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LECTURE.

On Sunday evening last a lecture was delivered in the Congregational Church, Moray place, by the Rev. Ur Roseby on the subject, “Evidences of the Divine authority of the Christian” religion. The preacher, after recapitulating the line of argument which he had pursued the preceding Sabbath, then proceeded to discuss certain subsidiary heads of Christian evidences. Under the head of prophecy he described the contents of the Old Testament as setting forth the history of a people whose civilization and pol.ty were unexampled in history, being, in fact, the history of a Theocracy. The record displayed, beyond the mere chronicle, the p .etry of psalm or song, the restless questionings of philosophy, the sententious wisdom of the practical moralist, the rapt visions of the seer, the orucles of prophecy. And now let them behold how great a wonder arose 1 This volume of contents and authorship so various, extending from the Ifixodus to Malachi (pace certain German theologians) over aperiod of more than a thousand years, read almost like an antecedent history of Christianity. First, there occurred obscure intimations of the greater revelation, then came a peculiar institution

ox ritual sacrifice - the great acted parable of Hebrew worship—and finally the distinct predictions of a series of great religious teachers who occupied the period from eight hundred to four hundred years before the birth of Christ. The lecturer, after briefly adverting to other prophetic testimonies, directed attention to those of Isaiah, especially t» that prophet’s minute description of the sufferings, death and burial of Messiah. He defended the geniuneaess of the prophecy from the attacks of a school of German theologists, who began with the assumption that miracles were impossible, and that all history must be re-read or re-written so as to harmonise with that canon—an assumption whicu just disqualified the critic for fair historial investigation. And accepting the genuineness of the passage, he who ran might read therein the story of Christ. Put.iug, now, these facts together, what did they make of them ? Should they say that the Christ of God in whom these obscure hints of the older time acquired distinctness, in whom the elaborate, mnute, and apparently meaningless ceremonies of the Hebrew worship not only found a solution, but bi-ca ne lull of divine and glorious meaning ; to whom, finally, all the prophets gave witness—should they say that He held His position by virtue of a happy accident; that they had nothing but a coincidence there ? Surely there was a credulity beyond the credulity of faith ; it was the creuulity of yq&m !, lecturer, ttyefi referred briefly to the piophbey of Jekua- cWpb'drnpvg

the destruction of Jerusalem, and dwelt more at length upon the verification of Moses’s prophecy of t e future calamities of the Jewish people, afforded by later Roman and medieval history, and of the present fulfilment of his prophecy of their dispersion. Passing from the evidences of prophecy, the rev. gentleman spoke of . the existing institutions of the Christian Church, such as Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as standing , monuments (as truly so as the Pyramids) of the truth of that Christian record which expounds their meaning and narrates their origin. Had the monument no connection with th 3 hj story ; by what cleverness of imposture then, since we know the monument to have existed from A postolic times were Christians first persuaded that such a connection existed ? How came all the Christian world to substitute, with their ey s open, a known lie for the known truth ? The rev. gent einan finally directed attention to the many evidences of truth and reality dis.coverable on an investigation of the New Testament record itself. Under this head he cited several passages noticed in the “Horae Baulins ” of Paley, and others taken from the Gospels, as illustrations of those artless, bidden, indirect, and therefore, as he contended, undesigned coincidences, which are characteristics of genuine and truthful writing. He spoke of the difficulty of making a heavy, cumbrous, elaborate fabrication go on all-fours ; while truth, the deeper it was probed, only proved itself tho more evident'y to be truth. This part of the lecture, wherein the preacher in vited his audience to follow him through the solution of many a difficulty by passing from one epistle to another, or from one gospel to another, seemed to excite a lively interest. ■The gentleman concluded by remarking on the true place in Christian apologetics of the argument he had endeavored to expound. He. was far from asserting that the Bible held its place in the convictions, and in the love of men by virtue of merely intellectual argumentation. Rather it was by the impression made upon the soul , by : the living power of Christ. He expected a more congenial occupation when he should hereafter endeavor to expound that higher and nobler evidence which built itself up opt every side around the central shrine of the life and character of. Jesus. It was by that evidence that Christianity stood, and would stand, iu the belief and in the love of men who were incapable of appreciating the force of a judicial argument. Even as he held that the guilt of unbelief lay. not so much in refusing to alow the force of sound reason and argument as in not yielding to those reverent, spiritual movements of the soul, which ever find their satisfaction in faith, their all in God. Still, if their reason were challenged, they would gladly accept the challenge, and’ most triumphantly could the “ Keason of the hope that was in them” be vindicated. Thev appealed not to Csasar, but if the appeal were made to Cceaar, unto Cteaar would thev go- , , .

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD18740331.2.11

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Evening Star, Issue 3465, 31 March 1874, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
943

LECTURE. Evening Star, Issue 3465, 31 March 1874, Page 2

LECTURE. Evening Star, Issue 3465, 31 March 1874, Page 2

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