while it shewed how strictly Abraham's "command" rendered all profane, disorderly actions penal.

But we have a memorable example of an adverse line of conduct pursued by another holy man of old, which brought upon him and his household a prolonged, a desolating curse.

Eli the High Priest exhorted his sons to obedience, but he did not command them: he remonstrated, rebuked, threatened their sin with the divine vengeance, but he did not authoritatively restrain them. This might be passed over as an error of judgment, or even admired as an instance of meekness and tenderness, but God has marked it as it were with a scathing thunderbolt, to intimate that it is not enough for the believer individually to serve Him, and to use his influence with bland persuasion that others may do the same; but that in the exercise of that domestic headship in which man was originally placed, and from which he has never been suspended, he must COMMAND his household to do well, so far as the outward work goes; and RESTRAIN them from the commission of evil.

And as in the domestic, so in all other departments of social government. Authority is given of God, and it becomes the duty of the governor to see that he be obeyed. That noble young Christian king, Edward VI, in a proclamation that he put forth against his rebellious subjects who affected to regard him as too young to be obeyed, thus remarkably expresses himself, "Assure yourselves most surely that we of no earthly thing under heaven make such a reputation as we do of this one thing, to have our law obeyed; and this cause of God which we have taken in hand to be thoroughly maintained; from

the which we will never remove a hair's breadth nor give place to any creature living, much less to any subject: but therein will spend our own royal person, our crown, treasure, realm, and all our state; whereof we assure you of our high honour. For herein resteth our honour, herein standeth our kingdom, herein do all kings acknowledge us a king. And shall any of you dare breathe or think against our honour, our kingdom or crown? .... We are your rightful king, your liege lord, your king anointed, your king crowned, the sovereign king of England, not by our age, but by God's ordinance; not only when we shall be of twenty-one years, but when we are of ten years. We possess our crown, not by years, but by the blood and descent from our father, king Henry the eighth. You are our subjects because we are your king; and rule we will because God hath willed. It is as great a fault in us not to rule, as in a subject not to obey."

This is precisely the basis on which all authority rests: the monarch, the magistrate, the husband, the father, the master should all say, with royal Edward, 'Rule we will, because God hath willed.' It is true that evil characters will abuse the power invested in them, to the dishonour of God, and the injury of those beneath them; but as a true Christian will quietly obey, submitting himself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, until he be required to do something inconsistent with his first and highest duty, allegiance to God; so will the wise Christian firmly rule, exercising a delegated authority as one who must give account of its use. The growing evil of our day seems to be the substitution of something else in place of that appointed governance. Laxity

of discipline prevails to a serious extent, in families, in schools, and in communities. Children, in very many instances, even in Christian households, are not taught to "honour" their parents, as of old; and perhaps an attentive observer would discern a pretty general call for the enforcement of that command, "Let the wife see that she reverence her husband." Where these instances occur, the fault lies more with the man than with either the woman or the children; he does not sufficiently guard his headship; he does not always remember that he is an appointed, a responsible vicegerent. Do not so,' is a remonstrance frequently heard; but the theory of personal liberty is now carried to so licentious an excess that children and servants, being perhaps distinctly warned of the danger or sinfulness of what they are about, are left to pursue it, and to bear the consequences. These of course they must bear, but is the individual free from a large share in their condemnation who, unlike Abraham, has failed to " command" his children and household to walk in God's ways, and who like Eli has omitted to "restrain" them from crooked paths.

To point out more particularly the omission alluded to, let us suppose the family of a Christian parent, as yet uninfluenced by the same Spirit, bent on visiting the theatre, the race-course, or any other haunt of acknowledged dissipation and ungodliness. The father will remonstrate, he will set before them the evils, the perils of associating with the Lord's enemies, and of prostituting to worse than useless purposes the time, health, and other talents lent to them; but will he stop here? Will he be content to say, I have set before you life and death, the blessing and

the curse: now choose ye between them,—or will he, on finding them still uninfluenced by his counsel, declare himself their appointed governor, and on young Edward's principle, 'It were as great a fault in me not to rule as in you not to obey,' proceed to the exercise of authority, expressly forbidding, and so far as the law gives him power coercively restraining them? I know it is a disputed point; that parents and masters talk of the inefficiency of human restraint, of the worthlessness of a compulsory obedience, of the probability that such outward restriction will only increase the heart's desire after forbidden things, and lead to a more desperate plunge into worldliness and vice, when the temporary rein is removed; but this is not the point-we are not left to compute consequences or to compare probabilities by a rule of our own devising; infinite wisdom has decided for us; and has left on record an awful instance of wrathful visitation where the more painful duty was neglected for an easier course. We cannot

change the heart; we cannot even by enforcing an externally correct line of conduct make it one whit more meet to receive that divine impulse without which it will not, cannot turn its regards to God: but there are certain things from which Christians are commanded to abstain, as dishonouring to his name and cause; and it is shocking to think that a parent who has used his physical strength to bring his helplessly passive infant to the baptismal font, formally enrolling one whom God only can effectually enlist as a soldier and servant of Christ, pledging him to fight against the devil, the world and the flesh,-to think of such a one when that child has acquired bodily power to walk into the territories of JULY, 1841.

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that same world, flesh and devil, declining to use his still competent ability of restraining the young deserter.

I have known instances, too many, of enlightened parents carrying this erroneous compliance so far as to accompany their offspring into such pernicious scenes, in order to watch over them there; but I could not name one who did not thereby pierce himself or herself, through with many sorrows. Within the range of my own personal observation, domestic calamity has so invariably followed domestic unfaithfulness, as to convince me that Eli's example is expressly given as a warning of what God's dealings, in all such cases, shall be. On the other hand, cannot call to mind a single instance where this due exercise of authority for the Lord's glory has led to such evils as we often hear prognosticated; while I know, by grateful, joyful experience no less than by observation-I do most assuredly know-that a rich blessing has crowned it; and that not in a solitary instance here and there, but with an uniformity that all must expect who remember and who plead the promise annexed to the command.

'What then? are we to place under lock and key, any young person whose fancy is gadding after some place of amusement?' That does not follow: locks and keys have done good service in their way, and always will; but where the moral force is fairly brought out, they are very, very seldom needed. The eye of delegated power that has been raised to the source of all rightful authority in believing prayer is kindled with a holy fire not easily resisted. 'I positively forbid it: I command you, in the name of him by whom I am myself commanded to rule my house