not expect, that having turned the means of grace into means of mischief, there shall be no further help vouchsafed or left to us? that we shall hereafter, as years go on, fall into the last and worst condition of Hophni and Phinehas, and be unable to hearken unto the words of God, because God will slay us?

Nor will it avail to complain that we should not have been so fatally hardened, had the means of good been more sparingly given us; that we should have loved the service of the tabernacle more, had we been less familiar with it. The same page of Scripture which tells us of the sons of Eli tells us of Samuel also; not born, indeed, but brought by his mother, at his earliest years, to be in that same place, and to draw grace and strength from those very ministrations which, to the sons of Eli, had been the savour of death unto death. Think we that the prayers, and vows, and sacrifices of the tabernacle service were less familiar to him than to them? If the daily offering were a weariness to them, why was it not so to him also? If God's so near presence did but harden their hearts, why did it strengthen and soften his? But with him, what was designed for his good bore its natural fruit; he had ministered before the Lord when a child, and it fitted him the better to minister when a man. It is for us to choose whether we

will be as Samuel or as Hophni and Phinehas; whether we will gain the habit of profiting by holy things, or of despising them.

But their parents were so different; in Samuel's case so zealous, in that of the sons of Eli so neglectful. Suppose, for a moment, that it was so; and though it is not becoming in a child to lay his faults upon the neglect of his parents, yet, as we know that some parents are negligent, and that some children will avail themselves of this excuse, let us consider the judgment passed on Hophni and Phinehas. Doubtless Eli was heavily punished, but were they, therefore, excused? Or was it not with them, as God declares it should. be with the wicked among his people whom the watchman had not warned, that they died in their iniquity, although their blood was required at the watchman's hand? For though they who should more particularly warn us hold their peace, yet God never leaves himself without witness; his warnings are scattered on every side, and we cannot escape them; however much we may be neglected by our parents or teachers, we cannot pretend that we have not heard the call of God, both in his dispensations of providence and of grace.

Yet, certainly, though Eli's fault did not save Hophni and Phinehas from guilt; from guilt, too, the most hopeless, so that while yet alive in the

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body, they were dead in the spirit; yet this state would have come on them sooner, had they despised the watchful zeal of such parents as the mother of Samuel. And again, on the other side, that zeal was, in Samuel's case, no doubt blessed to his greater safety. He was enabled to keep more constantly to the love of God, because he had such a mother. Here is a great lesson and encouragement to us all, who, having children placed where they will constantly hear of God and attend his service, may so influence them as to make these opportunities be to them what they ought to be; the savour of life unto life. Here is a great reason why domestic care should go along with that which is more public; since it may depend on the greatness or deficiency of this domestic care whether the public opportunities turn to good or to evil: a great reason for those who have the blessing of such care to thank God for it with all their hearts, and most earnestly to give heed to it; knowing, that if they perish when thus doubly guarded, there can be none whose guilt will be so great as theirs: a great reason, also, for those who have it not, why they should labour to supply it from other sources; why they should avail themselves more diligently of those public means of grace, which, if used as they may be, will prove to them, that when their father and mother forsake them, the Lord has taken them

up; which, if not used, (and it may happen, that having no parents to warn them, they let slip the opportunities offered,) will then prove a curse unto them, and not a blessing.

Who can tell which of all these is, or will be, the case with each of us? One thing, however, we can tell each for ourselves; whether we are availing ourselves of those means of grace which we have, public, certainly, if not public and private both. One thing, we can tell, whether the words which we have now heard have passed by unregarded or no; whether, as they are now going to close, we think that our task is over; and that if we have attended to them whilst they have been spoken, we have shown a sufficient zeal for our souls' salvation. So to-morrow we may turn every one to his own ways as usual; the carelessness, the vice, the hardness of heart increasing, and to increase more and more. So, perhaps, did the sons of Eli, till the sound of the name of God, and the sight of his tabernacle, passed over their senses without leaving the least impression on their minds. So they grew harder and harder, till the most earnest remonstrances, even from a father's lips, were unable, in any degree, to awaken them; their sin had wrought its perfect work, and brought forth death: " they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them."

SERMON XXVII.

CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP.

COLOSSIANS, iv. 11.

These only are my fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God, who have been a comfort unto me.

THE persons of whom this is said were three. One was Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, who had travelled over Asia Minor with Paul; had been with him at Ephesus; had gone up with him to Jerusalem; and had been sent with him from Palestine to Rome, where he was now his fellow-prisoner. Another was Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, the very man who had formerly been the cause of the contention between Paul and Barnabas, when Paul, thinking him deficient in zeal, had refused to take him with him as his companion on his journeys. Now, however, Paul gives him a very different character, calling him, as we have heard, one of the few who were a