QÚ SURS AND SORaDws SPREAD SÉPORE GOD. tSERM. VI. the best follower of Christ: for our Lord spent much time in converse with his heavenly Father. This is balm that eases the most raging pains of the mind, when the wounded conscience comes to the mercy-seat, and finds pardon and peace there. This is the cordial that revives and exalts our natures, when the spirit, broken with sorrows, and almost fainting to death, draws near to the Almighty Physician, and is healed and refreshed. The mercy-seat in heaven is our surest and sweetest refuge in every hour of distress and darkness on earth : This is our daily support and relief, while we are passing through a world of temptations and hardships in the way to the promised land. It is good for us to draw near to God, Ps. lxxiii. 28. And yet so much is human nature sunk down and fallen from God, that even his own children are ready to indulge a neglect of converse with him, if their souls are not always upon the watch. But let it be remembered here, that so much as we abate of this divine entertain- ment among the vanities or amusements of the world, the businesses or burdens of life; so much we lose of the glory and joy of religion, and deprive our souls of the comfort that God invites us to receive. Job was encompassed with sorrows all around, and his friends had censured him as a vile hypocrite, and a "great sinner, because he was so terribly afflicted by the hand of God ; whither should he run now but to his heavenlyFather,-and tell him ofall his sufferings? From the practice of this holy man, I thought we might have sufficient warrant to draw this inference, viz. That when a-saint gets near to God in prayer, he tells him all his circumstances, and pleads for help: And that is the doctrine which I am endeavouring now to im- prove. " O if I could but come near him, even to his seat, I would order my cause before him : I would spread all my concerns before his eye, and I would plead with him fdr relief: I would fill my mouth with argu- ments." Four things I proposed in the prosecution of this doc- trine. I. To consider what it is for a soul to get near to God in prayer. IL What particular subjects loth a soul, thus a
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=