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She JBonthlg Hibtng*: A REPERTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT & A RECORD OF CHRISTIAN WORK AJIONO THE CALVINISTIC METHODISTS or PRESBYTERIANS of WALES. Vol. V. No. 8.] AUGUST, 1889. [Price One Penny. m - ~ ■■'- Lectures delivered to the Students in the year 1865, by the late Rev. L. Edwardg, M.A., D.D., Principal of Bala College. Written by R. Leigh Roose. Lecture VIII. The Bearing of all that has been said on the Divine Origin op Christianity. Having thus taken a cursory view of the whole subject of Ethics, we shall -now proceed to consider the bearing of what we have said on the question of the divine origin of Christianity. I am not sure that we can have time to enter very fully into the subject; but I shall give you a brief outline of the argument. . As I told you before, there is no need of mixing Christianity and Ethics; on the contrary, we have taken Ethics by itself, as it reveals itself to human reason ; and from the doctrine of Ethics it appears to me that we may deduce the strongest argument for the divine origin of the Christian religion, and withal, the Book in which that religion is taught. This argument is two-fold :— > 1st—We may consider how the Ethical question is stated in the Word of 2nd—How that great question is solved by the great fact revealed in the Bible, of God's sending His own Son to die for us that we might be saved. . Let us advert, in the first place, to the statement, viz :— How the question is stated in the Bible. It may strike you, perhaps, as somewhat strange that the mere statement of the question should be considered as an argument for the divine origin of any book. But the more profoundly you enter into it, the more firmly you will be convinced of the strength of the argument. There were two things that proved Daniel, formerly, to be a true prophet. First of aH, he told the King what the dream was which he had vainb/ sought to recover : and secondly, he alone was able to furnish the interpreta¬ tion thereof. Now this two-fold argument which we are speaking, of is analogous. Not only man was unable to interpret the dream bat he could not even give a coherent vstate me nt of it. Man had lost the idea of perfect justice, and perfect benevolence, and perfect law. He had some glimpses of them occasionally and partially ; but he could not put those parts together so -as to make up a coherent whole. But when these ideas were revealed in the