Thomas Shepard’s “Parable of the Ten Virgins”
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Thomas Shepard’s “Parable
of the Ten Virgins”
I. Introduction
Thomas Shepard was a dissenting minister born in 1605; he fled to New England for reasons of conscience after narrowly escaping arrest in 1635, and he died at Boston, New England, after an exemplary pastorate, in 1649. “The Parable of the Ten Virgins” was first published in 1659. It is a collection of his sermon notes, a little expanded, for weekly lectures on Matthew 25 delivered between June 1636 and May 1640. Formally the work is not easy to follow, though the matter itself is pure gold. Most of the reader’s difficulties spring from the fact that the work is simply an expansion of the preacher’s notes, e.g. uneven style, lack of balance in various sections, some sections verbatim, others condensed. There are texts without references, but above all, an amazing (even for a Puritan!) proliferation of divisions and sub-divisions. As each new verse or portion of a verse comes under consideration, there are one or more Doctrines (or obs[ervations]), i.e. formal propositions of a general scriptural truth carefully and concisely expressed. Then follow multitudes of sub-divisions. There are many omissions and incorrect numerations among these. There would be much work for a modern editor here—the reader of any early version would be wiser not to try to grasp the structure of the work on any scale greater than that of the paragraphs of the page he is reading. These remarks are valid even for the 1855 edition (King, Aberdeen and Nelson, London) used in the preparation of this paper and to which all page numbers refer.
The style is elliptical and even cryptic, conjunctions and adverbs are often omitted and thus the tone of voice and the connection of the thought is not always as clear as it might have been. The language is homely, and often vividly illustrative, e.g. a comment on the self-righteous who will not apply to the Great Physician: “Kitchen physic is not far to fetch” (40); a remark on those who “never yet loved the Lord Jesus unless it be from the teeth outwards” (44); or on the sinful extreme of “swallowing down all the flies that be in the cup” by thinking too charitably of all that profess faith. The man under temptation is described as being like a “poor laden horse when spur-galled and the load heavy” who will “lie down in the highway till rest and provender be given him” (591). Or this longer illustration, reflecting Shepard’s own journey to the New World, perhaps: “Men that live on land and love the smoke of their own chimneys, never look out to other coasts and countries or to a strange land, but seamen that are bound for a voyage and have a pilot with them that has seen the coast they look for; so men that live in this world and are well here look not after Christ and his coming, but they have a pilot, the Spirit to show them this day, this coast” (140).
The content of the work is not purely exegesis—the length makes this obvious—nor is it even solely theological in the narrow sense. In each new section when a new verse or part of a verse or Doctrine comes under consideration, we progress from exegesis to theology and thence to practical divinity, the application of the truth to Christian experience. It is this which forms the vast bulk of the work, which makes it a characteristic Puritan masterpiece and forms the work’s great and lasting claim to the title of an evangelical masterpiece.
II. Exegetical Principles
It would be as well first to see the broad lines on which Shepard expounds the parable. “It is clear that by the kingdom of heaven here is meant the external kingdom of Christ in this world, that is, the visible church . . . in which kingdom some are wise, some foolish, all profess Christ, look for the coming of Christ, for salvation from Christ” (20). Though the ideal is a completely pure church “all church members are and must be visible saints . . . virgins espoused to Christ, escaping the pollutions of idolatry and the world” (29), yet “there is and will be a mixture of close hypocrites with the wise hearted virgins in the purest churches” (178), and the subject of the parable and of Shepard’s exposition is therefore the characteristics and detection of the Gospel hypocrite. The time spoken of he takes to be particularly the days immediately preceding the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, yet the truths in the parable are capable of a more general application to the church throughout the gospel age (27–29). The fact that five were wise and five foolish simply suggests, says Shepard, that “a great part were sincere and a great part false,” for we must not “rack and torment parables” but “chiefly look unto the scope” (i.e. aim, intention) of them (178). It is worth noting in passing that Shepard does give sober and yet detailed teaching of the events preceding the Second Coming of Christ in judgment in the course of his exposition (482ff.).
III. Theological System
Throughout his work, though in no way a slave of a man-made system, Shepard shows a firm grasp of the biblical theology, the doctrines of grace sometimes labelled “Calvinism.” As with all the other great Puritans, this is the source of the strength, the warmth, and the depth of Shepard’s preaching. In this work we find the great scriptural truths evident in their practical application.
1. Election. In explaining how hypocrites in virgin churches reveal themselves, at least before the Lord, in a neglect or an ineffectual use of the means of grace, he writes, “This neglect is one of the great means by which God executes His eternal rejection of men, and hence here they ever do fail. . . and hence, as all the elect are to be certainly carried through all means to their end, and this is proper to them, so hence the best hypocrite, being never appointed certainly to come to this end, ever fails in the use of means, there he is and shall be forsaken of God and forsake God” (231). Ultimately all depends upon God and His electing decree.
2. The plan of salvation. In explaining the duty of constant readiness to meet Christ, Shepard ends the consideration of one verse thus: “Look over all the Lord’s love, turn over all the leaves of it. The Lord has called me. Why? Because Christ has redeemed. And why that? Because the Father has chosen. And why me? To glorify His grace. And why me rather than another? No reason, but He would. This, I doubt not, will be the work of heaven, I am glorified because called, because redeemed, because elected” (108).
3. Perseverance. In explaining how the graces of the Spirit are constant and eternal in the souls of the faithful, Shepard says, “See how far they fall short of saving grace who serve the Lord by fits and starts and whose hearts follow after the Lord and make much of the Lord only in good moods . . . That is not the Spirit of grace which accompanies salvation which is alive today but dead tomorrow” (344).
4. Justification and sanctification are inseparable, for the man who, for Christ’s sake, is accounted righteous is being made righteous by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. “The Lord doth not only out of the riches of His grace accept us in Christ, but out of the same love sends down the Spirit of grace . . . the Lord works thereby such a change as is not to be found in the most refined hypocrites breathing” (203). Or, as is pointed out in another connection, “Hence see the deceit of that sinful opinion, that (maintains that) true sanctification is to see that I have no sanctification; and cleanness of heart to see nothing but uncleanness . . . poverty of spirit is a grace peculiar to them that shall have the kingdom of heaven, but to see no grace is common to those that shall be shut out of the kingdom” (437–38).
5. Hell. The punishment of the unsaved is a dread reality. “The loss of God is the greatest loss, for it is the utmost and the last plague upon the damned in hell” (36)—such words recur as a solemn warning on many occasions. We may not be happy about the idea that the souls of the damned are in “Satan’s custody” or “in the hands of devils” (549–50) but in reaction to such mediaeval inventions let us not discard the thoroughly scriptural warning of the danger of eternal torment, which (though a motive of fear) is used on more than one occasion by Shepard. “God hath sanctified affliction, death, and the fear of them for this end: to awaken the secure sinner . . . it is not hypocrisy to be awakened partly by fear to the apprehension of these things . . . the awakening of conscience is that whereby the Lord prepares for grace” (414). The same reasons would clearly be given by Shepard if accused of moving men by the fear of hell.
IV. Christian Experience
Christian experience is analysed and depicted by a master hand in “The Parable of the Ten Virgins.”
1. Its beginnings. The gospel ordinarily first comes to the soul through the word preached by a minister, for there “the Spirit of Grace is most abundantly dispensed” (471). The offer of Christ’s love comes to all men and to every individual man, it is a real, earnest, and completely free offer of mercy (567–70), and there are no possible objections which are valid on behalf of those who reject it (570–72). To close with Christ a man must, of course, know something of Him. As a couple see and know something of each other before they are espoused, so there must first be “an act of understanding” (117), and a man must come to know Christ, not by report, from His works, by bare letter (i.e. a mere theoretical knowledge), but in the glory of His person, covenant, and grace. Then comes faith which “pitches on and closeth with the person of Christ Himself, for Himself,” not with some righteousness He may give, or with the promises alone, or for peace, consolation, or joy, but with Christ Himself (117–131). And such a committal immediately involves separation, for “whoever looks for everlasting communion with the Bridegroom of the church, Jesus Christ, must be virgins divorced from all others, and espoused only to Jesus Christ” (30).
2. Its continuance. In one sense, much of the book deals with the continuing of the Christian in the way of grace, but there are three useful and characteristically Puritan emphases which recur in Shepard’s work. Firstly, the Christian is not to expect an easy way; indeed, things will in all probability go hard for him, but he is to remember that all God’s dealings with him have one ultimate purpose—to advance the glory of His grace. “Do you not observe it? Sometimes you shall find the Lord so strangely carrying matters as if he did not love nor care for His people, against the hair and grain of their desires, and when all comes to winding up, it is to advance grace. All a man’s good days and bad days, all God’s frowns and smiles, all the Lord’s food and physic, all God cares for, works for, plots for it is to do His people no more hurts than this—to advance His grace in them and by them, all His hewings and hammerings of you, nay, His knocking you to pieces and new melting and casting of you, it is that you may be vessels of His glorious grace, that you may be able to live in the air of God’s grace; to suck in and breathe out grace, and let all the power of hell seek to blur it, yet grace shall conquer” (102). Secondly, Christians must expect to be kept hungry and empty, and cut short of many spiritual blessings which they might reasonably claim. This is the Lord’s will. They do not get peace and rest in this world “that they might lay up their peace and find all in Himself,” they are not allowed to seek and find too much good in themselves and from themselves “that they might look for help and righteousness in another.” All blessedness, all supply of our many wants, we are to obtain in Christ, and in particular the free grace and love of the Father, eternal life, conquest, and victory over all our enemies and the immutable certainty of standing and persevering in the state of grace (113–15).
3. There is the important duty of exhorting one another. “We shall find that, as it is in a town where men are all asleep, one bell-man, one waking Christian will keep life and spirit and the power of godliness in many, and when he sleeps, all are fast. Nothing in the World brings security sooner upon men than sleepy company . . . O let every man get up and fall to this work of mutually exhorting! go visit one another, go and speak often to one another” (360). This, Shepard goes on to say, is part of our warfare—indeed, if we neglect it, the backsliders’ sins will be ours. We must know our brethren, enquire about them; if we cannot help more positively, then we must “relate our own condition” and even “speak often of the sins of others” and perhaps enter into a solemn engagement to exhort one another; in particular we should “provoke one another to frequency in ordinances,” e.g. prayer meetings, fasts, etc.
4. Its dangers. There are many dangers, and the book abounds in practical warnings and advice. Slackness may follow a good beginning: “Many Christians at their beginnings grow and thrive and abound in the fruits of righteousness—but afterward (are) so poor and ragged. O the two or three first years, how frequently in prayer, meditation! O what sorrow and peace! but after this, now they can find little good they can get, little growth they make, unless it be downward; little life they have, and what ado to keep it, or to get a good spiritual meals meat! This is the reason of it: when they first began, then the enemy was out and they were up and . . . conquered and had the spoils, but since they have grown secure and loved to sleep” (375). Besides sleepiness there is the poison of love for the worldly which may be found even in God’s dearest saints, “in their hungry lustings and dropsy desires after the sweet things of this world for there may be “inordinate lustings after lawful things in themselves” (159). On page 538 Shepard mentions seven choking sins, but, as we might expect from his subject matter, it is spiritual slumber which most engages his attention; it is analysed in all its varied initial stages, of which eight degrees are specified (368–70). As a result of a Christian’s becoming slack or stumbling, he may become impoverished and useless; he may draw upon himself the chastisement of his heavenly Father in various corrective providences, sickness, loss of dear ones (521) and other calamities, and finally he may even become unready to meet Christ, as is movingly described in the following passage: “Hence see the reason why some godly people die so uncomfortably and with such distress of spirit—they have not lived in an expectation of Christ, and hence they cry out themselves; they thank (their ministers) for their love but God has otherwise thought of them . . . and what is the reason of it? What need I speak? (They) themselves will tell you, and have done it ‘O I have lived thus and thus before you, but my heart in secret has gone after the world . . . I have neglected the Lord secretly. I have seldom thought of or prepared for death, and I had thought to have been better but the Lord has met with me . . .’ As it has been with some, so take warning lest it be so with you; you may be saved alive, yet to suffer wreck upon the shore is uncomfortable” (77).
V. The Gospel Hypocrite
If this parable proves one thing for Thomas Shepard, it is the reality and importance of one problem—the existence of the gospel hypocrite. This follows from his exegesis of the parable, but he is never tired of underlining and analysing it. It is his main theme: there are those in the church who are not of it, members of the church visible who belong not to the church invisible, those who seem to have been weaned from the world but who are yet not joined to Christ. We may only touch on a very few of the aspects under which this theme is examined in the course of the work.
1. The gospel hypocrite and common grace. God works all good that exists or comes into existence; there are many who have a kind of faith that is not saving faith, but who are yet assiduous in Christian duties. Their power to live thus comes from God, but it is his work in common grace, not the work of his saving grace, special grace. “Unto some men especially . . . the Lord gives a power to act and live and move and to do many spiritual duties; or good duties from themselves . . . Now how comes this about? Why, the Lord gives that power to act . . . Hence all terrors and comforts and duties of conscience are from God, so the historical faith of the Gospel, which many have . . . and joy from this, and reformation of life upon this, none of these are natural to the soil of a man’s soul, but all are planted there by God” (53).
2. The knowledge of Christ which does not save is a subject into which Shepard enquires in detail, for “foolish virgins may have some light in their lamps, some sight and knowledge of Jesus Christ.” He then goes on to show what this knowledge may consist of (297–99)—knowledge born of “common fame and human private instruction . . . as (for example ) that Christ is the Saviour of the world, is come, is dead, is risen, is at God’s right hand, that in Him God’s justice and mercy is reconciled, that there is mercy with Him for the greatest of sinners, etc.” Such non-saving knowledge, again is all that can be ascribed to those who have seen Christ in the flesh with their own eyes, eaten and drunk with Him, moreover, seeing Him in His wonderful works and glorious kingdom and government, noting the deliverance of His people, etc., this will not save; the same may be said of a man who has a clear apprehension of the letter and teaching of Scripture about Christ. Neither will a man be saved by raptures, ecstasy and visions whose subject is Christ.
3. The work of the Spirit of God in hypocrites. The great and often striking enlightenment that some men experience who are yet proved not to be true believers is to be attributed directly to the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit of God comes upon many hypocrites in abundant and plentiful measure of awakening grace . . . as upon Balaam . . . the grace and Spirit of God come suddenly and plentifully upon many a man, which gives them a time of flourishing; it comes not from imitation or education or moral persuasion only, but physically from the Spirit of God . . . (but) it is only awakening grace, for renewing grace savingly to change their nature is not given . . . and though it doth come upon them thus, yet it doth never rest within so as to dwell there, to take up an eternal mansion for Himself . . . hence it doth decay by little and little as a man that dwells not, but sojourneth for a little time in a house” (428), and the passage continues with the examples of King Saul and the branch that is withered in John 15. In the following section, Shepard goes on to show how grace decays in such persons.
4. Varieties of hypocrisy are most searchingly delineated on many occasions, as for instance when Shepard is dealing with the inward principle from which men act. The great question is whether “all my sorrows, prayers, reformation, profession is but a paint, an appearance, a fashion, a church-craft” (270). Thus, a man is a hypocrite, a foolish virgin in the sense of the parable, first, “when a man’s principle is nothing but the power of created nature expressing itself and setting the best face forward, in the gilded rottenness of some moral performances, wherein a man saith that he does what he can.” Second, “when a man’s principle is the power of holy example, whereby many a one is drawn to do more than he otherwise would . . . it sometimes falls out that the Lord sets before men’s eyes some pattern Christians; hereupon they think thus: here are two contrary ways, they cannot both lead to heaven, their way is better than mine and doubtless leads to life, mine doth not, therefore let me live like them.” Third, “those whose principle is nothing but external applause and praise of men, and this will carry a man beyond all the best examples, nay, sometimes to be singular and a man alone; a Pharisee’s trumpet shall be heard to the town’s end, while simplicity walks through the town unseen.” Fourth, there are “those whose principle is nothing else but their own gain of outward blessings”; and fifth, “those whose principle is nothing else but the strength of natural conscience, which will set men a-doing, when they have neither praise from men, not gain from Christ from their labour.” Sixth, in this section we have “those whose principle is the fear of death and hell, raised not so much by the power of conscience as by the power of the Word.” In the whole of this section (271–75), Shepard’s acute mind works faithfully on the data of Scripture, and the headings above do scant justice to the searching exegesis (and indeed, the remarkable psychological insight) of the New England divine.
5. The experience of the gospel hypocrite is compared with that of the truly regenerate in the following moving passage, which finds many echoes in other parts of the work. “Hypocrites have awakening grace, and are much troubled; they have enlightening grace and know more than many Christians: they have affecting grace, and are wonderfully taken with the glad tidings of the Gospel, but satisfying grace, or that grace that brings them to full rest, and satisfying sweetness in God, not only to their consciences but to their hearts . . . this they never came to . . . this is the last end and fruit of the redemption of Christ so to satiate as not to desire other things, and there to stay, though the heart doth oft not feel the same sweetness” (452).
We are not surprised to find that on more than one occasion Shepard imagines a conversation between himself and a hypocrite, and in each case the objections are solemnly and scripturally answered, the objectors experience is dissected and then contrasted with the experience of a real saint, and an exhortation to true repentance and faith in Christ follows (e.g. 190–91).
VI. Conclusion
Thomas Shepard’s “Parable of the Ten Virgins,” some of the main themes of which we have examined above, is certainly a lengthy and involved work. We might almost say that it demands a special technique of the reader who would read it to his profit. But despite what has been said about the presentation of the material, and the occasional scholastic hair-splitting which not every reader will find justified, the work can only be classed as a masterpiece of the thorough, sound, and practical Reformed Christianity which we associate with the names of the very greatest Puritans. The exegesis is meticulous, sane, and balanced. The doctrine has breadth, depth, and height; it is massive and intensely moving, as is the word from which it is dug. Shepard’s aim is to make every man examine himself in the light of Scripture, and the tone is experimental and urgent throughout. In its healthy solemnity and the amazing depth of its biblical psychology, it puts twentieth-century evangelical Christianity to shame. Yet this is our inheritance. This man preached our gospel. The issues at stake in the gospel made him preach arid write as he did. “O! the heavy wrath of God on a world of poor, blind ignorant men that have no hope, no hope of Christ, no hope of glory unless a flattering dead hope. What a sad thing it is to think of a number of men that are buried in the world, and never to awaken till they see Christ in the clouds of heaven coming to be revenged on them. O! methinks I see them down before the judgment Seat and crying out ‘O! that we had known of this day! O! Alas that I had hope! but not such an hope, but am now deceived.’ O! It is otherwise with saints; they shall find that they hoped for, and infinitely more . . . behold the Lord cometh that shall deliver and redeem them! O! see their blessedness and let it draw you to make up a match with Christ, that never did it yet. He has been wooing of you, longing for you . . . Give thyself this day to Him and take Him only, when nothing thou hast can be so pleasing to Him. And now you may look and believe what one day you shall feel to your everlasting comfort” (146).
Discussion centred upon the pastoral problems presented by the existence of “gospel hypocrites,” who profess the truth, exhibit the appearance of good works (they do what Christians are expected to do), and have some kind of love, joy, and peace (they like Christians and Christian society, and feel happy), yet are not genuinely regenerate. It was agreed that there is no “standard experience” of conversion whereby true converts may infallibly be distinguished from others: for there is no aspect of Christian experience, taken in isolation, which cannot be counterfeited in the experience of a hypocrite. The chairman summed up as follows:
(i) We must recognise how real, constant, and universal is the danger of self-deception as to one’s spiritual state. Shepard’s warnings speak to every Christian’s condition. Self-examination is every Christian’s need and duty.
(ii) The gospel hypocrite’s fault is that God’s will and glory and his own relationship to God, never become his chief concern. In times of revival, religion is “in the air,” and such times produce a crop of “temporary believers,” swept along by the movement, though never heartily committed to God. Any vigorous religious movement may produce hypocrites in this way: indeed, the ordinary life of the churches does so constantly. But the problem is to discern the hypocrite, and to enable him to discern himself and to see his lack, of which he himself is unaware.
(iii) The safe rule for discerning such cases is to take and apply all the scriptural tests of true faith (for which see 1 John, etc.) together. None alone can yield a sure diagnosis. This is the real point of Shepard’s constant insistence that this feeling, that experience, that attitude of mind, is by itself no infallible sign of grace—though the point that all the tests must be applied together is partly obscured by the minuteness and detail of his analysis of each one separately. The truth is that regeneration affects the whole man, but the hypocrite’s temporary faith does not; hence he is lacking somewhere, though not everywhere. A synoptic view of him in the light of all the tests will most quickly show us the truth about his condition.
(iv) We must preserve the balance of scriptural truth in teaching this subject. Too much emphasis on self-scrutiny reflects a morbid depression in ourselves (as it did in Shepard, who was notoriously a melancholic) and induces a similar depression in those we instruct. Morbid introspection is sin, and has nothing to do with scriptural self-examination.