, and was forbidden to “preach, read, marry, bury,” or to exercise any ministerial function. ^{62New England is under obligation to Archbishop Laud for sending to the colonies their ablest and noblest men. It was his intense hatred of nonconformity, and the persistence and cruelty with which he scoured all England to hunt out the ministers who were committing the unpardonable sin of dissent, that accomplished this result. See Tyler, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 204.} Things could not continue on indefinitely in this fashion.PFF3 42.5

Shepard studied the ceremonies of the Established Church, but disliked them increasingly. Going to remote Yorkshire and then to Northumberland, where the bishops also oppressed him because of Laud’s attitude, he determined to leave England. The departure of John Cotton and others for America led him to take shipping for New England. Shepard reached Boston in 1635, and later moved to Cambridge. He was again ordained in 1637 and became pastor at Newtown (Cambridge). Admirer and friend of John Harvard, he had to do with the selection of Cambridge for the location of Harvard College, which became a reality in 1638.PFF3 43.1

Shepard was famed as a pulpit orator, though unprepossessing in appearance and frail in body. A tireless worker and preacher, Shepard was active in the controversies of his day, especially with Catholicism, and also in opposing the Antinomians. In 1644 he asked the commissioners of the united colonies to found scholarships for needy students. He wrote sixteen works, such as The Sincere Convert (1640), some passing through many editions. In 1647 he was responsible for the publication of the Cambridge Confession of Faith, which was legally recognized by the General Court as the Platform of the Congregational Church of Massachusetts. Deeply interested in the Indians, he wrote The Clear Sunshine of the Gospel Breaking Forth upon the Indians in New-England (1648). ^{63Published posthumously from transcripts of sermons. See Cotton Mather, Magnalia, Book 3, The Second Part, chap. 5 sec. 16, p. 90.} A profound thinker and vigorous writer, he made his most important contribution from the viewpoint of prophetic exposition in The Parable of Ten Virgins Opened & Applied (1660). He taught expressly that the wheat and the tares would grow together until the end, the separation not coming till the judgment. After fifteen years’ witness Shepard died at the early age of forty-four.PFF3 43.2

Picture 2: COLONIAL AMERICAN WRITERS ON PROPHECY
This Imposing Body of Colonial American Writers on Prophecy (up to 177b), and the Early National Expositors Following, Are Here Shown in Panoramic Survey. The Life Span Is Indicated, as Well as the Religious Affiliation and the Dates of Their Individual Expositions. The Wide Range of Professions—Ministers, Teachers, Publishers, College Presidents, Physicians, Judges, Governors, Legislators, Librarians, Editors, and Other Public Officials—Is Noteworthy. At the Extreme Right, the Leading Early Interpreters in the Nineteenth-Century Advent Movement Are Tabulated, With Their Writings, to Show Their Chronological Relationship to the 200-Year Colonial Background; Such Is the Over-all Picture of American Expositors Up to the Nineteenth Century. The Slight Repetition of Those Tortious of the Chart Nearest the Separating Space Between the Pages Is to Facilitate the Complete Reading of Each Page
page 44PFF3 44

1. PROGRESSIVE EVENTS OF LAST DAY PORTRAYED

Shepard held that at the sound of the last trump the “dead arise,” and the living are translated. ^{64Thomas Shepard, The Sincere Convert, p 82 (G3v). (Pages wrongly numbered; hence the folio designations as guide.)} He also strongly stressed Christ’s personal, literal, glorious advent in the flaming heavens. ^{65lbid., p. 83 (G3r)} “First Antichrist must be consumed,” and then “Christ shall breake out of the third heaven and bee seene in the aire, before any dead arise and this shall be with an admirable shout, as when a King commeth to triumph over his subjects and enemies.” Then Christ, with the “voyce of the arch-angell,” appears in the clouds of heaven. Next, “the bodies of them that have dyed in the Lord shall rise first, then the others that live, shall like Enoch, be translated and changed, 1 Corinthians 15.” ^{66Ibid., p. 82 (G3v).} Finally, the elements shall melt, and the sinners will cry for the rocks to hide them. ^{67Ibid., p. 83 (G4r).}PFF3 44.1

2. DAYS OF NOAH REPEATED BEFORE ADVENT

Writing on the “state of the times,” “about the days of his [Christ’s] coming,” Shepard declared they will be sensual and degenerate, as in the days of Noah. ^{68Thomas Shepard, The Parable of the Ten Virginis Opened & Applied [part 1], chap. 1, sec. 1, p. 2.} These days Christ singled out as signs of the times. Christ will then come in power and glory to inherit the kingdom. ^{69Ibid., chap. 3, sec. 1, p. 9.} Shepard warns against carnal security and drowsiness. ^{70Ibid., part 2, chap. 1, sec. 2, p. 2.}PFF3 45.1

“For the blessed appearing, and glorious coming of Christ Jesus at his first coming, 1 Peter 1:10, 11, 12. they searched after, and waited for his coming, and rejoyced to see that day; so should we now for his second.” ^{71Ibid., chap. 19, p. 202.}PFF3 46.1

3. TRIBULATIONS OF ANTICHRIST’S REIGN PRECEDE ADVENT

The cutting off of Antichrist by or before the advent is clearly stressed:PFF3 46.2

“With some things which shall be before His coming, viz. subtill and strong delusions, mixt with sore tribulations and oppressions, especially in the time of Antichrist’s raigne, as also great confusions, in all hearts and Churches, if not throughout all the world after the tribulation of those daies; And then (saith he) verse 30. shall appear the sign of the Son of man, and he shall be seen coming in power and great glory.” ^{72Ibid., [part 1], chap. 1, sec. 1, p. 2.}PFF3 46.3