The fourth part of the true watch containing prayers and teares for the churches. Or A helpe to hold up the hearts and hands of the poorest servants of God, untill our Lord Iesus Christ shall have rescued his glorie, kingdome, and people in all the world, and fully prepared the way to his most glorious appearing.

III. A prayer that wee may be a∣ble to seeke and finde this first, that God is our graci∣ous and tender Father in Christ, and that we may grow in this assurance daily.

[Father] OH deere Father,* 1.1 and most bles∣sed Lord God, perswade all thy people, that this is that which is first to bee sought of every one of us next thy glo∣rie, & aboue all other things; to bee assured that thou art our gracious and tender Fa∣ther,

that so each of us may in faith call upon thee, saying truly as our Saviour hath taught us, Abba, Oh Father. That this assurance alone be∣ing rightly considered of, that thou art our heavenly and lo∣ving Father, will quiet our* 1.2 heart, or the heart of any be∣leever in all the world, & will fill it with unspeakeable joy in the middest of the greatest troubles & temptations, that can possibly befall us.

And contrarily, make every* 1.3 one of thy people to know for certaine, that the very doubting and want of assu∣rance, whether we bee in thy favour and love or no, and much more, whether we bee thy Children, will worke ex∣treame disquietnesse and hor∣ror in our soules, when once our consciences shall bee a∣waked, and will bee unto us as the unspeakeable torments

of hell fire: and that this will* 1.4 fall upon all the ungodly, most of all when their consci∣ences shall tell them (as one day the conscience of every wicked and impenitent sin∣ner will doe) that they are not thy Children, but thine ene∣mies, and the Children of wrath, yea, of Sathan him∣selfe:* 1.5 and therefore that they are hated of thee, as Sathan their Father is, whose Image they have borne, and whose worke they have done.

To this end, good Lord, worke upon our hearts, and the hearts of all that belong to thy eternall election, who∣soever, and wheresoever they be in all the earth, that we all may truly understand, and rightly know, our owne mi∣serable* 1.6 condition by nature; that wee are thorow the first Adam. by naturall genera∣tion, and by the whole course

of our lives, none other but the Children of disobedience, and so vessels of wrath, and* 1.7 fire—brands of hell, untill such time as we are, or shall be re∣generated and borne againe, and by a lively faith ingrafted into Iesus Christ the second Adam, and so made thy Chil∣dren, and heires of thy king∣dome, by thy grace in him.

Cause us all to know* 1.8 moreover, that we can never attaine heereunto to bee thy Children, much lesse to any certaine knowledge or assu∣rance heereof untill wee feele these two graces of thine, wrought in our hearts by thy blessed Spirit, and the preach∣ing of thy heavenly Gospell unto us; to wit, an unfeigned repentance for all our sinnes, and a lively faith in Iesus Christ: and likewise that wee have the same daily increa∣sed, or at least continued with

a true and earnest desire & in∣deavour of the increase there∣of; for that these two are* 1.9 lively evidences to any man that hee is regenerate and in the state of grace, and that of a Child of wrath hee is made thine owne deere Child, •…•…cceptable to thee his heavenly Father by Iesus Christ alone. Grant to us therefore, and to all thy Chil∣dren, these lively evidences of thy favour, in our unfeig∣ned repentance, and also our effectuall faith increasing dai∣ly, for Iesus Christ our onely Lord and Saviour.

Notes

• * 1.1

  To pray to be perswa∣ded, that the assurance that God is our Father, is first to be sought, next his glory.
• * 1.2

  That assu∣rance alone will quiet the heart, & fill it with ioy unspeakable.
• * 1.3

  And the con∣trary will fill it with ex∣treame hor∣ror.
• * 1.4

  And be a•…•… the begin∣nings of the flashings of hell.
• * 1.5

  Iohn. 8. 4•…•….
• * 1.6

  To this end to know first our owne mi∣serable con∣dition by nature.
• * 1.7

  Thus we are but fire∣brandes of hell untill we be true mem∣bers of Christ.
• * 1.8

  That we can∣not attaine to this assu∣rance untill we feele these two graces, repen∣tance and faith.
• * 1.9

  For that these are lively eviden∣ces of our being in Christ.