iá II ;. 10 MEMOIRS OF PERIOD J!, going afterward to the like meetings, he turned a very devout boy. To bind myfelf to diligence in feeking the Lord, and to fir The up thereto, I made a vow, topray fo many times a-day : howmany times, I cannot be pofitive ; but it was at leaft thrice. It was the goodnefs of God to me, that it was made only for a certain definite fpace of time ; but I found it fo far from being a help, that it was really a hinderance to my devotion, making me more heartlefs in, and averfe to duty, through the corruption of niy nature. I got the time of It driven out accordingly : but I never durst make another of that nature fince, nor fo bind up myfelf, where God had left. me at liberty. And it háth been of fume good ufe to me, in the courfe of my after life. The fchool -houfe being within the church-yard, I was pro- videntiallymade to fee there, within an open coffin, in an unripe grave opened, the confuming body juft brought to the confiftence of thin mortar, and biackifh : the which made an'impreslìon on me, remaining to this day ; whereby I perceive, what a loathfome thing mybody mutt at length become before it be reduced toduft; not to be beheld with the eye but with horror. In the courfe of years fpent at the grammar- fchool, I learned the Latin rudiments, Defpauter's grammar, and all the authors, in verle or prole, then ufually read in fchoois ; and profited above the rest of my own .clafs, by means of whom my progrefs was the more flow. And before I left the fchool, I, generally, faw no Roman author, but what I found myfelf in fbme capacity to turn into English : but we were not put to becareful about proper English. Towards the end of that time, I was alío taught Voffius's Elements of rhetoric ; and May 15. 1689, begun the Greek, learned fome parts of the New Testament, to wit, fume part ofJohn, of Luke, and of the Aóts of the Apoftles. And helping the above- mentioned Patrick Dillies, in the Roman authors, in our spare' hours, I learned from 'trim, on the other hand, fore of'the common rules of arithmetic, being but a lorry writer. And this was the education I had at fchool, which I left in harveft 1639, being then aged thirteen years, and above five months. PERIOD H. From my leaving the grammarfchool, to my laureation. BETWEENmy leavingof the grammar-fchool, and my en- tering to the college, two years intervened. And here be- gan more remarkablymybearing of theyoke of trial and afllicîion, the which laid on in myyouth, has in the wife difpolàl of holy Providence, been from that time unto this day continued, as my ordinary lot ; one fcene of trial opening after another. Prelacy being abolished by aóì of parliament, July ee. 16899
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