Richard Baxter

2. GENERAL DIRECTIONS: LABOR FOR PRUDENCE AND SKILLFULNESS IN GOVERNING.

He that undertaketh to be a father undertaketh to be their governor; and it is no small sin or folly to undertake such a place [that] 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; why can you not much more discern it in your own case?

Direction 1: 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 (Deu 17:18-19) and that it depart not out of their mouths, but that they meditate in it day and night (Jos 1:8). And all fathers must be able to teach it [to] their children and talk of it both at home and abroad, lying down and rising up (Deu 6:6-7; 11:8-9). All government of men is but subservient nmto the government of God to promote obedience to His laws…

Direction 2: Understand well the different tempers of your [household] and deal with them as they are and as they can bear, not with all alike. Some are more intelligent and some more dull. Some are of tender and some of hardened 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.

Direction 3: You must put much difference between their different faults and accordingly suit your reprehensions. Those that have [the] most willfulness must be most severely rebuked, [along with] 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 habitual 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 [are] more seldom and some more frequent. If you do not prudently diversify your rebukes according to their faults, you will but harden them and miss of your ends.⁸ For there is a family justice that must not be overthrown unless you will overthrow your families, [just] as there is a more public justice necessary to the public good.

Direction 4: Be a good husband to your wife, a good father to your children, and let love have dominion in all your government that your [household] may easily find that it is [in] 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, uncourteous, and close-handed⁹ to them, few will be ruled by you.

Direction 5: 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, drunkenness, gluttony, lust, or any way of sensuality that cannot keep himself from it? Will not [your household] despise such reproofs that are by yourselves contradicted in your lives? You know this [is] true of wicked preachers: is it not as true of other governors?

3. GENERAL DIRECTIONS: 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 [will] 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 mortification¹⁰ and holiness of life than to bring ourselves to it, but 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 that such a work requireth.

Direction 1: To this end, be sure that your own souls be entirely subjected to God and that you more accurately obey His laws than you expect any [household member to] 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? Are you greater and better than God Himself is?

Direction 2. 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 entrusted. Devote yourselves and all to God, and do all for Him…If thus you are separated unto God, you are sanctified; then you will separate all that you have to His use and service…

Direction 3: 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 dishonor God than those that wrong and dishonor you. Remember Eli’s sad example: make not a small matter of any of the sins, especially the great sins, of your children…God’s honor must be greatest in your family, and His service must have the preeminence of yours. Sin against Him must be the most intolerable offence.

Direction 4: Let spiritual love to your family be predominant, let your care be greatest for the saving of their souls, and [let] your compassion [be] 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. Never prefer the transitory pelf¹¹ 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 (Luk 10:42).

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8. miss of your ends – fail to accomplish your purpose in discipline
9. close-handed – stingy.
10. See FGB 201, Mortification
11. transitory pelf – temporary wealth and possessions.

From “A Christian Directory” in The Practical Works of Richard Baxter, Vol. 4, Soli Deo Gloria, a division of Reformation Heritage Books

Richard Baxter (1615-1691): Anglican Puritan preacher and theologian; born in Rowton, Shropshire, England.

Courtesy of Chapel Library