Unknown County GaArchives Biographies.....Marshall, Jabez Pleiades unknown - 1832
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 January 31, 2005, 9:37 pm

Author: J. H. Campbell

JABEZ PLEIADES MARSHALL.

  Jabez P. Marshall was the eldest son of the venerable and lamented Abraham
Marshall. He had an only brother, and they were the only children of their
father; and as they were the children of rather his old age, like Jacob of old,
he entertained for them a peculiar fondness. Jabez grew up rather in a prodigal
way; full of the fashion and the pride of life, he exhibited very little regard
for religion, though his father took great care to bring him up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord. He was desirous also to afford him every opportunity
for improvement and for the acquisition of that knowledge •which he thought
necessary to his future usefulness. Still, however, Jabez was bent upon a course
of evil, frivolity and vanity. While at college in Athens, Georgia, he was very
wild, and seemed more like a son of an infidel than of a pious, gospel minister.
Some of his friends feared that all the care and expense of his anxious father
would be lost or turned to bad account.

  But it was pleasing to the Lord, about the time our young friend graduated, or
soon after, to bring his mind under serious conviction for sin. He saw himself a
sinner, justly condemned by the holy law and exposed to everlasting wrath and
misery. He knew not what to do. It was then that he inquired anxiously what he
must do to be saved? but could find no relief by all that he could do, until he
at length came to rely simply and alone upon Christ and him crucified. In him he
saw a righteousness every way sufficient to justify him against all the claims
of Divine Justice, to pardon all his sins, though mountain high in magnitude and
in number, and to render him accepted in the beloved. Upon this he united with
the church at the. Kiokee, and soon after began to exhort his fellow-men to flee
from the wrath to come. In due time he was licensed to preach, and not a great
while thereafter lie was ordained to the work of the ministry.

  There was something in our young brother, perhaps constitutional, which gave
him an air of vanity and fickleness, and from which many of his friends feared
for his success; but he rose above all their fears, and soon convinced them that
he was a chosen vessel of the Lord to be an able minister of the New Testament.
He succeeded his father in the pastoral office in the Kiokee church, in which he
served with increasing affection and usefulness until his death.

  As regards his religious sentiments, he was strictly a predestinarian. His
theme was free grace. He believed that man, as a sinner, is totally
depraved—dead in trespasses and sins, so that nothing good can be done until
that state is changed; and that this can be done alone by the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus. But still he held men to be morally bound to obey God, according
to his righteous claims on them as rational beings, accountable for the right
use of their natural powers, and justly condemned for not rendering them back to
God in holy obedience. That none did this, and consequently all were justly
condemned. He inculcated practical religion on professors as the only evidence
of a gracious state and the means whereby they can glorify God. He was a
thorough-going missionary, and engaged in all the benevolent plans of the day,
zealously advocating every scheme which seemed to be calculated to carry out the
commission and fulfill the commands of Christ.

  As a preacher he was studious, aiming constantly at a strict compliance with
the injunction of Paul on Timothy, regarding it as an injunction alike upon all
that minister in holy things: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." As
the priests were to bring none but beaten oil into the tabernacle for light, our
brother thought it wrong for him to bring discourses into the church, which cost
him no care, and in this sense attempt to worship God with unbeaten oil.

  In the delivery of his sermons he was clear, zealous and touching. Sometimes,
apart from his eccentricities, which were regretted by his friends, he was
eloquent and profound.

  As regards his general course, he was persevering, punctual and indefatigable.
His body was frail and his constitution, weak. It is believed his incessant
labors and the little care he seemed to take of himself, were the cause,
speaking after the manner of men, of his early removal. The immediate cause of
his death was the measles, which excited the latent diseases of his
constitution, baffled all medical skill, and terminated his earthly existence,
in April, 1832.


Additional Comments:
From:

GEORGIA BAPTISTS: HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL
BY
J. H. CAMPBELL,
PERRY, GEORGIA.


MACON, GA.: J. W. BURKE & COMPANY. 1874.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
J. H. CAMPBELL,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.



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