may be learnt here no less readily. To hate authority, to evade it whenever you can, and to make a boast of doing so, there are many opportunities, there is the temptation of much vulgar applause, to lead you to this; and with the feeling of independence thus full grown, as it were, in early youth, are these the times, or is this the country in which it will be diminished in manhood? Will it not be strengthened into all that selfish indifference to law and to authority of every kind which is now so common? And will he, who despises man, indeed reverence God? Or will he not, does he not, as a matter of experience, find Christ's yoke hard also? and does he not strive to free himself from it at every turn? How far is he then removed from the hardness of Jehoiakim? And does he not as truly hate and defy God's word in his heart and life, as if he were to utter his blasphemies aloud, and revile the Scriptures, or mock at Christ's worship and ordinances?

SERMON XXVI.

JUDICIAL BLINDNESS.

1 SAMUEL, ii. 25.

They hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them.

EZEKIEL, xviii. 31, 32.

Why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.

LET no one for an instant suppose that I have chosen these verses for my text with any intention of plunging into questions perfectly beyond the reach of man's understanding, and therefore perfectly incapable of affording us any benefit. The question which properly belongs to these verses, which I have purposely placed side by side of each other, is merely this, What is the lesson that they were intended to teach us? What is the lesson? not, What is the truth which may be drawn from them as a conclusion from its premises? Again, is the lesson of these two verses intended for the same persons, or for the same person at the same time? or if for different persons, or for the same person at different times, what are the differences either of persons or of circumstances? And no man asking such questions as these of the Scripture is likely to ask in vain; whereas no man who asks what is the general truth, as in philosophy, which is to be gathered from these, and almost all other passages relating to God, is likely to be satisfactorily answered.

Now, first, what is the lesson taught us by the words out of the book of Samuel? "They hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them."

"The Lord would slay them!" It is a dreadful sentence, and we would fain know of whom it was uttered. It is spoken, we see, of some particular persons, not generally; and who were these persons? The account shows us that they were the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, two men of great and instructive wickedness, the sons of a priest, brought up amidst holy things from their childhood, and themselves, when they grew up, called to minister in the priestly office. What more could have been done unto the vineyard ? What greater means of knowledge, what better opportunities of being impressed with a sense of God's majesty and holiness, could possibly have been granted them? But these means and opportunities had been neglected, till what was food at first was now their poison. They had gained such a habit of seeing and hearing holy things unmoved, that nothing could possibly work on them. It is probable that every fresh service which they performed about the tabernacle did but harden them more and more. How, then, could they hearken to the voice of their father, a kind old man, indeed, and a good one, but one with none of that vigour of character which commands respect, even from the evil. Were his words of gentle rebuke likely to move those hearts which for years had served every day in the presence of God, and had felt neither fear for him nor love of him? Vain was it to hope that such hearts should be so renewed to repentance. The seal of destruction was set on them but too plainly; the Lord would slay them; the laws of his providence, his unchanged and unchangeable providence, had decreed that their case was hopeless: for they had hardened their hearts greedily all their lives, and their work was now set so sure, that they could not undo it, because they could not wish it to be undone.

This, then, is the lesson, and a very solemn one it is, and most useful. There were some on whom advice was wasted, for the law of God's providence was, that they must perish; that they had neglected such great means of grace so long and so obstinately, as to have hardened their hearts beyond repentance. There were some whose state was thus utterly lost; and perhaps He whose eye can read the heart of man may see, when looking over the souls now alive in this land, that there are some amongst them who are lost beyond repentance, like the sons of Eli. He whose eye can read the heart may perhaps find some such; but no other eye, save his alone, can tell them. And as we are sure that if there be any in such a state, they must, at any rate, be few, so we may be sure, also, that there is no man alive to whom the words of the text would always apply. There was a time, even with Hophni and Phinehas, there was a time with all the souls who may since have been equally lost, when God willed not to slay them; when his words to them were thus recorded by the prophet Ezekiel, "Why will ye die? Turn yourselves, and live ye!" So then the lesson of the text does not apply to the same persons at the same time, nor yet does it all belong to all persons; for there were some, as Hophni and Phinehas, and there may be some in God's sight now, who have nothing to do with the words of Ezekiel; there have been, and we may trust that there are, and ever