Biography
by John A. James
John Angell
James, (1785—1859) was a decided Calvinist in doctrine and beautifully balanced
his convictions with practical piety in his life and his ministry. He preached
and wrote to the common man and woman of every age group and station in life.
He was held in high esteem as a preacher and author, yet he was a humble and
unpretentious man.
"It
is my purpose, as God shall assist me by His grace, to labor more carefully for
the edification, consolation, and spiritual improvement, of those who through
grace have believed."
"My
design is to aid the Christian in the practice
of Scriptural truth. My purpose is not to lead the theologian through the
intricate labyrinths of controversy—or into the depths of profound Biblical
knowledge. The highest object which my literary ambition has ever led me to
seek, or my own consciousness will ever lead me to hope that I can obtain, is
to assist the believer in the path of life."
Verse:
"Wives,
submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your
wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in
everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your
children, or they will become discouraged."
Colossians 3:18-21
The
Family Constitution
A family! How delightful the associations we form with
such a word! How pleasing the images with which it crowds the mind, and how
tender the emotions which it awakens in the heart! Who can wonder that domestic
happiness should be a theme dear to poetry, and that it should have called
forth some of the sweetest strains of fancy and of feeling? Or who can be
surprised, that of all the objects which present themselves in the vista of
futurity to the eye of those who are setting out on the journey of life, this
should excite the most ardent desires, and engage the most active pursuits? But
alas! of those who in the ardor of youth start for the possession of this dear
prize, how many fail? And why? Because their imagination alone is engaged on
the subject—they have no definite ideas of what it means, nor of the way in
which it is to be obtained. It is a mere lovely creation of a romantic mind,
and oftentimes, with such people, fades away like a dream.
It may be of service,
therefore, to lay open the sources of domestic happiness, and to show that
these are to be found, not in the flowery regions of imagination—but in the
sober realities of piety, chaste love, prudence, and well formed relationships
. These precious springs are within the reach of all who will take the right
path that leads to them—and this is the way of knowledge. We must make
ourselves acquainted with the nature, designs, and importance of the family
unit—we must analyze this relationship to ascertain its elements, its laws, and
its purposes. Who can be a good member of any state, without knowing the nature
of its constitution, and the laws by which it is directed? And it is equally
vain to look for domestic happiness, without a clear insight into the ends and
laws which God has laid down for the formation of the household.
In the discussion which
have been agitated to settle the question as to the form of civil government
best adapted to secure the welfare of the human race, the FAMILY CONSTITUTION
has been too much overlooked. Speculation has been indulged, and theories
proposed by their respective authors, in reference to the greater aggregations
of society, with all the confidence of oracular authority; while at the same
time, it is evident they have forgotten how much the well-being of societies
are dependent on the well being of the families of which all societies are
composed. While individuals are the materials of which a nation is formed, it
is the good condition of families that constitutes the cement which holds it
together, and gives to it its fine form, solidity and durability. Let this be
lacking, and however inherently excellent the materials, however elegant the
shape, however ornamented the base, the shaft, or the capital may be—it
contains in itself the principle of decay, an active cause of dilapidation and
ruin!
The family constitution
is a divine institute. God formed it himself. "He takes the solitary and
sets him in families;" and like all the rest of his works, it is well and
wisely done. When directed as it should be, every family has a sacred
character, inasmuch as the head of it acts the part of both the prophet and
the priest of the household, by instructing them in the knowledge, and leading
them in the worship of God; while at the same time, he discharges the duties of
a king, by supporting a system of order, subordination and discipline.
Conformably with its nature is its design—beyond the benefit of the individuals
which compose it, and which is its first and immediate object, it is intended
to promote the welfare of the national community to which it belongs, and of
which it is a part—hence every nation has stamped a great value on the family
unit, and guarded it with the most powerful sanctions.
Well instructed, well
ordered, and well governed families, are the springs, which send forth the
tributary streams that make up the majestic flow of national greatness and
prosperity—nor can any state be prosperous, where family order and
subordination are generally neglected; nor otherwise than prosperous,
whatever be its political forms, where these are generally maintained. It is
certainly under the wise instruction, and the impartial scepter of a father,
and within the little family circle, that the son becomes a good citizen; it is
by the fireside and upon the family hearth, that loyalty, and patriotism, and
every public virtue grows; as it is in disordered families, that factious
demagogues, and turbulent rebels, and tyrannical oppressors, are trained up to
be their neighbour's torment, or their country's scourge. It is there that the
thorn and the brier, to use the elegant simile of the prophet, or the myrtle
and the fir tree are reared, which are in future time to be the ornament and
defense, or the deformity and misery of the land.
But, has the family
constitution a reference only to the present world and its perishable
interests? By no means! All God's arrangements for man, view him, and are
chiefly intended for him, in his relation to eternity. The eye of Deity is upon
that immortality to which he has destined the human race. Every family has in
fact a sacred character belonging to it, which may indeed be forgotten or
disdained; but the family is constituted, and ought, therefore, to be conducted
with the prospect of the rising generation following that which precedes it,
not only to the grave but to eternity.
Every member of every
household is an immortal creature; everyone that leaves the circle by death,
goes into an eternity of torment or of bliss. Now since all the institutes of
God look to the eternal world as their chief and ultimate reference, surely,
surely, that institute which is the most powerful of all in the formation of
character, must be considered as set up with a special intention to prepare the
subjects of it for glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life.
"No one judges
aright of this household unit, nor can any be in a capacity rightly to perform its
duties, who does not consider this double relation which it bears to the state
and to the church, and who does not view it as a preparatory system, for
training up the good citizen and the real Christian. And for these objects, how
great is the power which it really possesses—how considerable is the mutual
influence of husbands and wives in molding each other's tastes, or modifying
each other's dispositions; of parents, in forming the character of their
children and servants; and of brothers and sisters, in stimulating and guiding
each other's pursuits. The power of other constitutions is remote, occasional
and feeble; but this is close, constant and mighty. With other systems the
character is only casually brought into contact; but this always touches us. We
live, and move, and have our being in the very center of it. So powerful is the
influence of this association on its members, that it has preserved them, by
the blessing of God, in the possession of piety and morality, in times and
places of the greatest corruption of manners. On what vantage ground does the
conscientious Christian parent here stand! The springs of public and social
life may be greatly corrupted; the nation in which he dwells may degenerate
into licentiousness, into idolatry, or into the most daring infidelity.
Retiring then to this sacred enclosure, he may entrench himself, and there,
lifting up a standard for God, either wait the approach of better days, or
leave a few behind him, on whom the best blessings of those days will certainly
descend. Though the heavens be shut up and there be no dew, the little
enclosure which he cultivates, like the fleece of Gideon, will discover evident
marks of the Divine favor. It actually seems as though in the wide scene, where
the vices of the age may and can reign triumphant, this were some secure and
sacred retreat, into which they cannot, dare not enter." (Mr. Anderson, in
support and illustration of this beautiful sentiment, brings forward the
families of the Kenites, and the Rechabites, whose history he traces, and shows
it to be like a pure and vigorous stream, urging its course through a turbid
lake, with the waters of which it refuses to blend, and maintaining its own
characteristic, amid surrounding impurity.)
It must be evident,
however, that the great ends of the family economy, cannot be kept in view, nor
the moral power of it displayed, unless the heads of it rightly understand
their duty, and have a disposition properly to perform it. They must be
Christians in reality—or no Christian government can be maintained. Where
religion is lacking as the basis of their union, these happy fruits of it
cannot be expected. The inferior and secondary object may be accomplished in
the absence of parental piety, though neither so certainly, nor so effectually;
but as to the more sublime and permanent end of the family constitution, which
connects its members with the church of God on earth, and with the company of
the redeemed in heaven, this cannot be looked for, where the father and the
mother are destitute of true religion.
Oh, how many interesting
households are to be found, where all the mere social virtues are cultivated
with assiduity, where the family charities all flourish, and public excellence
is cherished, but which, on account of the lack of vital godliness, are still
losing the highest end of their union, are carrying on no preparatory course of
education for heaven, and are destined to be swept away with the wreck of the
nations that know not God, and with the wicked who shall be turned into hell!
Alas, alas! that from such sweet scenes, such lovely retreats of marital love
and family peace, to which learning, science, wealth, elegance, have been
admitted, religion should be excluded; and that while many wise and interesting
guests are continually welcomed to the house, He only should be refused,
who blessed the little family of Bethany; and who, wherever he goes, carries
salvation in his train, and gives immortality to the joys which would otherwise
perish forever!
Precious, indeed, are
the joys of a happy family; but, oh, how fleeting! How soon, must the
circle be broken up, how suddenly may it be! What scenes of delight,
resembling gay visions of fairy bliss, have all been unexpectedly wrapped in
shadow and gloom, by misfortune, by sickness, by death! The last enemy has
entered the paradise, and by expelling one of its tenants, has embittered the
scene to the rest; the ravages of death have been in some cases followed by the
desolations of poverty, and they who once dwelt together in the happy
enclosure, have been separated and scattered to meet no more. But religion,
true religion, if it is possessed, will gather them together again, after this
destruction of their earthly ties, and conduct them to another paradise, into
which no calamity shall enter, and from which, no joy shall ever depart!
Happy then would it be,
for all who stand related by these household ties, if the bonds of nature were
hallowed and rendered permanent, by those of divine grace. To found our union
on any basis which does not contain religion in its formation, is to erect it
on quicksand, and to expose it to the fury of a thousand billows, each of which
may overturn the fabric of our comfort in a moment! But to rest it upon
religion, is to found it upon a rock, where we shall individually still find a
refuge, when the nearest and the dearest relations are swept away by the tide
of death.
It is a pleasing
reflection, that the family constitution depends not for its existence, its
laws, its right administration, or its rich advantages, either upon family
possessions, or the forms of national policy. It may live and flourish in all
its tender affections, and all its sweet felicities, and all its moral power,
in the cottage as well as in the mansion; under the shadow of liberty, and even
under the scorching heat of tyranny. Like the church of which it is in some
respects the emblem, it accommodates itself to every changing form of
surrounding society, to every nation, and to every age. Forming with the church
the only two institutions ever set up by God, as to their framework; like its
kindred institute, it remains amid the ruins of the fall, the lapse of ages,
and the changes of human affairs, the monument of what has been, the standing
prediction of what shall be. Tyrants who crush the liberties of a state, cannot
destroy the constitution of the family—and even persecutors who silence the
preacher, and scatter the congregation, cannot hush the voice of parental
instruction, or extinguish parental influence. Religion, hunted and driven by
human power from the place of public concourse, would still find a retreat, as
it often has done under such circumstances, in the household of faith; and there
would keep alive, upon the family altar, that holy fire with which the
sacrifices of the temple, under happier auspices, shall be offered. Neither
families, nor the church of the redeemed, shall ever be entirely lost, whatever
changes the world may yet have to pass through.
To all, therefore, who
are united in the bonds of this relationship, I offer the consideration of
these pages; which prescribe duties, and present advantages, belonging alike to
all. Family happiness, in many respects, resembles the manna which was granted
to the Israelites, in the wilderness; like that precious food, it is the gift
of God which comes down from heaven—it is not to be purchased with money; it is
dispensed alike to the rich and to the poor, and accommodates itself to every
taste; it is given with an abundance that meets the needs of all who desire
it—to be obtained, it must be religiously sought in God's own way of bestowing
it; and is granted to man as a refreshment during his pilgrimage, through this
wilderness, to the celestial Canaan.
Family:
- The collective body of
persons who live under one house, and one head or manager. A household including: parents, children and servants and as
the case may be lodgers or boarders.
- Those who decend from one
common progenitor, a tribe or race.
Kindred lineage. Thus the
Isrealites where a branch of ‘the family’ of Abraham.
The whole human race is the family
of Adam.
- Course of decent,
geneaology, line of ancestor.
Constitution:
- The act of establishing or
appointing.
- The frame or temper of mind
and affections or passions.
What is a family
constitution: When you recognize and
surrender to Dad as the head of the home and follow him as your appointed
leader, according to God.
Why do we have
family constitution: To establish
structure. Headship.
Piety:
(French origin) Reverance of
parents or friends accompanied with affection and devotion to their honor and
happiness.
Veneration
(latin/French): the highest degree of respect and reverence. Respect mingled with some degree of awe.
