MARSHALL. 251 who knew him well, calls him "a sober and worthy man ; "5 and used to observe, on account of his great moderation, that if all the bishops had been of the same spirit as Archbishop Usher, the independents like Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, and the prebyterians like Mr. Stephen Marshall, the divisions of the church would soon have been healed. He was, indeed, taken ill, and obliged to retire into- the country for the benefit of the air, when the Oxford Mercury published to the world that he was distracted, and in his rage constantly cried out, that he was damned for adhering to the parliament in their war against the king. But he lived to refute the unjust calumny, and published a treatise to prove the lawfulness of defensive war, in certain cases of extremity. Upon his retirement from the city, he spent his last two years at Ipswich. His last words when upon his death-bed, according to Mr. Petyt, were, King Charles, King Charles, and testified much horror and regret for the bloody confusions he had promoted.+ This representation appears to be void of truth, and only designed to reproach his memory. For Mr. Giles Firmin, who knew him in life, and attended him in death, observes, in a preface to one of Mr. Marshall's posthumous sermons, " That he left behind him few preachers like himself; that he was a christian in practiceas well as profession ; that he lived by faith, and died by faith, and was an example to the 'believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, and in purity. And when he, together with some others, conversed with him about his death, he replied, 4 I cannot say, as one did,- I have not so lived that I should now be afraid to die; but this I can say, I have so learned Christ, that I am not afraid to die.' "t He enjoyed the full use of his understanding to the last ; but, for some months previous to his death, he lost his appetite and the use of his hands. He was justly accounted an admired preacher;§ but, to Sylvester's Life of Baxter, part ii. p. 199. + Grey's Examination, vol. iv p. 146. Neal's Puritans, vol. iv. p. 19. § Mr. Marshall was certainly a useful as well as admired preacher, of which the following instance is preserved on record :-Lady Brown, wife to an eminent member of the long parliament, was under great trouble about the salvation of her soul. For some time she refused to attend upon public worship, though it had formerly been her great delight. She asked what she should do there, and said it would only increase her damnation I In this state of mind she was persuaded, and almost forced to hear Mr. Marshall; when the sermon was so exactly suited to her case, and so powerfully applied to her mind, that she returned home in transports of joy.-Calamy's Contin. vol. i. p. 467.
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