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.