BÚ THE SOUL DRAWING NEAR TO GOD. cular subjects of holy converse between God and the soul. III. Why such a soul tells God all his sorrows. IV. how he pleads with God for relief. First, Howmay we know when a soul gets near the seat of God in prayer ? I answer, there will be some or all these attendants of near- ness to God. I. There will be an inward sense of the several glories of God, and suitable exercisesof grace in the soul. For when we get near to God, we seehim, we are in his presence ; he is then, as it were, before the eyes of the soul, even as the soul is at all times before the eyes of God. There will be something of such a spiritual sense of Thepresence of God, as we shall have when our souls are dismissed from the prison of this flesh, and see him face to face, though in a far less degree : It is something that resembles the future vision of God inthe blessed world ofspirits ; and those souls who have hadmuch intimacy With God in prayer, will tell you that they know, in some measure, what heaven is. The soul, when it gets' near to God, even tohis seat beholds seve- ral of his glories displayed there; for it is a seat of majesty, a seat of ,judgment, and a seat of mercy. Under these three cha- racters is the seat of God distinguished in scripture ; and because this word is partof my text, I shall therefore a little enlarge upon these heads. When the soul gets near to God, it sees him, L As upon a seat of majesty. There he appears to the soul in the first notion ofhis divinity or godhead, as self-sufficient, and the first of beings : He appears there as the infinite ocean, the unmeasurable fountain of being, and perfection, and blessed- ness ; and the soul, in a due exercise of grace, shrinks, as it were, into nothingbefore him, as a drop, or a dust, a mere atom of being. The soul is in its own eyes at that time, what it is always in the eyes of God, as nothing, and less than nothing and vanity. Heappears then in the glory of his all-sufficience, as an almighty Creator, giving birth, and life, and being to all things ; and the soul, in a due exercise of grace, stands before him as a depen- dant creature, receiving all its powers and being from him, sup- ported every moment by him, and ready to sink intoutter nothing, if God withdraw that support. Such is God, and such is the soul, when the soul draws near to God in worship. He appears again upon his seat of majesty as a sovereign, in the glory of his infinite supremacy, and the soul sees him as the supreme of beings, owns his just sovereignty, and subjects itself afresh, and for ever to his high dominion. O with what deep humility_and self abasement Both the saint, considered merely as a creature, cast himself down at thefoot of God, when
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