about him. He returned from no place by
the direct road, or by the same way which he went. Every journey he
performed with hurry and precipitation. Seldom he slept above three
nights together in the same chamber; and he never let it be known
beforehand what chamber he intended to choose, nor intrusted himself
in any which was not provided with back doors, at which sentinels were
carefully placed. Society terrified him, while he reflected on his
numerous, unknown, and implacable enemies: solitude astonished him,
by withdrawing that protection which he found so necessary for his
security.

His body, also, from the contagion of his anxious mind, began to be
affected, and his health seemed sensibly to decline. He was seized with
a slow fever, which changed into a tertian ague. For the space of a
week, no dangerous symptoms appeared: and in the intervals of the
fits he was able to walk abroad. At length the fever increased, and he
himself began to entertain some thoughts of death, and to cast his
eye towards that future existence, whose idea had once been intimately
present to him; though since, in the hurry of affairs, and the shock of
wars and factions, it had, no doubt, been considerably obliterated. He
asked Goodwin, one of his preachers, if the doctrine were true, that
the elect could never fall, or suffer a final reprobation. "Nothing more
certain," replied the preacher. "Then I am safe," said the protector;
"for I am sure that once I was in a state of grace."

His physicians were sensible of the perilous condition to which his
distemper had reduced him; but his chaplains, by their prayers, visions,
and revelations, so buoyed up his hopes, that he began to believe his
life out of all danger. A favorable answer, it was pretended, had been
returned by Heaven to the petitions of all the godly: and he relied
on their asseverations much more than on the opinion of the most
experienced physicians. "I tell you," he cried with confidence to the
latter, "I tell you, I shall not die of this distemper: I am well
assured of my recovery. It is promised by the Lord, not only to my
supplications, but to those of men who hold a stricter commerce and more
intimate correspondence with him. Ye may have skill in your profession;
but nature can do more than all the physicians in the world, and God
is far above nature."(*) Nay, to such a degree of madness did their
enthusiastic assurances mount, that, upon a fast day, which was observed
o