A child of God who is wont to maintain a constant and humble correspondence with heaven, does often receive such sensible influences of instruction and comfort from the throne of grace, that he is led on sweetly in the path of daily duty, by the guiding providences of God, and by the secret directions of his Holy Spirit. He finds divine pleasure in his morning addresses to the mercy-seat, and returns to the throne in the evening with joy in his heart, and praise upon his tongue. He has something to do with the great God, in a way of humble devotion, in all his important concerns; but if God retire and withdraw from him, he feels and bemoans the divine absence, and his heart meditates grief and complaints; and when at the same time he is pressed with other burdens too, he breathes after God with a sacred impatience, and longs to know where he may find him: then says the soul, “_O if I could but come near to the seat of God, in my addresses to him, I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments._” This brings me to the doctrine, which shall be the subject of my discourse. Observation. When a christian gets near the seat of God in prayer, he tells him all his sorrows, and pleads with him for relief. In discoursing on this doctrine I shall consider four things.—I. How may we know when a soul gets near to God in prayer; or what is to get near the seat of God.—II. What are the particular 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_, How may we know when a soul gets near the seat of God in prayer? I answer, there will be some or all these attendants of nearness to God. I. There will be an inward sense of the several glories of God, and suitable exercises of grace in the soul. For when we get near to God, we see him, 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 the presence 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 in the blessed world of spirits; and those souls who have had much 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 to his seat beholds several of his glories displayed there; for it is a seat of majesty, a seat of judgment, and a seat of mercy. Under these three characters is the seat of God distinguished in scripture; and because this word is part of my text, I shall therefore a little enlarge upon these heads. When the soul gets near to God, it sees him,