condition of actual suffering from their malice, or a continual dread of their power: a condition from which no salvation appeared to await them but in the grave; or, rather, in that “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," to which the grave would conduct them.*

We shall only add that, in understanding the text to refer to the final salvation of believers, we do but class it with a number of other passages in the writings of the Apostles, who, to animate the hopes of their brethren, or to stimulate their diligence in their holy calling, were continually reminding them of the shortness of that time which separated them from a better and an enduring state of existence. "But this, I say," writes St. Paul on another occasion, "the time is short: it remaineth,

* It should be stated that, in applying the passage to a temporal deliverance, considerable stress has been laid on the classical signification of the phrase εἰδότες τὸν καιρὸν. Kaupòs, it is said, expresses a particularity of time, and when used with reference to the future, alludes to some event immediately about to take place. But however the import of that term may be limited in classical usage, it bears no such specific and restrained signification in the New Testament. For example, it is applied to the space allotted to repentance, the season of probation (2 Cor. vi. 2; Ephes. v. 17); and more particularly, it occurs in the passage cited as parallel to the text, which obviously refers to the close of life.

that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it”*—an admonition by which, it is evident, he intended to prepare his readers, not for a temporal vicissitude merely-not for a change of one scene for another in the drama of life, but for its final close; "for," he adds, "the fashion of this world passeth away." The phraseology, however, "knowing the time," is confessedly peculiar, and might possibly warrant the conclusion of Locke, that St. Paul was in expectation of the second advent of Christ in his own life-time, had he not apparently disavowed such an expectation in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians.t

But, as we have intimated, it is not essential to our purpose to establish that sense of the term "salvation" in the text, which we have preferred to affix to it. The fact to which we would direct attention, is, that in common

* 1 Cor. vii. 29-81. The last clause appears to have been much better translated, "and they that use this world as not using it."

† Chap. ii.

with numerous other passages in the apostolical writings, it exhibits an attitude of the mind, or a state of the feelings with relation to a future existence, which was eminently characteristic of the first believers of the Gospel, and which Christians very rarely attain in our own time-never, it is probable, in an equal degree. We allude to their more lively and energetic hope of immortality; amounting, as it would seem, to an actual desire of an early transition from the present world-a feature of character abundantly worthy of inquiry and reflection.

The words of the text, you perceive, were not properly words of fearful warning, or solemn admonition: otherwise, indeed, than indirectly, or by implication, to any who might have been living in disobedience of the Gospel.* On the contrary, they must have been

*We take the words "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep," to be a rhetorical manner of speaking. They can hardly be understood to infer that there was a prevailing insensibility to the Gospel among those who professed the belief of it: an inference which were in ill keeping with the suggestion, "Now is our salvation nearer." In the same manner, we cannot suppose the language which follows to imply that the converts to Christianity were addicted to "rioting and drunkenness," &c.; but that the Apostle aimed to support their virtuous resolutions, by contrasting

conceived in a spirit of delighted and even
triumphant expectation, and are in unison with
tones of encouragement and gratulation. The
Apostle did not call upon his fellow-christians
to reflect upon the time which had passed since
the Gospel was made known to them, with a
view to admonish them that the space allotted
to the reformation of the guilty was drawing to
a close; that the period was imminent, when
the offer of an all-sufficient atonement for the
remission of their sins, and of a sanctifying
power to succour them in the work of their
salvation, would be eventually withdrawn; and
when their destiny would be irreversibly fixed
for happiness or misery. Nor did he remind
them-and to notice this is more pertinent to
the purpose for which we have called attention
to his language-nor did he remind them of
the lapse of years, to suggest the reflection
the holiness to which the Gospel had called them with the
degrading excesses of the heathen-excesses which, on
embracing Christianity, and emerging from "the night"
of Paganism, they had doubtless abandoned.
We may

state distinctly, that by "the night" in the words "the
night is far spent, the day is at hand," we understand the
ignorance of true religion which preceded Christianity.
"The day" had dawned upon the Christians in their know-
ledge of the Gospel, and the hopes which it had inspired;
and was advancing to its meridian brightness in the fruition
of the heavenly state, their final salvation.

that they must soon expect, in the course of nature, to be called to resign their life into the hand of Him who gave it; and that, therefore, it was the part of wisdom to detach their affections, as far as practicable, from the present world, and so to break the shock of separating from it for ever. No-he called upon them to look back on the time which had passed since they had first believed the Gospel, in order to excite and fill their minds with the animating persuasion, that the accomplishment of their salvation was proportionately nearer that the term of their sacred warfare was at hand, and the crown of righteousness well nigh won. He called upon them to behold in the vestiges of the past, the tokens of their approaching immortality; and apprised them that the dawn of the everlasting day had already broken upon them, awaking the hopes as well as the virtues of mankind. He announced to them, as matter for rejoicing, that their connexion with this world was coming to an end; for that soon they would exchange it for that life which had been redeemed from sin and the grave by the humiliation and sacrifice of the Son of God-a life for ever disburthened of the consciousness of guilt, and the dread of retribution—for ever discharged of pain, grief,