A SERMON
DELIVERED ON MONDAY EVENING,
DEC. 23, 1850
BY THE REV. C.G. FINNEY
I
won’t keep you long this evening because I am anxious to recover from the
hoarseness that I am struggling with, so I will focus my remarks about family
government on the early conversion of children. For a long time it has been impressed on my mind, and the
impression is a growing one, that parents do not sufficiently appreciate the
importance of family government or the potential of its influence on the spiritual
well being of their children. It is one
of the most efficient means of grace.
Family government, when properly managed, is one of the most efficient
means of grace mankind possesses, if parents will only understand and weigh
carefully the great rewards that can be secured by it.
The
family should be the nursery of piety; the family is the place where piety
should begin and where its earliest development should take place. I don’t mean by this that the pulpit should,
by any means, be excluded, but everything done in the pulpit must be endorsed
by the family, so that what is brought before the vast congregation in public
shall be supported by parental influence in the family and there concentrated
to a focal point. With respect to
family government, it is very important that parents should have a proper idea
of the nature of their powers and responsibilities. Concerning the case I mentioned in my last message, I may add
that the story got abroad, and finally into the papers, that the lady had
whipped her child to compel it to submit to the Almighty. Now I need not say that there is no
foundation for this. The truth is that
she used her parental authority kindly, and used that authority to induce the
child to yield its immediate and unqualified submission to God. God said about Abraham, “For I have known
him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him,
that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice”; (Genesis
18:19) and God blamed Eli for not exercising a religious authority over his
children. (I Sam 2:27-36)
The
goal of parental government, the great goal to be secured is
self-government. Children need to be
taught to govern themselves, and to govern themselves by the revealed will of
God. Your goal as parents is to teach
the child to lay restraints on himself.
In other words, parents need to be responsible for observing God’s law,
and then teach the child that responsibility.
The great goal of family government is to secure this, and in order to
do this, parents must govern themselves and thus set an example for their
children. Laying down rules will never
achieve this goal; parents must be what they desire their children to be. Parents probably won’t secure this goal if
they contradict by example, the rules that they enforce; for the instruction of
example is far more powerful and effective than rules and regulations. If parents give good instructions and they
neglect to follow them, the children will surely fall to the ground. And if parents don’t think that something is
wrong when they don’t govern themselves, if they don’t obey their own rules of
morality and propriety, they shouldn’t be surprised that their children are no
better than they are. It would be
ridiculous for them to complain and say they had taught them better. How did they teach them? By both precept and example? No, but neglecting the stronger power of
example, they almost completely trusted in the weaker power of rules and
regulations.
I
have had plenty of opportunities from the nature of my employment, perhaps no
man living more so, of forming acquaintances with many families. Before I was of age, I left my father's
house. Ever since, in various ways, I
have had unusual opportunities to familiarize myself with the state of affairs
in hundreds of households. In all my
experiences, I can say that when a family has turned out badly, I could always
trace it directly or indirectly to the way they had raised their children, to
some fundamental defect in family government.
One parent, perhaps, could not control his temper, another experienced
some other defect of management.
Parents
should very carefully control their own tempers. Never address your children in a loud, angry, scolding tone, but
affectionately exercise your governmental power over them. Let the children see by all means, that you
are not furious with them; for if you speak in a surly, scolding tone of voice,
it only rouses the temper of the child, and almost always fails to permanently
secure the object sought. Such commands
are given with a bad grace, and when obeyed, are obeyed in a bad temper.
Parents
should carefully govern their own tongues.
Be careful to avoid being critical and don’t allow yourselves or them to
dwell on the faults of others. Also,
apply this principle to everything else that may seem objectionable; for
whatever you are, your children, to a large extent, will reflect your image, and
breathe your spirit. Parents must also
learn to govern their appetites; if you don’t do this, your children are almost
sure to be misgoverned. Your language,
manners, and habits of life must be such as you want your children to be.
Parents should always make the impression on their families that their government is not despotic and arbitrary, but that it is for the child’s own good. Let this impression be secured. Let the children understand that you exercise your authority not arbitrarily but simply with a view to accomplish the good of the family as a whole. This was God’s purpose in establishing it, and this is His goal in the government of the universe. The good of the governed should be the end of all governments. Where this is not true, all pretended government is nothing less than continual warfare; the governed obey only as far as they are compelled to obey and no more. The children view their family government as a tyranny. But please understand that the end and purpose of family government is the highest good of those governed, and then you will secure their consciences on your side, then you have produced a footing and you will attain your goal. Let your child see that the purpose of your household government is not merely your pleasure, but the child’s own benefit. Let him see that in punishing and restraining him, your purpose is to teach him to govern and restrain himself; in short, seek to keep before his mind the fact that the end that you are aiming for is to promote his own interest. Do this and you will always keep his conscience on your side, and the odds are ten to one in favor of securing your goal.
Ungoverned
wills can never dwell in any family without quarreling. No community can exist where there are
independent wills acting without reference to any one will whose decisions are
law. Let me explain this: our human
nature requires a government.
Communities of people living together must agree in some way to act
together; but in most, if not all, communities, people are not equally informed. In fact, they don’t have the means of
obtaining the same degree of knowledge.
In order to have peace, there must always be some supreme will, for if
there are several independent wills, each acting on its own responsibility in
its own way, of course, such a body of people is no community at all. And if a family is made up of a number of
people whose wills are un-subdued, all attempts at government are completely
useless and must be abandoned, or else there must be arguments.
I
know a family, for example, in the United States, which had been brought up
this way. In the first place, the
husband was a very unreasonable man and the wife was unfortunately just as
bad. Both were remarkably self-willed
and neither would acknowledge the will of the other as law, so that between
them, of course, there was constant strife.
They had three children, not one of which ever had its will subdued, for
the plain reason that one of the parents would never allow the other to attempt
it without interfering, and thereby nullifying the effect. I am well acquainted with the family. Neither attempted to govern the children
unless they were angry, and they had all been foolishly spoiled while very
young, so that when their wills became developed they were unreasonable and
impulsive. One parent at a time would
fly into a rage and attempt to punish them, and the other, on such occasions,
would always come in-between the other parent and the children, and thus they
went on. The young people grew up to manhood
and womanhood in such a state of mind towards each other that they found it
completely impossible for them to live together. The father came to me time after time wanting to know what he
could do. He was a man who had enough
property to make his whole family comfortable and he was perfectly willing to
do so, but they were constantly quarrelling, child with child and parent with
parent, or parents and children together.
I said, “The problem is that you are an unreasonable man and your family
knows it. You are a very self-willed
man and your family knows that. Your
wife is just like you, and your children are the very image of you both, and
that's the problem. There you are, a
family of independent wills, no one willing to submit to another. You didn’t teach them to obey you until they
became so old that the only way you could govern them was to argue with
them.” “I see that I have ruined my
family”, he replied, “and must give up keeping house” and that’s what he did. For a while he even separated from his wife
for they could no longer live together.
Now
I admit that this is a strong case, but I have known hundreds like it, and
similar to it. Sometimes the wife is
unwilling to respect the position of the husband; he may be an unreasonable
man, or he may not.
Let
me relate another striking circumstance.
Some twenty years ago I was working with a minister in one of the cities
of the United States who had a family of young children. The oldest son was a boy about fifteen years
old, and there were three or four girls and boys younger than he was. There was this peculiarity in that family;
the wife would take time at the dinner table to criticize her husband’s
preaching, and argue with him on points of theology. In short, she carried those things to such an extent that it
broke the power of the father over the children. She was a good natured, pleasant woman but after all, she never
allowed her husband to maintain his proper position. Instead of teaching the children to respect whatever their father
said, she usually took some exceptions to it, so that he never could get hold
of the children. I saw this at the
time; and some years later, I had seen the family; a lady came to Oberlin to
live, who had spent two or three years in that family. She aid, “Mr. Finney, I have made up my mind
that I will never argue with my husband, especially when there are young people
in the family”. “Why”, I asked. “I lived with such and such a family and I always
observed such and such things (just what I have described).” Now notice the result of this conduct: “The
oldest son” she continued, “died a miserable wretch, and the rest of the family
is going in the same direction. The
father was never allowed to govern in his proper position, and there was always
a lack on the part of the wife of giving him the place assigned to him by the
Almighty and the result has been a great lesson to me.”
Where
there is any fault of this kind, any neglect or opposition to putting things in
their natural place, any lack of letting families be governed; wherever there
is a lack of proper harmony between parents in bringing both their influences
to bear on the same point, it will almost always ruin that family. Both parents should understand this; the
mother should second the authority of the father, while the father should
always support the power of the mother.
And parents should remember that if they are to subdue the little wills
of their children, they must begin very early.
If you permit those little wills to develop themselves, then your
efforts to subdue them will only make them angry, and, therefore, not only will
your efforts fail, but your efforts will also drive them from home or to some
abominable lifestyle to deceive their parents.
Concerning
the conversion of children, let me ask, my brethren, what do you think is the
reason that so many children with pious parents grow up unconverted? Isn’t It remarkable that this occurs so often? Should this be true? Should so many children, with professing
Christian parents, grow up unconverted?
One great reason is that parents do not make it their business soon
enough and steadily enough to use the proper means to secure conversion at the
earliest possible moment that the children are able to understand their duty to
God. The longer a child goes on in sin,
the more difficult he is to reach. Once
more, parents often don’t understand, believe, and use God’s promises. They don’t take hold of God’s promises concerning
their children. They don’t realize
their duties and responsibilities and throw themselves on God for assistance
and direction, as He requires them to do.
God has furnished parents with promises suited to the relationship they
have with their children, and the peculiar responsibilities that revolve around
these relationships; and if parents will only understand, take hold of, and
make use of these promises that were designed just for this purpose, they will
undoubtedly find that God will convert their children early in life.
Some
parents are not aware of the destructive influence of a critical spirit
concerning preaching and the means of grace.
Look around you. I’m sure you
can see a family where, when they get home from worship on Sunday, the parents
habitually criticize the preacher and draws the attention of the family to anything
they may think was not in good taste.
“The sermon on the whole was fine,” they say, for example, “but there
were such and such things”, and they proceed to quibble on certain points
either about the manner or the matter.
Perhaps it was “too personal”, perhaps “not personal enough”. This is the kind of conversation that they
freely engage in front of the children.
Now all prudent men who think about such conduct for a moment will
immediately see what kind of influence it must have on unconverted children. Go into families where this is true, and in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, you will find that the children are
unconverted. Some parents do this
without realizing it, and never hear a sermon without finding some fault with
it in the presence of the children.
A
few years ago, there was a person of this kind in my own household, and
whenever a certain individual preached for me, as he often did, for I
frequently let someone into my pulpit on Sunday; this person would take the
opportunity to criticize him. In fact,
he criticized everybody who preached in my pulpit, but particularly with the
minister in question who was, by the way, the very best among them, and the one
from whose preaching I had the most hope, both concerning my own children and
other people. Yet this individual was
always in the habit of speaking against this man. One day, I could not take it any longer. I would not endure it. I would not have such an individual in my
family. His criticisms were often just enough, and it was natural enough for a
critical mind to make them; but listen.
Instead of being impressed by all the good points his sermons always
had, what he usually objected to was just the theme of his discourse. I finally told him that I could not allow
it. I had also noticed the few defects,
but they were so completely over-balanced by the good, that I completely overlooked
them, and should never think of them again.
Another family in
the place was in a similar condition in this respect. It was a gentleman who had a number of young people boarding with
him, and who was in the habit, I was told, of speaking at the table severely
criticizing the preaching from time to time.
No matter who would preach, he went home and criticized them, and such
was his influence on the family, that it was just as plain as possible to everybody
why the young people in that family wandered far from God. In this case, it was so plain that it was
impossible to be mistaken or overlooked, and it was the natural result of such
a state of affairs.
The
fact is, that to mention even actual faults in those who preach the Gospel to
people who are not prepared to appreciate their good points is a dangerous
thing for a family of children. The
thing that needs to be done is to feel and apply those good points to himself,
and carry home everything that is good and focus on those good points when
impressing the minds of the children.
However, if he does not feel it himself, if he is critical and
faultfinding, he will ruin his family. Go where you will and you will find these fastidious parents with
unconverted children. Now, if there are
fastidious parents here in this congregation, you look at their children, and
you will see that they are not converted.
Your minister may labor and labor with them, but the effect of his
ministry is broken by this fastidious, censorious spirit, the attention being
directed to the exceptional things in manner or matter, while the good points
are largely or wholly ignored.
But
let me say once more that families who want to receive a blessing during a
revival of religion must put their house in order. Parents must take the matter up, and if they have placed
stumbling blocks before their families, confess their existence and commit
themselves to remove them. Parents
often fancy that since they have been going on wrongly, it will lessen their
influence over their family to call them around the family altar and confess
it; but the fact is that such is by no means the case; the effect is quite the
contrary. The house must be set in
order so that God may come in and be honored in abiding there and not
dishonored. Those who do not get
blessed in their family during the times of revival you will find, as a general
rule, are those who have not done this; and if you search into the matter you
will find one or more of the hindrances I have mentioned. I could mention many cases in which I have
actually asked what the stumbling block really was. Sometimes I have seen the children deeply impressed and yet not
converted, and that’s the way they live from day to day. In many times, I have discovered that family
prayer was neglected and the spirit grieved in various ways in that household,
both by sins of omission and sins of commission.
But let me give an
example. In one of the towns of the
United States a few years ago, I was laboring in a revival of religion when a
young lady came to me with a question.
I saw that she was deeply convicted of sin. Her parents, she told me, were professedly pious, and
accordingly, I expected her to be converted rather rapidly. But she came forward again and again without
getting fully through until finally, her excitement was such that I was afraid
that she might become deranged from the power of her convictions. I felt there must be some stumbling
block. The next time she came forward,
the following conversation took place; “Is there family prayer in your
household”? I asked. “There used to be”, she replied, “but for
some time it has been completely discontinued”. “Oh! Indeed”, I said,
“well what time in the day now do you think I could see your father”? She gave me a time and I searched him out
the next morning. I found the young
lady in a melancholy state of despondency.
The mother was inside the house, and the father was somewhere
outside. I began to chat with the
mother and soon made the discovery that she was in a backsliding state. I asked her to call her husband in, which she
immediately did, and he was in a similar condition. I then set before them the state of their daughter: God had convicted her right before them and
with such force that she was on the verge of despair and destruction. “Why she tells me”, said I, “that you don’t
pray in your family. How come? Don’t you see that you are standing right in
the way of her conversion? Now until
you confess your sins, break your hearts, and again set up your family altar,
I’m not going to leave your house!
What? Are you going to allow
this child to remain under conviction right before your eyes? Don’t you see what a countenance she has
already while you are going about here and there grieving the Holy
Spirit?” Both began to weep, knelt
down, and confessed their sins before the Lord, and it was only a short time
before their hearts were broken since the Spirit had just broken their daughter’s.
This
I have found in all my experience, that if the Spirit of God does not work in a
family, there is some such stumbling block in the way. Sometimes the older children in the family,
though professors of religion, are in the way.
Older children often set a bad example when they are backsliding and the
younger children are unconverted; the older children often exercise a most
destructive influence over the younger children. They are worldly-minded, and if any of the younger children
become serious, they will laugh and put them down. Why? Because they are
looked up to as Christians by the younger children; but instead of praying for
them and watching over them, they conduct themselves in such a light-minded outrageous
manner that they stand right in their way.
I have often had to reason with them saying, “What if your younger
brothers and sisters are impressed by the Spirit of God, and instead of praying
for them, your prayerlessness is one of the greatest obstacles in the
way”! In fact, often, when inquirers
have conversed with me, they have said, “my oldest brother” does this, or “my
older sister” says that. Indeed much
observation has satisfied me that it is one of the most fearful things in the
world for a family to be passed by, whether it is because of this or any other
reason; and this, I believe, is one of the most powerful obstacles. If you see a family thus passed by unblessed,
you can expect that the family will be marked as was the village of Meroz. “‘Curse Meroz’, said the angel of the Lord,
‘curse its inhabitants bitterly, because they did not come to the help of the
Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty’.” (Judges 5:23) It seems to
be a great and guiding principle of the government of God that, whenever a
church is called into a conflict with the enemies of the Lord of Hosts to make
an onslaught on the powers of darkness, it is an awful thing for any family of
that church to withhold its influence.
Look at the history of the Jewish nation, how it reveals the great principles
of God’s government! He will act on the
same principles today if He is the same God now as he was then. The spirit of God’s government is the same
today as it was during Old Testament times.
God would have rebuked a family for withholding its influence back then,
and He always will do it.
Sometimes the ministers in the same area will rise up and have no association with revivals, but notice! In my own experience, I have always seen that the curse of God follows such men. If it were necessary, I could substantiate my statement with the names of people and places. I could tell you some very striking facts, both concerning ministers of various denominations as well as Presbyterian elders and deacons of Congregational churches. This is a great principle of God’s government, who can deny it? No man who knows his Bible and understands the dealings of God can deny this. When God calls on the sacramental hosts to rally at the sound of His coming; when His voice is heard in the tops of the mulberry trees; if any family neglects to invite the Savior in to become its guest, what will become of that family? I suppose I have been reminded of the curse on Meroz thousands of times. It is a fearful thing that the Spirit of God should breathe over a community, and here and there a family goes unblessed! Such families can expect their children will remain unconverted; for it is remarkable that in this respect, God sometimes visits the iniquities of the fathers on the children; and on the children’s children; perhaps a son turns out to be a gambler; a daughter runs away and marries without her parent’s consent, or something like that. The fact is, brethren, God is a jealous God, and when He comes, He expects to be received. Now, brethren, have your families been blessed? I know some of you. But don’t let any child in your family who has reached the age of reason escape. Be sure also to remember your servants, for if they are neglected, God’s Spirit is grieved. Where they are not cared for, where pains are not taken to get them converted and attending church, the Spirit of Christ is not there. I have often observed that servants sustain a relationship to families that God acknowledges. Abraham, for example, was commanded to circumcise everyone belonging to his household. This is a principle of God’s government and has always been so; God always looks on every member of your household as a member of your family for the time being; and God has given you a certain relationship to them which binds you to secure their conversion to God. I have always felt a great responsibility concerning those who come to live in my family. I aim and expect to aim at promoting the conversion of these souls a thousand times more than anything else. I have often said to my wife: “Is that girl converted? Let us arrange everything with respect to that girl being converted and see whether we cannot secure it.”
Now isn’t this
right? Yes. If parents and masters would rightly use the promises of
influence God has given them, I promise you, religion would spread in a way
that is far beyond what it does now.
Let there be no fault on your part, brethren. Let your children see that you aim at doing all the good to each
other you can. You should understand
how great a part religion plays in the relative duties we owe to each
other. Let no child forget the
relationships in which God has placed on him concerning his parents, and the
same with parents concerning their children.
Let every member of every family be what he should be, and you will see
what hold religion takes of the community.