while the saints of God are to continue always in prayer. No man comes up to the stature of the Christian, or such a man as he should be, unless he cannot only pray for six hours together, but his whole life long. It was said of good old Rowland Hill, that people did not so much notice his particular times of retirement, for he was a man who was always praying, wherever he might be. You would often find him alone talking to himself, and ever in company his heart would be going away to the object of his best love, he would still be in communion with Christ. Be ye always glorifying Christ, Christians, from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Whether ye work at a lapstone, or drive a plough, or lay the stones in a building; serve the Master in all these things; whether ye are diligent with the pen, or whether ye buy and sell, or plough the sea, do all even to your eating or your drinking in the name of the Lord Jesus, and so like the Holy Spirit let it be said of you, "He shall glorify me." We conclude by endeavouring to magnify our Master ourselves. I want to say just two or three things to glorify him, and they shall be just these. I shall say this to the poor troubled doubting sinner, "Sinner, my Master is able to save you?" "Oh, but I am the biggest sinner out of hell." Yes, he is the greatest of all Saviours. "Yes, but I have gone over head and ears in iniquity." Yes, but he was baptised also in his agonies that he might save you. "Oh, but he cannot save me!" Ay! but he can; and if I am now addressing the scum of the earth, one of the devil's sweepings, one who is hardly fit for decent company, my Master is able to save you. Unto the uttermost he saveth, and your sin, though black, he can cleanse, and make you whiter than snow. I would say something else to glorify him. He is willing to save you; his generous heart desireth you. Your perishing will not make him glad, but he will weep over you as he did over Jerusalem; but your being saved will give him to see of the travail of his soul. "Do you know who you are speaking to, sir?" No I don't, but my Master does; for now he fixes his poor tearful eyes on thee. Where is the sinner? Behind that pillar is he, or in yonder corner? The Master looketh at him, and he saith, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." What, are ye so far away? How loudly doth he call you, "Come, sinner, repent and come." Art thou willing to come? Lo! he meets thee, in the road he meets thee; embracing thee, he falls upon thy neck to kiss thee. He saith, even this morning he saith it, "Take off his rags and clothe him in fine apparel; wash him and make him clean, for I have put away his sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud his iniquities." That which glorifies Christ the most of all is the preaching of the Gospel to sinners, and therefore have I glorified him now, and would do so as long as I live. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, for he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned. God give us to glorify Christ by trusting in Him! Amen. THE LOADED WAGGON. A Sermon DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 24TH, 1862, BY AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves."— Amos ii. 13. THE other Sabbath morning we went into the corn-fields to glean with Boaz and Ruth; and I trust that then many of the timid and fainthearted were encouraged to partake of the handfuls which are let fall on purpose for them by the order of our generous Lord. We go, to-day, to the gate of the harvest-field with another object to see the waggon piled up aloft with many sheaves, come creaking forth, making ruts as the toiling horses drag it from the field; we come with gratitude to God, thanking him for the harvest, blessing him for so much of favourable weather, and praying him to continue the same till the last shock of corn shall be brought in, and the husbandmen everywhere shall shout the "Harvest Home." What a picture is a waggon loaded with corn of you and of me, as loaded with God's mercies! From our cradle up till now, every day has added a sheaf. What more could he do for us than he has done? He hath daily loaded us with benefits. Despite the sad affliction in the North, we are nationally a favoured people. Both in providence and in gracious privilege, he has blessed us above all people that be upon the face of the earth. While other countries have been crushed by tyrants, ravaged by war, or left in the thick darkness of superstition, we are free-we are blessed with the light of heaven-we have the gospel in our streets, the Bible in our houses, and the Sabbath as our choicest heritage. O England! thou art like a wain creaking under the mercies of God. Men and brethren! we are each of us like the cart that is pressed down because it is full of sheaves; for the innumerable mercies of God are piled upon us high as the mountains, nor can our memory recount the tokens of the tenderness and lovingkindness of the Most High. Let us adore his goodness, and yield him our cheerful gratitude. Alas!-and how many times shall I repeat that pathetic interjectionalas! alas! alas! that such a metaphor should be capable of another reading; that while God loadeth us with mercy, we should load him with sin; while he continually heapeth on sheaf after sheaf of favour, 476 METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." Hear again: "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" Better still, hear it from the lip of Christ, softened down to our own ears-"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Sinner, God is cut to the heart by thy sin; thy Creator grieves over that which thou laughest at; thy Creator crieth out in his Spirit concerning that which thou thinkest to be a trifle. O do not this abominable thing which I hate! For God's sake do it not! We often say "for God's sake," without knowing what we mean, but here, see what it means-for the sake of God-that ye grieve not your Creator-that ye cause not the Eternal One himself to cry out against you. Cease ye, cease ye, "from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel." I now leave those two points to pass on very briefly to the next. III. While it is true that sin is grievous to the Lord, it magnifies his mercy when we see that HE BEARS THE LOAD. As the cart is not said to break, but is pressed only, so is he pressed, and yet he bears. That hymn we sung just before the sermon has more in it than hard hearts will feel. "Lord, and am I yet alive, Not in torments, not in hell? I am, I am out of hell." If you and I were in God's place, should we have borne it? Nay, within a week we should have burned the universe with fire, or trodden it to powder beneath our feet. If God were like modern lawgivers-and here I find no fault with them, for the law of a commonwealth must be unyielding—but if the law of heaven were as swift to punish as the law of man, where were we? I do not find you rising up to plead for the man who murdered his children, and from some fancied injury shot his fellow-man. We seem to say by a unanimous verdict, "The wretch is guilty, let him be punished." What a universal howl has been going up this week against an offender who once stood fair in the midst of us, but who turned aside long ago unto iniquity. What man pleads for him? Who stands up, and says, "Let William Roupell go unpunished?" Yet, here is God, and here are we whose offences are ten times more heinous against God than any man's offences can be against man, and yet he spareth us. Remember he hath all the while full power to punish. He hath but to wish and it is done-to lift his finger and we 876 THE LOADED WAGGON. A Sermon DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 24TH, 1862, BY AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves." Amos ii. 13. THE other Sabbath morning we went into the corn-fields to glean with Boaz and Ruth; and I trust that then many of the timid and fainthearted were encouraged to partake of the handfuls which are let fall on purpose for them by the order of our generous Lord. We go, to-day, to the gate of the harvest-field with another object-to see the waggon piled up aloft with many sheaves, come creaking forth, making ruts as the toiling horses drag it from the field; we come with gratitude to God, thanking him for the harvest, blessing him for so much of favourable weather, and praying him to continue the same till the last shock of corn shall be brought in, and the husbandmen everywhere shall shout the "Harvest Home." What a picture is a waggon loaded with corn of you and of me, as loaded with God's mercies! From our cradle up till now, every day has added a sheaf. What more could he do for us than he has done? He hath daily loaded us with benefits. Despite the sad affliction in the North, we are nationally a favoured people. Both in providence and in gracious privilege, he has blessed us above all people that be upon the face of the earth. While other countries have been crushed by tyrants, ravaged by war, or left in the thick darkness of superstition, we are free we are blessed with the light of heaven-we have the gospel in our streets, the Bible in our houses, and the Sabbath as our choicest heritage. O England! thou art like a wain creaking under the mercies of God. Men and brethren! we are each of us like the cart that is pressed down because it is full of sheaves; for the innumerable mercies of God are piled upon us high as the mountains, nor can our memory recount the tokens of the tenderness and lovingkindness of the Most High. Let us adore his goodness, and yield him our cheerful gratitude. Alas!-and how many times shall I repeat that pathetic interjectionalas! alas! alas! that such a metaphor should be capable of another reading; that while God loadeth us with mercy, we should load him with sin; while he continually heapeth on sheaf after sheaf of favour, we also add iniquity unto iniquity, till the weight of our sin becometh intolerable to the Most High, and he crieth out by reason of the burden, saying, "I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves." Our text begins with a "Behold!" and well it may. "Beholds" are put in the Bible as sometimes a hand is put in the margin of old books, to indicate to the reader something worthy of notice; or, again, "Beholds" are put in the Scriptures as signs are put out from houses of business to attract attention. There is something new, something important, something deeply impressive and worthy of attention, wherever we see a "Behold" in sacred Scripture. I see this "Behold!" standing as it were, like a maiden upon the steps of the house of wisdom, crying, "Turn in hither, O ye that are wise, and listen to the voice of God while he speaketh to you." Let us open our eyes that we may see, let us fix both our eyes intently that we may "behold," and may God make a way through our eyes and ears to our heart, that deep repentance and self-abhorrence may take hold upon us, because of our evil conduct towards our gracious God. Now, it is to be understood, dear friends, before we proceed farther, that our text is but a figure, since God is not to be oppressed by man; all the sin that man can commit can never disturb the serenity of his perfections, nor cause so much as a wave upon the sea of his everlasting calm. He doth but speak to us after the manner of man, and bring down the sublimities and mysteries of heaven to the feebleness and ignorance of earth. He talketh to us as a great father may talk to his little child, and he uses images which are rather adapted to human frailty than to divine infinity. Just, then, as a cart has the axles bent, and to use an old Saxon word-as the wheels "screak" under the excessive load, so the Lord says that under the load of human guilt he is pressed down, until he crieth out, because he can bear no longer the iniquity of those that offend against him. We shall now turn to the first point, this morning. O that the Holy Ghost may make it pointed to our consciences. I. The first and most apparent truth in the text is, that SIN IS VERY GRIEVOUS AND BURDENSOME TO GOD. Be astonished, O heavens, and be amazed, O earth, that God should speak of being pressed and weighed down! I do not read anywhere so much as half a suggestion that the whole burden of creation is any weight to the Most High. "He taketh up the isles as a very little thing." "He weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in balances." Neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, nor all the ponderous orbs which his omnipotence has created, cost him any labour whatever in their sustenance. The heathens might picture Atlas as stooping beneath the tremendous load of the world; but the eternal God, who beareth up the pillars of the universe, "fainteth not, neither is he weary." Nor do I find even the most distant approach to a suggestion, that providence fatigues its Lord. He watches both by night and day; his power goeth forth every moment. 'Tis he who bringeth forth Mazzaroth in his season and guideth Arcturus with his sons. He beareth up the foundations of the earth! and holdeth the corner stone thereof. He |