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    Passages in PauVs Epistles illustrated by one in Ecclesiasticus . Sir , Exeter 9 Oct . 10 , 1817 . 111 H E importance of the Alex-JL andrine Version of the Old Testament * and the Greek of the Apocrypha , as helps , to the proper

    understanding of the New Testament * is allowed by all Biblical scholars The study of them familiarizes us with the dialect employed by the gospel writers , and an attention to their peculiar uses of Greek words is often

    the greatest assistance to us in inter * preting the same words , when we meet with them in the New Testament . They have also another use which is not s perhaps , so generally attended to » As the works of their

    own earlier writers , preserved in the Old Testament and the Apocrypha , formed the whole literature of the Jews in our Lord ' s time , and from their sacred character were universally read and studied , the Evangelical writings not only contain many

    quotations from them , but also very numerous allusions to them , where the thought or the words of the more ancient , dwelling on the mind of the later writer , has influenced his mode of expression , and , in some instances , caused an obscurity to those 'who are

    unacquainted with the passage he had in view . And as the Hebrew language , at the time of Christ , was understood only by the learned , and most of the quotations from the Old Testament , in the New , are evidently in words of the Alexandrine

    translation , it is to it that we must look , in order to detect the verbal allusions to the ancient Scriptures , in the language of the Scripture sacred writers , and apply them to the purposes of Interpretation .

    I think I could produce several examples of the kind of allusion I have mentioned , but my present object , in the remarks I have made , is to introduce an attempt to explain the

    expression in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians , " Redeeming the time , " by comparing it with a sentence in the book of Ecclesiasticus , which , I conceive , the apostle had ' in his miud when he employed it .

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    The way in which this passage i& most commonly understood , making a good use of the time allowed us upon earth on account of its shortness , and of the evils to which we are here

    liable , " appears to me extremely uusatis « factory . Locke , with his usual acuteness , seems from the connexion to have discovered the true meaning , though it is evident from his note that lie did

    not know how to derive it from the words . He says , on Eph . v . 16 , " St . Paul here intimates , v . 16 , that the unconverted Heathens , they lived among , would be forward to tempt

    them to their former lewd , dissolute lives ; but to keep them from any approaches that way * that they have light now by the gospel to know that such actions are provoking to God 0 and will find the effects of his wrath

    in the judgments of the world to come . All these pollutions so familiar to the Gentiles , he exhorts them carefully to avoid \ but yet to take care by their prudent carriage to the Gen «

    tiles they lived amongst , to give them no offence , that so they might escape the danger and trouble that otherwise might arise to them from the intemperance and violence of the Heathen

    ido-! aters 5 whose shameful lives the Christian practice could not but reprove . This seems to be the meaning of * redeeming the time' here , which , Coloss . iv . 5 , the other place where it occurs , seems so manifestly to confirm and give light to . If this be not the sense 6

    of redeeming the time' here , 1 must own myself ignorant of the precise meaning of the phrase in this place . " Reading the context both in Ephesians and Colossians must , I think , convince us that the expression relates in some way to the conduct of the

    Christians towards the unconverted Heathens . Eph . v . 15—17 , " See then that ye walk circumspectly , not as fools but as wise , redeeming the time because the days are evil . Wherefore be ye not unwise , but understanding what the will of the Lord is- " Coloss .

    iv . 5 , Walk in wisdom toward them that are without , ( Gentiles ) redeeming the time . " Now let us place the apostle ' s words aside of the goth verse of the iv * chap *

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 46, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/46/