1 Samuel 2:28

For with respect to the future, they will not be benefited by the honor done them, but receive the greater condemnation, neither will they be injured as to the future by ill treatment, but will have the more excuse. But all this I desire to be done for your own sakes. For when rulers are honored by their people, this too is reckoned against them; as in the case of Eli it is said, "Did I not choose him out of his father's house?" But when they are insulted, as in the instance of Samuel, God said, "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me." Therefore insult is their gain, honor their burden. What I say, therefore, is for your sakes, not for theirs. He that honors the Priest, will honor God also; and he who has learnt to despise the Priest, will in process of time insult God. "He that receiveth you," He saith, "receiveth Me." "Hold my priests in honor," He says. The Jews learned to despise God, because they despised Moses, and would have stoned him. For when a man is piously disposed towards the Priest, he is much more so towards God.

24. Because Judea is rejected by divine judgment, it is shown with what wonderful disposition of equity the severity of that judgment itself was brought about. For first the gifts bestowed upon Eli are enumerated, so that while almighty God is shown to be so generous a giver, it may be known how justly He strikes the one who despises Him. He declared that He had revealed Himself to the house of his father, so that he could have no excuse of ignorance. And He teaches that He had shown him this same knowledge of His revelation in Egypt, so that Eli might by no means think that he had obtained it by his own merits. As if He were openly saying: There I offered Myself to be known by him, where he could forget Me, where he did not know how to remember Me. And lest perhaps the very gifts of divine knowledge might seem small to the reprobate, he is declared to have been raised from the other tribes of Israel to the summit of the priesthood. As if He were saying: I preferred him to those to whom he was not superior, but equal. 25. It should be noted that three things are indicated in the office of the priesthood itself. "That he should go up," it says, "to my altar, and burn incense to me, and wear the ephod before me." What is shown by this altar, if not that stone which the patriarch Jacob set up as a pillar (Gen. 28:18)? And what other stone is expressed by this, if not the one Paul proclaims in praise of the faithful, saying: "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone" (Eph. 2:20)? The father Eli was therefore chosen by the Lord for the priesthood so that he might go up to the altar, because the order of the ancient teachers presided over the people subject to them for this purpose: to proclaim the restoration of the human race that was to come in the advent of the Redeemer. […]

He advanced him to the priesthood, entailed it upon his family, and thereby dignified it above any of the families of Israel. He entrusted him with honourable work, to offer on God's altar, to burn incense, and to wear that ephod in which was the breast-plate of judgment.

And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest,....

What could he have done more for them, to engage them to be faithful to him? Note, The distinguishing favours we have received from God, especially those of the spiritual priesthood, are great aggravations of sin, and will be remembered against us in the day of account, if we profane our crown and betray our trusts, Deut. xxxii.