The Jersey City News

THEY HEARD THEIR NEW PASTOR

The Rev. William D. Grant at the South Bergen Reformed Church.

Large audiences gathered in the South Bergen Reformed Church yesterday morning and evening to listen to the Rev. William D. Grant, the new pastor who is to be installed tomorrow evening. The pulpit has been filled by various persons since January 14, at which time the former pastor, the Rev. William Vaughan, accepted a call to the Knox Memorial Church in New York. Mr. Grant hails from the Broome street Tabernacle (Presbyterian) of that city, and resigned amid the warm regrets of many friends. He has become exceedingly popular with the South Bergen Reformed congregation. His sermon yesterday morning was chosen from Philippians ii, 12, 13, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure."

"The prevailing opinion," he said, "is that these words were addressed to the unsaved." To show that they were addressed to the saved he quoted John vi, 29, where it reads, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." To do everything else and leave this undone was really to do nothing. The minister followed up this line of reason by seven scriptural arguments.

"The philosophical reason for the Apostle not saying to an unsaved soul, 'work out your own salvation,' is that one must have involution before evolution—cause must precede effect; life must precede growth. We readily admit in the physical world that you can't get more out of a man than there is in him.

"But in what frame of mind is this work to be done? Are our hearts to be fearful, and our courage weakened by the thought of our own insecurity ever pressing upon us? The Apostle wishes to impress upon these Christians the truth that God is with them—in them. 'Ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost.' Therefore fear; 'Grieve not the Spirit of God.'

"It is a peculiar and delicate task the Christian has to do. Therefore be anxiously solicitous. Compare a man working on a large block of granite with the diamond polisher. We are not working in granite blocks, but on diamonds; with jewels that are to shine in the diadem of King Emmanuel for ever and ever. In view of this, we cannot exercise too much caution, lest the gem should in any way fail to reflect the brightness, purity and glory of God. Therefore work out with fear and trembling.

"The sculptor has an ideal he wishes to embody in marble; the painter has a landscape he wishes to produce upon canvas. Each goes about his task with more or less fear and trembling. What is the believer exhorted to work out?—his own salvation; that is, man himself is the rough material to be wrought upon. The God man, perfect and holy is the model. We are to reproduce by the power of God the spirit of sweetness, the beauty and graces of the fairest among ten thousand, until we shall arrive at the fullness of the stature, a perfect man in Christ."

At the installation tomorrow evening the Rev. William P. Bruce, formerly of Greenville, will deliver a sermon; the Rev. Dr. Duryea will address the pastor, and the Rev. Cornelius Brett, the people.

Mr. Grant is a young man, full of life and vigor. His sermons are liked by the South Bergen Reformed congregation because they are solid. He is also looked upon as just the man to push the project of building a new church, which the congregation are now seriously contemplating.