250 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. with Mr. Vines, Mr. Caryl, and Dr. Seaman, to attend the commissioners at the treaty of the Isle of Wight, when he conducted himself with great ability and moderation. The house ofcommons having nowmany important affairs under consideration, Mr. Marshall and Mr. Nye, by order of the house; December 51, 1647, were desired to attend the next morning to pray with them, that they might enjoy the direction and blessing of God in their weighty consulta- tions.' In the year 1654, when the parliament voted a toleration of all who professed to hold the fundamentals of christianity, Mr. Marshall was appointed one of the com- mittee of learned divines, to draw up a catalogue of fun- damentals to be presented to the house.+ About the same time he was chosen one of the tryers. Awriter already mentioned, who employs thirty quarto pages in little else- than scurrility and abuse, gives the following account of him : " Because the church could not be destroyed without the king, who was more firmly wedded to it than Mr. Marshall was either to his wife or his first living ; the king, and all who adhered to him, and the church, must be destroyed together : to whose ruin Mr. Marshall contributed not a little. His thundering in all pulpits ; his cursing all people who were backward in engaging against 'him ; his encouraging all those whose villany made them forward in undertaking that great work, warranting them no small preferment in heaven if they would lay down their lives for the cause ; his menaces and private incitations, becoming drum-major or captain-general to the army, praying from regiment to regiment at Edge- hill. His religion stood most in externals : in a Jewish observationof the sabbath, praying, preaching, fasts, and thanksgivings. Under these specious shews," adds the un- worthy biographer, " the mystery of iniquity lay hid."1- Mr. Echaid, with his usual candour, denominates him " afamous incendiary, and assistantto the parliamentarians ; their trumpeter in their fasts, their confessor in their sick- ness, their counsellor in their assemblies, their chaplain in their treaties, their champion in their disputations ;" and then adds " This great Shimei, being taken with a des- perate sickness, departed the world mad and raving '."§ than which there never was amore unjust aspersion. Mr. Baxter, Whitlocke's Mem. p. 220, 257, 336. + Sylvester's Life of Baxter, part ii. p.,197-192. t Life of Marshall, p. 13, 17. t Echard's Hist. of Eng. vol. ii. p. 783.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=