]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1658 August 28.]
of exciting remarks in a superstitious age; and, though the storm reached
to the coasts of the Mediterranean, in England it was universally referred
to the death-bed of the protector. His friends asserted that God would not
remove so great a man from this world without previously warning the nation
of its approaching loss; the Cavaliers more maliciously maintained that the
devils, "the princes of the air," were congregating over Whitehall, that
they might pounce on the protector's soul.[1]
On the third night afterwards,[a] Cromwell had a lucid interval of
considerable duration. It might have been expected that a man of his
religious disposition would have felt some compunctious visitings, when
from the bed of death he looked back on the strange eventful career of his
past life. But he had adopted a doctrine admirably calculated to lull and
tranquillize the misgivings of conscience. "Tell me," said he to Sterry,
one of his chaplains, "Is it possible to fall from grace?" "It is not
possible," replied the minister. "Then," exclaimed the dying man, "I am
safe; for I know that I was once in grace." Under this impression he
prayed, not for himself, but for God's people. "Lord," he said, "though a
miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with thee through thy
grace, and may and will come to thee for thy people.
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