Stephen Marshall

1594?-1655. Puritan divine. Born in Huntingdonshire and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he became lecturer at Wethersfield and then vicar of Finchingfield, Essex. During Archbishop Laud's supremacy he was often in trouble; his Puritan and Presbyterian influence in Essex was far-reaching from 1630 to 1655. In the electioneering for the Short and Long Parliaments of 1640 he was active on behalf of Puritans. He preached before the Long Parliament many times. He was a member of the Westminster Assembly* and one of the commissioners sent by it to Scotland. Despite his earlier Presbyterianism he cooperated with the Independents when they came to power in 1649. In Cromwell's state church he was a “Trier.” His most famous publications were sermons preached before Parliament—e.g., Meroz Cursed (1641). He died of consumption and was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his body was removed in 1661.