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.
CHAPTER V.
SPECIAL MOTIVES TO PERSUADE MEN TO THE HOLY GOVERNING OF THEIR FAMILIES
If it were but well understood what benefits come by the holy governing of families, and what mischiefs come by its neglect, there would few that walk the streets among us, appear so odious as those careless, ungodly governors that know not nor mind a duty of such exceeding weight. While we lie all as overwhelmed with the calamitous fruits of this neglect, I think meet to try if, with some, the cause may be removed, by awakening sluggish souls to do their undertaken work.
Motive I. Consider that the holy government of families, is a considerable part of God's own government of the world, and the contrary is a great part of the devil's government. It hath pleased God to settle as a natural, so a political order in the world, and to honour his creatures to be the instruments of his own operations; and though he could have produced all effects without any inferior causes, and could have governed the world by himself alone without any instruments, (he being not as kings, constrained to make use of deputies and officers, because of their own natural confinement and insufficiency,) yet is he pleased to make inferior causes partakers in such excellent effects, and taketh delight in the frame and order of causes, by which his will among his creatures is accomplished. So that as the several justices in the countries do govern as officers of the king, so every magistrate and master of a family doth govern as an officer of God. And if his government by his officers be put down or neglected, it is a contempt of God himself, or rebellion against him. What is all the practical atheism, and rebellion, and ungodliness of the world, but a rejecting of the government of God? It is not against the being of God in itself considered, that his enemies rise up with malignant, rebellious opposition; but it is against God as the holy and righteous Governor of the world, and especially of themselves. And as in an army, if the corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants, do all neglect their offices, the government of the general or colonels is defeated and of little force; so if the rulers of families and other officers of God will corrupt or neglect their part of government, they do their worst to corrupt or cast out God's government from the earth. And if God shall not govern in your families, who shall? The devil is always the governor where God's government is refused; the world and the flesh are the instruments of his government; worldliness and fleshly living are his service: undoubtedly he is the ruler of the family where these prevail, and where faith and godliness do not take place. And what can you expect from such a master?
Motive II. Consider also that an ungoverned, ungodly family is a powerful means to the damnation of all the members of it: it is the common boat or ship that hurrieth souls to hell; that is bound for the devouring gulf: he that is in the devil's coach or boat is like to go with the rest, as the driver or the boatman pleaseth. But a well-governed family is an excellent help to the saving of all the souls that are in it. As in an ungodly family there are continual temptations to ungodliness, to swearing, and lying, and railing, and wantonness, and contempt of God; so in a godly family there are continual provocations to a holy life, to faith, and love, and obedience, and heavenly-mindedness: temptations to sin are fewer there, than in the devil's shops and workhouses of sin; the authority of the governors, the conversation of the rest, the examples of all, are great inducements to a holy life. As in a well-ordered army of valiant men, every coward is so linked in by order, that he cannot choose but fight and stand to it with the rest, and in a confused rout the valiantest man is borne down by the disorder, and must perish with the rest; even so in a well-ordered, holy family, a wicked man can scarce tell how to live wickedly, but seemeth to be almost a saint, while he is continually among saints, and heareth no words that are profane or filthy, and is kept in to the constant exercises of religion, by the authority and company of those he liveth with. Oh how easy and clean is the way to heaven, in such a gracious, well-ordered family, in comparison of what it is to them that dwell in the distracted families of profane and sensual worldlings! As there is greater probability of the salvation of souls in England where the gospel is preached and professed, than in heathen or Mahometan countries; so there is a greater probability of their salvation that live in the houses and company of the godly, than of the ungodly. In one the advantages
