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| Of Equitable Rule.
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Chapter 16.—Of Equitable
Rule.
And therefore, although our
righteous fathers1289
had slaves, and administered their
domestic affairs so as to distinguish between the condition of
slaves and the heirship of sons in regard to the blessings of this
life, yet in regard to the worship of God, in whom we hope for
eternal blessings, they took an equally loving oversight of all the
members of their household. And this is so much in accordance
with the natural order, that the head of the household was called
paterfamilias; and this name has been so generally accepted,
that even those whose rule is unrighteous are glad to apply it to
themselves.
But those who are true fathers
of their households desire and endeavor that all the members of
their household, equally with their own children, should worship
and win God, and should come to that heavenly home in which the
duty of ruling men is no longer necessary, because the duty of
caring for their everlasting happiness has also ceased; but, until
they reach that home, masters ought to feel their position of
authority a greater burden than servants their service. And if
any member of the family interrupts the domestic peace by
disobedience, he is corrected either by word or blow, or some kind
of just and legitimate punishment, such as society permits, that he
may himself be the better for it, and be readjusted to the family
harmony from which he had dislocated himself. For as it is not
benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some greater
benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man at
the risk of his falling into graver sin. To be innocent, we must
not only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or
punish his sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may
profit by his experience, or others be warned by his example.
Since, then, the house ought to be the beginning or element of the
city, and every beginning bears reference to some end of its own
kind, and every element to the integrity of the whole of which it
is an element, it follows plainly enough that domestic peace has a
relation to civic peace,—in other words, that the well-ordered
concord of domestic obedience and domestic rule has a relation to
the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and civic rule. And
therefore it follows, further, that the father of the family ought
to frame his domestic rule in accordance with the law of the city,
so that the household may be in harmony with the civic
order.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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