A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics

Direct. V. Do not either divulge or aggravate the vices of your governors to their dishonour; for their honour is necessary to the public good. If they have not care of their own honour, yet their subjects must have a care of it. If once they be dishonoured, they will the more easily be contemned, hated, and disobeyed. Therefore the dishonouring of the rulers tendeth to the dissolution of the government, and ruin of the commonwealth. Only in two cases did the ancient christians aggravate the wickedness of their governors. 1. In case they were such cruel monsters as Nero, who lived to the misery of mankind. 2. In case they were not only open enemies of the church of Christ, but their honour stood in competition with the honour of christianity, piety, and honesty, as in Julian's case; I confess against Nero and Julian both living and dead, (and many like them,) the tongues and pens of wise and sober persons have been very free; but the fifth commandment is not to be forgotten, "Honour thy father and mother;" and 1 Pet. ii. 17, "Fear God, honour the king;"51 though you must not call evil good, yet you may conceal and hide evil: Ham was cursed for opening his father's nakedness. Though you must flatter none in their sins, nor hinder their repentance, but further it by all righteous means, yet must you speak honourably of your rulers, and endeavour to breed an honourable esteem of them in the people's minds; and not as some, that think they do well, if they can secretly make their rulers seem odious, by opening and aggravating their faults.

Direct. VI. Subdue your passions, that no injuries which you may suffer by them, may disturb your reason, and make you dishonour them by way of revenge. If you may not revenge yourselves on private men, much less on magistrates; and the tongue may be an unjust revenger, as well as the hand. Passion will provoke you to be telling all men, Thus and thus I was used, and to persuade you that it is no sin to tell the truth of what you suffered: but remember, that the public good, and the honour of God's officers, are of greater value, than the righting of a particular person that is injured. Many a discontented person hath set kingdoms on fire, by divulging the faults of governors for the righting of themselves.

Object. But shall cruel and unrighteous or persecuting men do mischief, and not hear of it, nor be humbled for it?

Answ. 1. Preachers of the gospel, and others that have opportunity, may privately tell them of it, to bring them to repentance, (if they will endure it,) without dishonouring them by making it public. 2. Historians will tell posterity of it, to their perpetual infamy (if repentance and well-doing recover not their honour).52 Flatterers abuse the living, but truth will dishonour their wickedness when they are dead: for it is God's own decree, "That the memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot," Prov. x. 7. 3. And God himself will fully be avenged upon the impenitent for ever, having told you, "That it were better for him that offendeth one of his little ones, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."53 And is not all this enough, without the revenge of your passionate tongues? To speak evil of dignities, and despise dominion, and bring railing accusations, are the sins of the old licentious heretics. Christ left us his example, not to revile the meanest, when we are reviled, 1 Pet. ii. 23. If you believe, that God will justify the innocent, and avenge them speedily, Luke xviii. 7, 8, what need you be so forward to justify and avenge yourselves?

Object. If God will have their names to rot, and spoken evil of when they are dead, why may I not do it while they are alive?

Answ. There is a great deal of difference between a true historian and a self-avenger in the reason of the thing, and in the effects: to dishonour bad rulers while they live, doth tend to excite the people to rebellion, and to disable them to govern; but for truth to be spoken of them when they are dead, doth only lay an odium upon the sin, and is a warning to others, that they follow them not in evil: and this no wicked prince was ever so great and powerful as to prevent; for it is a part of God's resolved judgment. Yet must historians so open the faults of the person, as not to bring the office into contempt, but preserve the reverence due to the authority and place of governors.54

Direct. VII. By all means overcome a selfish mind, and get such a holy and a public spirit, as more regardeth God's honour, and the public interest, than your own. It is selfishness that is the great rebel and enemy of God, and of the king, and of our neighbour. A selfish, private spirit careth not what the commonwealth suffereth, if he himself may be a gainer by it. To revenge himself, or to rise up to some higher place, or increase his riches, he will betray and ruin his king, his country, and his nearest friends. A selfish, ambitious, covetous man, is faithful to no man, longer than he serveth his ends; nor is he any further to be trusted, than his own interest will allow. Self-denial, and a public spirit, are necessary to every faithful subject.

Direct. VIII. Wish not evil to your governors in your secret thoughts; but if any such thought would enter into your hearts, reject it with abhorrence. Eccles. x. 20, "Curse not the king, no, not in thy thoughts; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter." A feverish, misguided zeal for religion, and a passionate discontent for personal injuries, do make many greatly guilty in this point; they would be much pleased, if God would show some grievous judgment upon persecutors; and take no warning by Christ's rebukes of James and John, but secretly are wishing for fire from heaven, not knowing what manner of spirit they are of. They cherish such thoughts as are pleasing to them, though they dare not utter them in words. And he that dare wish hurt, is in danger of being drawn by temptation to do hurt.

Object. But may we not pray for the cutting off of persecutors? And may we not give God thanks for it, if he do it himself, without any sinful means of ours?

Answ. 1. Every ruler that casteth down one sect or party of christians, and setteth up another, (perhaps as true to the interest of christianity as they,) is not to be prayed against, and his destruction wished by the suffering party. 2. If he be a persecutor of christianity and piety itself, as heathens and infidels are, yet if his government do more good than his persecution doth harm, you may not so much as wish his downfall. 3. If he were a Nero, or a Julian, you must pray first for his conversion; and if that may not be, then next for his restraint, and never for his destruction, but on supposition that neither of the former may be attained (which you cannot say). 4. You must pray for the deliverance of the persecuted church, and leave the way and means to God, and not prescribe to him. Hurtful desires and prayers are seldom of God. 5. You may freelier rejoice afterwards, than desire it before: because when a Julian is cut off, you know that God's righteous will is accomplished; when before you knew not that it was his will: yet after, it is the deliverance of the church, and not the hurt of a persecutor as such, that you must give thanks for: be very suspicious here, lest partiality and passion blind you.55

Direct. IX. Learn how to suffer; and know what use God can make of your sufferings, and think not better of prosperity, and worse of suffering, than you have cause.56 It is a carnal, unbelieving heart, that maketh so great a matter of poverty, imprisonment, banishment, or death, as if they were undone, if they suffer for Christ, or be sent to heaven before the time; as if kingdoms must be disturbed to save you from suffering: this better beseems an infidel or a worldling, that takes his earthly prosperity for his portion, and thinks he hath no other to win or lose. Do you not know what the church hath gained by suffering? how pure it hath been when the fire of persecution hath refined it? and how prosperity hath been the very thing that hath polluted it, and shattered it all to pieces; by letting in all the ungodly world into the visible communion of the saints, and by setting the bishops on contending for superiority, and overtopping emperors and kings? Many thousands that would be excellent persons in adversity, cannot bear a high or prosperous state, but their brains are turned, and pride and contention maketh them the scorn of the adversaries that observe them.

Direct. X. Trust God, and live by faith; and then you will find no need of rebellious or any sinful means. Do you believe, that both the hearts and lives of kings, and all their affairs, are in the hands of God? If not, you are atheists. If you do, then do you not think that God is fitter than you to dispose of them? He that believeth, will not make haste. Deliverance from persecutions must be prayed and waited for, and not snatched by violence, as a hungry dog will snatch the meat out of his master's hands, and bite his fingers. Do you believe, "That all shall work together for good to them that love God?" Rom. viii. 28. And do you believe, that the godly are more than conquerors; when they are killed all day, and counted as sheep unto the slaughter? ver. 32-35. And do you believe, that it is cause of exceeding joy, when for the sake of righteousness you are hated and persecuted, and all manner of evil is falsely spoken of you? Matt. v. 10-12. If you do not, you believe not Christ; if you do, will you strive by sinful means against your own good, and happiness, and joy? Will you desire to conquer, when you may be more than conquerors? Certainly, the use of sinful means doth come from secret unbelief and diffidence. Learn to trust God, and you will easily be subject to your governors.

Direct XI. Look not for too great matters in the world: take it but for that wilderness which is the way to the promised land of rest. And then you will not count it strange to meet with hard usage and sufferings from almost all. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as if some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice in that ye are partakers of the sufferings of Christ," 1 Pet. iv. 12, 13. Are you content with God and heaven for your portion? If not, how are you christians? if you are, you have small temptation to rebel or use unlawful means for earthly privileges.57 Paul saith, he "took pleasure in persecutions," 2 Cor. xii. 10. Learn you to do so, and you will easily bear them.

Direct. XII. Abhor the popular spirit of envy, which maketh the poor, for the most part, think odiously of the rich and their superiors; because they have that which they had rather have themselves. I have long observed it, that the poor labouring people are very apt to speak of the rich, as sober men speak of drunkards; as if their very estates, and dignity, and greatness, were a vice.58 And it is very much to flatter their own conscience, and delude themselves with ungrounded hopes of heaven. When they have not the spirit of regeneration and holiness, to witness their title to eternal life, they think their poverty will serve the turn; and they will ordinarily say, that they hope God will not punish them in another world, because they have had their part in this: but they will easily believe, that almost all rich and great men go to hell; and when they read Luke xvi. of the rich man and Lazarus, they think they are the Lazaruses, and read it as if God would save men merely for being poor, and damn men for being great and rich; when yet they would themselves be as rich and great, if they knew how to attain it. They think that they are the maintainers of the commonwealth, and the rich are the caterpillars of it, that live upon their labours, like drones in the hive, or mice and vermin that eat the honey, which the poor labouring bees have long been gathering. For they are unacquainted with the labours and cares of their governors, and sensible only of their own. This envious spirit exceedingly disposeth the poor to discontents, and tumults, and rebellions; but it is not of God, James iii. 15-17.

Direct. XIII. Keep not company with envious murmurers at government; for their words fret like a canker, and their sin is of an infecting kind. What a multitude were drawn into the rebellion of Korah, who, no doubt, were provoked by the leader's discontented words.59 It seemeth they were for popularity. "Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift you up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? – Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness; except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us? – Wilt thou put out the eyes of these men?" Numb. xvi. 3, 13, 14. What confidence, and what fair pretences are here! so probable and plausible to the people, that it is no wonder that multitudes were carried to rebellion by it! Though God disowned them by a dreadful judgment, and showed whom he had chosen to be the governors of his people.

Direct. XIV. Keep humble, and take heed of pride. The humble are ready to obey and yield, and not only to be subject to magistrates, but to all men, even voluntarily to be subject to them that cannot constrain them. "Be all of you subject one to another," 1 Pet. v. 5. It is no hard matter for a twig to bow, and for a humble soul to yield and obey another, in any thing that is lawful. But the proud take subjection for vassalage, and obedience for slavery, and say, Who is lord over us? our tongues are our own: what lord shall control us? Will we be made slaves to such and such?60 "Only from pride cometh contention," Prov. xiii. 10. By causing impatience, it causeth disobedience and sedition.

Direct. XV. Meddle not uncalled with the matters of superiors, and take not upon you to censure their actions, whom you have neither ability, fitness, or authority to censure. How commonly will every tradesman and labourer at his work, be censuring the counsels and government of the king; and speaking of things, which they never had means sufficiently to understand! Unless you had been upon the place, and heard all the debates and consultations, and understood all the circumstances and reasons of the business, how can you imagine that at so great a distance you are competent judges? Fear God, and judge not that you be not judged.61 If busy-bodies and meddlers with other men's matters, among equals, are condemned, 2 Thess. iii. 11; 1 Tim. v. 13; 1 Pet. iv. 15; much more when they meddle, and that censoriously, with the matters of their governors. If you would please God, know and keep your places, as soldiers in an army, which is their comely order and their strength.

Direct. XVI. Consider the great temptations of the rich and great; and pity them that stand in so dangerous a station, instead of murmuring at them, or envying their greatness. You little know what you should be yourselves, if you were in their places, and the world, and the flesh, had so great a stroke at you, as they have at them. He that can swim in calmer water, may be carried down a violent stream. It is harder for that bird to fly, that hath many pound weights tied to keep her down, than that which hath but a straw to carry to her nest. It is harder mounting heaven-wards with lordships and kingdoms, than with your less impediments. Why do you not pity them that stand on the top of barren mountains, in the stroke of every storm and wind, when you dwell in the quiet, fruitful vales? Do you envy them that must go to heaven, as a camel through a needle's eye, if ever they come there? And are you discontented, that you are not in their condition? Will you rebel and fight to make your salvation as difficult as theirs? Are you so unthankful to God for your safer station, that you murmur at it, and long to be in the more dangerous place?

Direct. XVII. Pray constantly and heartily for the spiritual and corporal welfare of your governors. And you have reason to believe, that God who hath commanded you to put up such prayers, will not suffer them to be wholly lost, but will answer them some way to the benefit of them that perform the duty, 1 Tim. ii. 1-3. And the very performance of it will do us much good of itself; for it will keep the heart well disposed to our governors, and keep out all sinful desires of their hurt; or control them and cast them out, if they come in: prayer is the exercise of love and good desires; and exercise increaseth and confirmeth habits. If any ill wishes against your governors should steal into your minds, the next time you pray for them, conscience will accuse you of hypocrisy, and either the sinful desires will corrupt or end your prayers, or else your prayers will cast out those ill desires. Certainly the faithful, fervent prayers of the righteous, do prevail much with God: and things would go better than they do in the world, if we prayed for rulers as heartily as we ought.

Object. For all the prayers of the church, five parts of six of the world are yet idolaters, heathens, infidels, and Mahometans; and for all the prayers of the reformed churches, most of the christian part of the world are drowned in popery, or gross ignorance and superstition, and the poor Greek churches have Mahometan or tyrannical governors, and carnal, proud, usurping prelates domineer over the Roman church; and there are but three protestant kings on the whole earth! And among the Israelites themselves, who have priests and prophets to pray for their princes, a good king was so rare, that when you have named five or six over Judah, (and never a one after the division over Israel,) you scarce know where to find the rest. What good then do your prayers for kings and magistrates?

Answ. 1. As I said before, they keep the hearts of subjects in an obedient, holy frame. 2. Were it not for prayers, those few good ones would be fewer, or worse than they are; and the bad ones might be worse, or at least do more hurt to the church than they now do. 3. It is not to be expected, that all should be granted in kind that believers pray for; for then not only kings, but all the world should be converted and saved; for we should pray for every one. But God who knoweth best how to distribute his mercies, and to honour himself, and refine his church by the malice and persecution of his enemies, will make his people's prayers a means of that measure of good which he will do for rulers, and by them in the world; and that is enough to encourage us to pray. 4. And indeed, if when proud, ungodly worldlings have sold their souls by wicked means, to climb up into places of power, and command, and domineer over others, the prayers of the faithful should presently convert and save them all, because they are governors; this would seem to charge God with respect of persons, and defect of justice, and would drown the world in wickedness, treasons, bloodshed, and confusion, by encouraging men by flatteries, or treacheries, or murders, to usurp such places, in which they may both gratify their lusts, and after save their souls, while the godly are obliged to pray them into heaven. It is no such hearing of prayers for governors which God hath promised. 5. And yet, I must observe, that most christians are so cold and formal in their prayers for the rulers of the world, and of the church, that we have great reason to impute the unhappiness of governors very much to their neglect; almost all men are taken up so much with their own concernments, that they put off the public concernments of the world, and of the church and state, with a few customary, heartless words; and understand not the meaning of the three first petitions of the Lord's prayer, and the reason of their precedency, or put them not up with that feeling as they do the other three. If we could once observe, that the generality of christians were more earnest and importunate with God, for the hallowing of his name through all the world, and the coming of his kingdom, and the obeying of his will in earth, as it is in heaven, and the conversion of the kings and kingdoms of the world, than for any of their personal concernments, I should take it for a better prognostic of the happiness of kings and kingdoms, than any that hath yet appeared in our days. And those that are taken up with the expectations of Christ's visible reign on earth, would find it a more lawful and comfortable way, to promote his government thus by his own appointed officers, than to rebel against kings, and seek to pull them down, on pretence of setting up him that hath appointed them, whose kingdom (personally) is not of this world.62

Direct. XVIII. When you are tempted to dishonourable thoughts of your governors, look over the face of all the earth, and compare your case with the nations of the world; and then your murmurings may be turned into thankfulness for so great a mercy. What cause hath God to difference us from other nations, and give us any more than an equal proportion of mercy with the rest of the world? Have we deserved to have a christian king, when five parts of the world have rulers that are heathens and Mahometans? Have we deserved to have a protestant king, when all the world hath but two more? How happy were the world, if it were so with all nations, as it is with us! Remember how unthankfulness forfeiteth our happiness.

Direct. XIX. Consider as well the benefits which you receive by governors, as the sufferings which you undergo; and especially consider of the common benefits, and value them above your own. He that knoweth what man is, and what the world is, and what the temptations of great men are, and what he himself deserveth, and what need the best have of affliction, and what good they may get by the right improvement of it, will never wonder nor grudge to have his earthly mercies mixed with crosses, and to find some salt or sourness in the sauce of his pleasant dishes. For the most luscious is not of best concoction. And he that will more observe his few afflictions, than his many benefits, hath much more selfish tenderness of the flesh, than ingenuous thankfulness to his Benefactor. It is for your good that rulers are the ministers of God, Rom. xiii. 3-5. Perhaps you will think it strange, that I say to you (what I have oft said) that I think there are not very many rulers, no, not tyrants and persecutors, so bad, but that the godly that live under them, do receive from their government more good than hurt; and (though it must be confessed, that better governors would do better, yet) almost the worst are better than none. And none are more beholden to God for magistrates, than the godly are, however none suffer so much by them in most places of the world.63 My reason is, 1. Because the multitude of the needy, and the dissolute prodigals, if they were all ungoverned, would tear out the throats of the more wealthy and industrious; and as robbers use men in their houses, and on the highway, so would such persons use all about them, and turn all into a constant war. And hereby all honest industry would be overthrown, while the fruit of men's labours were all at the mercy of every one that is stronger than the owner; and a robber can take away all in a night, which you have been labouring for many years, or may set all on fire over your heads; and more persons would be killed in these wars by those that sought their goods, than tyrants and persecutors use to kill (unless they be of the most cruel sort of all). 2. And it is plain, that in most countries, the universal enmity of corrupted nature to serious godliness would inflame the rabble, if they were but ungoverned, to commit more murders and cruelties upon the godly, than most of the persecutors in the world have committed. Yet I deny not, in most places there are a sober sort of men of the middle rank that will hear reason, and are more equal to religion than the highest or the lowest usually are. But suppose these sober men were the more numerous, yet is the vulgar rabble the more violent, and if rulers restrained them not, would leave few of the faithful alive on earth. As many volumes as are written of the martyrs, who have suffered by persecutors, I think they saved the lives of many more than they murdered. Though this is no thanks to them, it is a mercy to others. As many as Queen Mary martyred, they had been far more if she had but turned the rabble loose upon them and never meddled with them by authority. I do not think Nero or Dioclesian martyred near so many, as the people turned loose upon them would have done. Much more was Julian a protector of the church from the popular rage, though, in comparison of a Constantine or a Theodosius, he was a plague. If you will but consider thus the benefits of your common protection, your thankfulness for rulers would overcome your murmurings. In some places, and at some times, perhaps the people would favour the gospel, and flock after Christ, if rulers hindered them not; but that would not be the ordinary case, and their unconstancy is so great, that what they built up one day in their zeal, the next day they would pull down in fury.