Note 414 — Chapter IV

And, what they must have felt very acutely, he would not go to hear them preach. A writer of that time informs us that, even in 1648, when Cromwell was in Edinburgh, ‘he went not to their churches; but it is constantle reported that ewerie day he had sermons in his oune ludginge, himself being the preacher, whensoewer the spirit came upon him; which took him lyk the fitts of an ague, somtyms twise, sometyms thryse in a day.’ Gordon's Britane's Distemper, p. 212. In 1650, according to another contemporary, ‘he made stables of all the churches for hes horsses quhersoeuer he came, and burned all the seatts and pewes in them; riffled the ministers housses, and distrayed ther cornes.’ Balfour's Annales of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 88. The clergy, on the other hand, employing a resource with which their profession has always been familiar, represented Cromwell as opposing Providence, because he was opposing them. Rutherford (Religious Letters, reprinted Glasgow, 1824, p. 346) says, that he fought ‘against the Lord's secret ones;’ and Row (Continuation of Blair's Autobiography, p. 335), under the year 1658, triumphantly observes: ‘In the beginning of September this year, the Protector, that old fox, died. It was observed, as a remarkable cast of divine providence, that he died upon the 3d of September, which he, glorying of routing of our armies at Dunbar and Worcester on that day, used to call his day. On that same very day the Just Judge called him to an account,’ &c.