some perhaps will take notice of God's working, who either forgett or believe not that he takes as well a care and account of thei r smallest concernmenl8, even the haires of their heads . Finding myselfe in some kind gnilty of this generall neglect, I thought it might be a mcanes to stirre up my tha.nkefulnesse for things past, and to encourage my faith for the future, if I recollected, as much as I have heard or can remember, of the passages of my youth, and the genera]] and particular proviclcnccs exercis'd to me, both in the entrance and progress of my life. Il crein 1 meete with so many speciall indulgences as require a distinct consideration, they · beinp; all of them to be regarJed as talents in trusted to my emproovement for God's glory. Tbc parents by whom I rcceiv'd my life, the places where I began and continued it, the time when I was brought forth to be a witnesse of God's wonderfull workings in the earth, the rank that was given me in my generation, and the advantages I receiv'cl in my person, each of them carries aiJong with it many mercies which are above my utterance, and as they give me infinite cause of glori(ying God's goodnesse, so I cannot reflect on them without deepe humiliation for the small emproovement I have made of so rich a stock; which that I may yet by God's grace better employ, I shall recall and seriously ponder: and first, as farre as I have since learnt, sett downe the condition of things in the place of my nativity a t that time when I was sen t into the world . It was on the 29' ' day of January, in the yeare of our Lo rd 16 ~{ that in the Tower of London, the principall citie of the Engl ish Isle; I was about 4 of the clock in the morning brought forth to behold the ensuing light. My father was Sr. Alien Apslcy, lieftenani of the Tower of London; my mother, his third wife, was Lt1cy, the youngest daughter of Sr. John St. J ohn, of Lidiard Tregoz, in Wil tshire, by his second wife. lVIy father haJ then living a. sonne and a daughter by his former wives, and by my mother three sons, I being her eldest daughter. The land was then att peace, (it being towards the·
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