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CLASS OF 1676.

Thomas Shepard,

Thomas Brattle,

Jeremiah Cushing.

QUESTIONES

Pro modulo Discutienda,

SUB REVEREND O

URIANO OAKES,

ECCLESIÆ CANTABRIGIENSIS PASTORE, ET HARVARDINI COLLEGII

In Cantabrigia Nov-Anglorum

Præside pro tempore,

PER INCEPTORES IN ARTIBUS IN COMITIIS PRIDIE IDVS SEXTILES

MDCLXXIX.

N Detur in Deo Scientia media?
Negat Respondens Thomas Shepardus.

AN notitia Dei sit homini naturalis?

Affirmat Respondens Thomas Brattle.

His accedit Oratio Valedictoria.

VOL. II. 31 [January 31, 1881.]

THOMAS SHEPARD.

Born 1658, died 1685, aged 26.

REV. THOMAS SHEPARD, M. A., of Charlestown, Massachusetts, son of the Reverend Thomas Shepard, of Charlestown, H. U. 1653, was born at Charlestown 3 and baptized 4 July, 1658; "the only one of our ministers,' says Budington, "who was a baptized child of this

church."

...

Cotton Mather says he was "his Grandfather's and his Father's Genuine Off-spring. Yea, such a Similitude of Spirit, there was descending from the Father to the Son, and from the Son to the Grandson in this Holy Generation, that albeit, they were all of them severally Short-lived, the Two First not living much more than Forty, and the last not so much as Thirty Years in the World, yet there might a sort of Jointed Longevity be ascribed unto the Generation."

This son "would not only on the Lord's Days, while he was yet a Boy, so notably repeat by heart in his Father's Family, all the Heads of the Longest Sermons preached in the Publick, that it might have served for a sufficient Repetition, instead of using the Notes usually produced on such Occasions."

He attained "unto such Learning, as gave him an Early Admission into the Colledge, and raised great Hopes in good Men concerning him." His father gave him, in "Writing a Paper of Golden Instructions, directing his Behaviour, while he should continue a Student in that Society." And he "did make the Heart of his Worthy Father to rejoice by his Conscientious and Exemplary Attendance unto these Instructions."

The date of Shepard's admission to the church is not recorded, but a portion of his address on the occasion,

which is an account of his religious experience, is printed in Cotton Mather's Magnalia.

At the Commencement in 1679, when he took his second degree, he maintained the negative of the question "An Detur in Deo Scientia media?"

A short time after his father's death, in 1677, the church in Charlestown gave a unanimous call to Joseph Browne, H. U. 1666, as has been mentioned already on page 207, and the committee to communicate the call were instructed to inform him that the church "had an eye to Mr. Shepard for office-work in convenient time, and therefore they desired him to encourage and draw him on to preach as speedily" as might be. It appears to have been the intention to settle Browne and Shepard as colleagues, but Browne gave an answer in the negative.

After this the committee were desired to provide transient help, "and likewise some of the brethren desired, that they would use means to obtain a settled supply as soon as might be." The committee agreed to invite Shepard to preach one sermon, "that so, having a taste of the gifts and graces of God bestowed upon him, that then" they "might have the precedency of any other people in that matter." But it was considered necessary to obtain an "officer sooner than" Shepard "was like to undertake such a work." Several persons were named, and "transient help" procured.

As was desired by the church, Shepard preached one sermon, "his First Sermon," 19 May, 1678, before he was twenty years of age, from "Exod. 15. 2. He is my Father's God, and I will exalt him," and "with a very Charming, Solid and Serious Gravity." The church were so well pleased that they invited him to preach again "in order to office."

Another candidate, Daniel Russell, H. U. 1669, of whom I have spoken on page 285, was proposed at a

church meeting 9 June. After several meetings and much animated discussion, growing principally out of the fact that Shepard had not been communicated with in the movements about calling Russell, the church, 22 July, voted to call both the candidates.

Favorable replies were made by them. The opposition to Russell continued, and an ecclesiastical council was called. Russell died, as Shepard writes, "of ye small-pox ... soon upon his acceptance of a call to join with mys. in ye ministry."

Shepard was ordained 5 May, 1680, by John Sherman, of Watertown, and received the right hand of fellowship from President Oakes. He preached his own ordination sermon from Hebrews xiii. 20, "That great Shepherd of the sheep." Another sermon was preached on the occasion, from Ezekiel xxxiii. 7, "Son of man, I have set thee a watchman," at the conclusion of which the young minister was earnestly and affectionately commended to the congregation. "Pray for him in particular, and that ev'ry Day! Who knows what God may do for you, in him, and by him, as in and by his Father before him? Let it be your Prayer, that He would take of the Spirit, that was in his Father and his Grandfather; who were both of them Great Men in their Generation, and bestow thereof a Double Portion upon him."

Shepard did not succeed his father to the office of teacher, but "was separated unto the work of the ministry and ordained pastor of the church"; and from this time the distinction between pastor and teacher in the church was lost.

He was to have "£100 per annum and the usual allowance" for "what transient help he see cause to get for the supply of the ministry."

He was admitted freeman at the May session of the Legislature in 1680.

Mather says, "The Lord encouraged his Holy Labours by making of such Additions unto his Church, as few Churches in the Country for the time had the like.”

'Although he were a Young Man, . . . he made the most Judicious of his People pass this Judgment on him, that he was no Novice: And such an Example was he In Word, in Conversation, in Civility, in Spirit, in Faith, in Purity, that he did Let no Man despise his Youth. By the Gravity by his Deportment he kept up his Authority among all sorts of Persons, and by the Courtesie of it he won their Affection."

...

"When he came to have a Family of his own, it was a Well-Ordered One: He Morning and Evening read in it a Portion of the Scripture, and then pray'd out of what he read: But on the Satur-day Nights, he chose to Repeat a Sermon, commonly what had been preached on some Lecture the foregoing Week, or One of his deceased Father's; and on Lords-Day Nights he Repeated the Sermon of the Day foregoing. And while he made his House a Bethel, for the Devotion therein performed; he made it a Bethesda, for the Hospitable Entertainment which he gave unto those that repaired unto him."

Mather dwells with special unction on his private fasts, and takes occasion to enlarge upon their value. His "Piety was accompanied with proportionable Industry, wherein he devoured Books even to a Degree of Learned Gluttony. ... He had hardly left a Book of Consequence .. in his Library which he had not so perused as to leave with it in an Inserted Paper, a Brief Idea of the whole Book, with Memorandums of more Notable Passages occurring in it."

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"When he was going to compose a Sermon, he began with Prayer. ... Having finished his Composure, he concluded with a Thanksgiving to the Lord, his Helper."

In "a Time, when a Conjunction of Iniquity and Calam

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