The Penn's Grove record., 1909-02-05
THE PULPIT.
NJ ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY
DR.. DAVID J. BURRELL
Theme: The Christian and His Bible.

New York City.-The sermon
preached Sunday night in the Marble
Collegiate Church, Fifth avenue and
Twenty-ninth street, Manhattan, was
by the pastor, the Rev. DR.. David
James Burrell. His subject was:
"The Christian and His Bible" The
text was from II. Timothy 3:14-l7:
"But continue thou in the things
which thou hast learned and hast
been assured of, knowing of whom
thou hast learned them; and that
from the child thou hast known the
Holy Scriptures, which are able to
make thee wise unto salvation
through faith which Is in Christ
Jesus. All Scripture is given by In
spiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness; that
the man of God may be perfect, thor
oughly furnished unto all good
works" DR.. Burrell said:
There was trouble in Ephesus. The
church there had fallen on "perilous
times" False teachers had crept in
and were leading away all such as
had etching ears"
Paul, the founder and former pas
tor of the church in that city, writes
to Timothy, his successor, exhorting
him to continue in the truth; and he
suggests as a sure safeguard, for him.
self and his people, a profound 10y
atty to the Scriptures as the word OF
God.
He reminds the young pastor that
he had learned the Scriptures In his
childhood. In his old home at Derbe
his mother Eunice and his grand
mother Lois had instructed him.
Blessed is the man or woman who
can look back to such training as
this! The father of John Stewart
Mill declined to teach religion to his
son; the father of David Livingstone
required his son to commit the One
Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm to
memory and take the Scriptures to be
"a lamp unto his PATH" and the diff
ference is manifest in the life and
character of these men.
Paul reminds Timothy Also that
the Scriptures had made him wise
unto salvation, through faith in
Christ" No man can search the
Scriptures without finding two things,
namely, Christ and Life; as our Lord
said, Search the Scriptures; for in
them We think We have eternal life,
and those are they which testify of
Me-" This youth had found Christ
in the page of the Book and, accept
ing Christ, had been saved by faith
in Him.
Timothy, as a imam of God" must be
true to the Scriptures. This ought
to go without saying, since "men Of
Cod" in or out of the ministry, are
in covenant bonds to be loyal to it.
The question o arises, what
shall a Christian do with his Bible?"
Shall he be satisfied with merely
reading it? Is it enough for him to
talk about it? Shall he approach it
in a critical spirit, with the purpose
of finding fault with it? If SO, he
must not expect to find much that is
profitable" in it.
In one of Krummacher's fables he
tells of a society of learned men who
resolved to make a voyage to investi-
gate the properties of the magnetic
needle. The ship being ready to sail,
they went aboard and, placing a mar
iner's compass in their midst, sat
down to observe and scrutinize it.
Thus they sailed to and fro, watching
the needle and each advancing and
defending his own theory as to the
secret power which moved it. At
length there was a violent crash; the
ship had struck upon a rock, and the
wave rushed in. Then those learned
men, all seized with terror, leaped
overheard and swan ashore. And,
sitting there on the barren rocks,
they lamented one to another that
there was no dependence to be placed
on the magnetic needle!
For a like reason there are "bibli-
cal experts" who can see nj profita-
bleness in Scripture; but there are
others who search as for hidden
treasure and find in these pages the
unspeakable gift of life.
The mar who reads, ponders and
inwardly digests will find that the
Word is profitable, particularly in
these four ways:
First, "for doctrine" AS a rule of
faith it serves, like the mariners
chart, to sail by. 1t tells us what we
are to believe as to spiritual things;
and truth is the basis of life and
character. For "as a man thinl1eth
in his heart, so is he"
One of the singular characteristics
of the Bible is this: OF all the So
called sacred books" it alone pre-
sents a multiplicity of truths which
can be arranged into a harmonious
system. Who rel heard of the Mos
lem system of theology? Or of the
Buddhist system of doctrine? The
nfhnr ro1inionc -oo1ro -u4z--z -
presenting a consistent creed, but the
truths of the Scripture are like
pearls, which a be strung upon a
necklace, having for it's central gem
this saying: God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlast-
ing life."
Another singular characteristic of
the Bible is, that all it's truths are
set forth under a divine seal of au-
thority. All are not equally "profta-
ble," since it is not so important, for
example, that we should know about
the birth of John the Baptist as it is
that we should know that Jesus is the
only begotten Son of God, but all its
truths are equally authoritative, since
all alike were written by holy men
as they were moved by the Spirit OF
Cod" The entire Book is signed and
sealed with a "Thus saith the Lord"
The quest of truth was set forth by
the ancient Greeks in the story OF
Jason and the Argonauts, who set
forth in the good ship Argo to find
the golden fleece. ItMould have been
a vain quest, despite the fact that
Hercules and Orpheus, with his Tyre,
and the twins Castor and Pollux were
in that famous crew, had they not
known, with some degree of GER
tainty, where the golden fleece was to
be found. Somewhere among the isl.
ands of the Hesperides? That was
all too vague. But Colchis, lust
there, and nowhere else, was their
destination. Thither they sailed
found the fleece, and brought II
home.
Truth is the principal thing. Bui
where shall we search for it? There
must be some place of authority
whittier we can go with an assurance
/ of 6ndfu0 81 To worHor ohNu<