Richard Baxter - A Christian Directory, Part 4 - Christian Politics

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. 63My 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.

Direct. XX. Think not that any change of the form of government, would cure that which is caused by the people's sin, or the common pravity of human nature. Some think they can contrive such forms of government, as that rulers shall be able to do no hurt: but either they will disable them to do good, or else their engine is but glass, and will fail or break when it comes to execution. Men that are themselves so bad and unhumbled, as not to know how bad they are, and how bad mankind is, are still laying the blame upon the form of government when any thing is amiss, and think by a change to find a cure. As if when an army is infected with the plague, or composed of cowards, the change of the general, or form of government, would prove a cure. But if a monarch be faulty, in an aristocracy you will but have many faulty governors for one; and in a democracy a multitude of tyrants. 64

Direct. XXI. Set yourselves much more to study your duty to your governors, than the duty of your governors to you; as knowing, that both your temporal and eternal happiness depend much more upon yourselves, than upon them. 65God doth not call you to study other men's duties so much as your own. If your rulers sin, you shall not answer for it; but if you sin yourselves, you shall. If you should live under the Turk, that would oppress and persecute you, your souls shall speed never the worse for this; it is not you, but he that should be damned for it. If you say, But it is we that should be oppressed by it; I answer, 1. How small are temporal things to a true believer, in comparison of eternal things! Have not you a greater hurt to fear, than the killing of your bodies by men? Luke xii. 4. 2. And even for this life, do you not believe that your lives and liberties are in the power of God, and that he can relieve you from the oppression of all the world, by less than a word, even by his will? If you believe not this, you are atheists; if you do, you must needs perceive that it concerneth you more to care for your duty to your governors, than for theirs to you; and not so much to regard what you receive, as what you do; nor how you are used by others, as how you behave yourselves to them. Be much more afraid lest you should be guilty of murmuring, dishonouring, disobeying, flattering, not praying for your governors, than lest you suffer any thing unjustly from them. 1 Pet. iv. 13-17, "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters; yet if any man suffer as a christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. – If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, ye are happy." Live so, that all your adversaries may be forced to say, as it was said of Daniel, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God," Dan. vi. 5. Let none be able justly to punish you as drunkards, or thieves, or slanderers, or fornicators, or perjured, or deceivers, or rebellious, or seditious; and then never fear any suffering for the sake of Christ or righteousness. Yea, though you suffer as Christ himself did, under a false accusation of disloyalty, fear not the suffering nor the infamy, as long as you are free from the guilt. See that all be well at home, and that you be not faulty against God or your governors, and then you may boldly commit yourselves to God, 1 Pet. ii. 23, 24.