GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE HOLY GOVERNMENT OF FAMILIES.
THE principal thing requisite to the right governing of families, is
the fitness of the governors and the governed thereto, which is spoken
of before in the directions for the constitution. But if persons unfit
for their relations, have joined themselves together in a family,
their first duty is to repent of their former sin and rashness, and
presently to turn to God, and seek after that fitness which is
necessary to the right discharge of the duties of their several
places: and in the governors of families, these three things are of
greatest necessity hereunto: I. Authority. II. Skill. III. Holiness
and readiness of will.
[Sidenote: How to keep up authority.]
I. _Gen. Direct._ Let governors maintain their authority in their
families. For if once that be lost, and you are despised by those that
you should rule, your word will be of no effect with them; you do but
ride without a bridle; your power of governing is gone, when your
authority is lost. And here you must first understand the nature, use,
and extent of your authority; for as your relations are different, to
your wife, your children, and your servants, so also is your
authority. Your authority over your wife, is but such as is necessary
to the order of your family, the safe and prudent management of your
affairs, and your comfortable cohabitation. The power of love and
complicated interest must do more than magisterial commands. Your
authority over your children is much greater; but yet only such as,
conjunct with love, is needful to their good education and felicity.
Your authority over your servants is to be measured by your contract
with them (in these countries where there are no slaves) in order to
your service, and the honour of God. In other matters, or to other
ends, you have no authority over them. For the maintaining of this
your authority observe these following sub-directions.
_Direct._ I. Let your family understand that your authority is of
God, who is the God of order, and that in obedience to him they are
obliged to obey you. There is no power but of God; and there is none
that the intelligent creature can so much reverence as that which is
of God. All bonds are easily broken and cast away (by the soul at
least, if not by the body) which are not perceived to be divine. An
enlightened conscience will say to ambitious usurpers, God I know, and
his Son Jesus I know, but who are ye?
_Direct._ II. The more of God appeareth upon you, in your
knowledge, and holiness, and unblamableness of life, the greater will
your authority be in the eyes of all your inferiors that fear God. Sin
will make you contemptible and vile; and holiness, being the image of
God, will make you honourable. In the eyes of the faithful a "vile
person is contemned; but they honour them that fear the Lord," Psal.
xv. 4. "Righteousness exalteth a nation," (and a person,) "but sin is
a reproach to any people," Prov. xiv. 34. "Those that honour God he
will honour, and those that despise him shall be lightly esteemed,"
1 Sam. ii. 30. They that give up themselves to "vile affections" and
conversations, Rom. i. 26, will seem vile when they have made
themselves so. "Eli's sons made themselves vile by their sin," 1 Sam.
iii. 13. I know men should discern and honour a person placed in
authority by God, though they are morally and naturally vile: but this
is so hard that it is seldom well done. And God is so severe against
proud offenders, that he usually punisheth them by making them vile in
the eyes of others; at least when they are dead, and men dare freely
speak of them, their names will rot, Prov. x. 7. The instances of the
greatest emperors in the world, both Persian, Roman, and Turkish, do
tell us, that if (by whoredom, drunkenness, gluttony, pride, and
especially persecution) they will make themselves vile, God will
permit them, by uncovering their nakedness, to become the shame and
scorn of men; and shall a wicked master of a family think to maintain
his authority over others, while he rebelleth against the authority of
God?
_Direct._ III. Show not your natural weakness by passions, or
imprudent words or deeds. For if they think contemptuously of your
persons, a little thing will draw them further, to despise your words.
There is naturally in man so high an esteem of reason, that men are
hardly persuaded that they should rebel against reason to be governed
(for order's sake) by folly. They are very apt to think that rightest
reason should bear rule. And therefore any silly, weak expressions, or
any inordinate passions, or any imprudent actions, are very apt to
make you contemptible in your inferiors' eyes.
_Direct._ IV. Lose not your authority by a neglect of using it.
If you suffer children and servants but a little while to have the
head, and to have, and say, and do what they will, your government
will be but a name or image. A moderate course between a lordly
rigour, and a soft subjection, or neglect of exercising the power of
your place, will best preserve you from your inferiors' contempt.
_Direct._ V. Lose not your authority by too much familiarity. If
you make your children and servants your play-fellows, or equals, and
talk to them, and suffer them to talk to you, as your companions, they
will quickly grow upon you, and hold their custom; and though another
may govern them, they will scarce ever endure to be governed by you,
but will scorn to be subject where they have once been as equal.
[Sidenote: Of skill in governing.]
II. _Gen. Direct._ Labour for prudence and skilfulness in governing.
He that undertaketh to be a master of a family, undertaketh to be
their governor; and it is no small sin or folly to undertake such a
place, as you are utterly unfit for, when it is a matter of so great
importance. You could discern this in a case that is not your own; as
if a man undertake to be a schoolmaster that cannot read or write; or
to be a physician, who knoweth neither diseases nor their remedies; or
to be a pilot, that cannot tell how to do a pilot's work; and why
cannot you much more discern it in your own case?
_Direct._ I. To get the skill of holy governing, it is needful
that you be well studied in the word of God; therefore God commandeth
kings themselves that "they read in the law all the days of their
lives," Deut. xvii. 18, 19; and that "it depart not out of their
mouths, but that they meditate in it day and night," Josh. i. 8. And
all parents must be able to "teach it their children, and talk of it
both at home and abroad, lying down and rising up," Deut. vi. 6, 7;
xi. 18, 19. All government of men is but subservient to the government
of God, to promote obedience to his laws. And it is necessary that we
understand the laws which all laws and precepts must give place to and
subserve.
_Direct._ II. Understand well the different tempers of your
inferiors, and deal with them as they are, and as they can bear; and
not with all alike. Some are more intelligent and some more dull; some
are of tender, and some of hardened, impudent dispositions; some will
be best wrought upon by love and gentleness; and some have need of
sharpness and severity: prudence must fit your dealings to their
dispositions.
_Direct._ III. You must put much difference between their
different faults, and accordingly suit your reprehensions. Those must
be most severely rebuked that have most wilfulness, and those that are
faulty in matters of greatest weight. Some faults are so much through
mere disability and unavoidable frailty of the flesh, that there is
but little of the will appearing in them. These must be more gently
handled, as deserving more compassion than reproof. Some are habituate
vices, and the whole nature is more desperately depraved than in
others. These must have more than a particular correction. They must
be held to such a course of life, as may be most effectual to destroy
and change those habits. And some there are upright at the heart, and
in the main and most momentous things, are guilty but of some actual
faults; and of these, some more seldom, and some more frequent; and if
you do not prudently diversify your rebukes according to their faults,
you will but harden them, and miss of your ends; for there is a family
justice that must not be overthrown, unless you will overthrow your
families; as there is a more public justice necessary to the public
good.
_Direct._ IV. Be a good husband to your wife, and a good father
to your children, and a good master to your servants, and let love
have dominion in all your government, that your inferiors may easily
find, that it is their interest to obey you. For interest and
self-love are the natural rulers of the world. And it is the most
effectual way to procure obedience or any good, to make men perceive
that it is for their own good, and to engage self-love for you; that
they may see that the benefit is like to be their own. If you do them
no good, but are sour, and uncourteous, and closehanded to them, few
will be ruled by you.
_Direct._ V. If you would be skilful in governing others, learn
first exactly to command yourselves. Can you ever expect to have
others more at your will and government than yourselves? Is he fit to
rule his family in the fear of God and a holy life, who is unholy and
feareth not God himself? Or is he fit to keep them from passion, or
drunkenness, or gluttony, or lust, or any way of sensuality, that
cannot keep himself from it? Will not inferiors despise such reproofs
which are by yourselves contradicted in your lives? You know this true
of wicked preachers; and is it not as true of other governors?
III. _Gen. Direct._ You must be holy persons, if you would be
holy governors of your families. Men's actions follow the bent of
their dispositions. They will do as they are. An enemy of God will not
govern a family for God; nor an enemy of holiness (nor a stranger to
it) set up a holy order in his house, and in a holy manner manage his
affairs. I know it is cheaper and easier to the flesh to call others
to mortification and holiness of life, than to bring ourselves to it;
but yet when it is not a bare command or wish that is necessary, but a
course of holy and industrious government, unholy persons (though some
of them may go far) have not the ends and principles which such a work
requireth.
_Direct._ I. To this end, be sure that your own souls be entirely
subjected unto God, and that you more accurately obey his laws, than
you expect any inferior should obey your commands. If you dare disobey
God, why should they fear disobeying you? Can you more severely
revenge disobedience, or more bountifully reward obedience, than God
can do? Are you greater and better than God himself is?
_Direct._ II. Be sure that you lay up your treasure in heaven,
and make the enjoyment of God in glory to be the ultimate commanding
end, both of the affairs and government of your family, and all things
else with which you are intrusted. Devote yourselves and all to God,
and do all for him: do all as passengers to another world, whose
business on earth is but to provide for heaven, and promote their
everlasting interest. If thus you are separated unto God, you are
sanctified; and then you will separate all that you have to his use
and service, and this, with his acceptance, will sanctify all.
_Direct._ III. Maintain God's authority in your family more
carefully than your own. Your own is but for his. More sharply rebuke
or correct them that wrong and dishonour God, than those that wrong
and dishonour yourselves. Remember Eli's sad example; make not a small
matter of any of the sins, especially the great sins, of your children
or servants. It is an odious thing to slight God's cause, and put up
all with, It is not well done, when you are fiercely passionate for
the loss of some small commodity of your own. God's honour must be
greatest in your family; and his service must have the pre-eminence of
yours; and sin against him, must be the most intolerable offence.
_Direct._ IV. Let spiritual love to your family be predominant,
and let your care be greatest for the saving of their souls, and your
compassion greatest in their spiritual miseries. Be first careful to
provide them a portion in heaven, and to save them from whatsoever
would deprive them of it; and never prefer the transitory pelf of
earth, before their everlasting riches. Never be so cumbered about
many things, as to forget that one thing is necessary; but choose for
yourselves and them the better part, Luke x. 42.
_Direct._ V. Let your family neither be kept in idleness and
flesh-pleasing, nor yet overwhelmed with such a multitude of business,
as shall take up and distract their minds, diverting and unfitting
them for holy things. Where God layeth on you a necessity of excessive
labours, it must patiently and cheerfully be undergone; but when you
draw them unnecessarily on yourselves for the love of riches, you
do but become the tempters and tormentors of yourselves and others;
forgetting the terrible examples of them, that have this way fallen
off from Christ, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows,
1 Tim. vi. 10.
_Direct._ VI. As much as is possible, settle a constant order of
all your businesses, that every ordinary work may know its time, and
confusion may not shut out godliness. It is a great assistance in
every calling to do all in a set and constant order; it maketh it
easy; it removeth impediments, and promoteth success; distraction in
your business causeth a distraction in your minds in holy duty. Some
callings I know can hardly be cast into any order or method; but
others may, if prudence and diligence be used. God's service will thus
be better done, and your work will be better done, to the ease of your
servants, and quiet of your own minds. Foresight and skilfulness would
save you abundance of labour and vexation.