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SERMON XXVIII A.

VISITATION SERMON.

COLOSSIANS iv. 5.

Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.

AMONG the evidences by which we would establish the truth, or illustrate the importance of Christianity, few are entitled to higher consideration than the spirit, which actuated the persons to whom the propagation of it was more immediately committed. In the choice of topics, they avoided foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they would engender strife, that they produced no profit, and tended to the subverting of the hearers. (2 Timothy, chap. ii.)

In the use of language they shunned all the artificial and meretricious ornaments of eloquence merely human, and were accustomed, like their Heavenly Master, to teach with authority, because they were conscious of relating facts which they knew to be real-or of revealing doctrines which they were commissioned to propound from aboveor of enforcing duties which were closely connected

with the temporal and eternal welfare of mankind.

In the regulation of their own personal conduct, they mingled discretion with zeal, and moderation with firmness. They yielded to the prejudices, and complied with the customs of those, who were without the pale of the Christian Church-of Jews and Gentiles, so far as concession was at once compatible with innocence, and was likely to conciliate the favourable opinion of their converts. Without exposing themselves to the malignity of their enemies by ostentatious defiance or perverse opposition, they encountered every danger which it was really necessary for them to incur in executing the arduous and momentous office, which had been consigned to them. Not content with observing in their own deportment the precept of their blessed Master, who had instructed them to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove, they endeavoured to restrain among their followers every deviation from decorum and prudence. They were anxious to recommend their cause by its visible and salutary influence upon the judgment, the disposition, and the actions of those who espoused it. They gave no wanton offence to the captious Jew or the fastidious Gentile. They exhorted their followers to beware lest their good should be evil spoken of-to provide things becoming and honourable in the sight of all men-to imitate the example as well as to obey the commands, of Christ himself, in letting the light of his Gospel so shine before men, that seeing the good works of those who pro

fessed it, they might be the more readily disposed to glorify their Father, who is in heaven.

In many parts of the Sacred Writings we meet with the most animated, or the most solemn exhortations to patience and fortitude-to the voluntary renunciation of worldly distinctions, pleasures and conveniences-to the calm endurance of scoffs and wrongs, of bonds and stripes, of imprisonment and even death itself. These sacrifices of good, these aggravations of evil, were, in many cases, to be expected in the first conflicts of Christianity with the errors, the vices, and the malevolent passions of the Jews and the Heathens; and therefore for such extraordinary and heroic acts of virtue, provision was made not only by the predictions and example of our Lord himself, but by the earnest and frequent preachings of his Apostles. The efficacy of their advice was, however, to be promoted in the more ordinary course of things by milder means-by the use of discretion and vigilance--by gentleness and forbearance to those who were without-by such endeavours to "redeem the time" as were suggested by sound wisdom, and were not inconsistent with religious sincerity. Of this kind certainly is the direction given to the Colossians in my text; and as some difficulty has arisen about the interpretation of the original words, I hope that I may, without impropriety, respectfully deliver my opinion upon their import before an audience peculiarly capable of judging upon subjects of sacred criticism, and peculiarly interested in ascertaining the sense of every precept, which is connected with the practice

of Christians in all ages, or with the credit of those persons by whom Christianity was first propagated.

Scholars are divided in their sentiments upon the concluding words of my text τὸν καιρὸν ἐξαγοραζό μevo. Hammond, who acknowledges that the English version redeeming the time is imperfect and obscure, yet observes that any other literal translation could hardly be given in our own tongue, unless we were to say buying out or gaining the time. He adds, what indeed other commentators had remarked, that the expression was borrowed from the Greek translation of Daniel in chapter ii. and verse 8th, when the Magicians and Chaldeans, who had been called upon to interpret the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and had been threatened with death if they were unable to interpret it, endeavoured, as says our translation, to gain the time, by which it is meant, says he, that they looked for delay, and so consulted for their own safety. Le Clerc agrees with Hammond on the circumstance of delay, but I think that although delay is implied, something n.ore is also signified.

It is observed, that in the 4th verse of the 2d chapter, Daniel begins to write in the Syriac or Chaldee, and continues to do so down to the 8th chapter, either because the events there recorded chiefly affected the Chaldeans, or because the history of those events was drawn by Daniel from the public records of Babylon written in the Chaldean tongue. Be the cause, however, what it may, the fact is certain; and accordingly in the margin of our Bible, we have the word buy given as the sense of

the Chaldee original, though in the text our translators have used the word gain. Now, though it is true that the Chaldeans wished to gain time according to the common acceptation of the phrase in English, it is probable that the sense of opportunity was also conveyed by the original expression TOY Kaιpov. The delay was a mean to an end. The τὸν καιρὸν. present interpretation was deferred for the purpose of some favourable opportunity either for avoiding any future interpretation, if peradventure the King should find his uneasiness subside, and be indisposed to ask for one, or for turning to their advantage any intermediate contingent events, which might assist the astrologers in giving such an interpretation as would be consolatory or satisfactory to the King.

The 8th verse in this chapter of Daniel, therefore, seems to me to signify, I know of a certainty that you would, by all means, obtain a more favourable opportunity for avoiding explanation altogether, or attempting it with better effect, because ye see that the thing is gone from me, that is, not as some interpreters say, the edict for your destruction has been already issued by me, but because the particulars of the dream itself are gone from me-for it is plain from the context that the King's spirit had been troubled that the Chaldeans had promised to show the interpretation if he could tell them the dream-and that the King in his reply insists upon being informed of the dream itself, as well as of the interpretation, when from the agitation of his mind he had only a dim and confused recollection of what he had dreamed.