N00618:40
A good master well served. A brief discourse on the necessary properties & practices…
A good master well served. A brief discourse on the necessary properties & practices of a good servant in every-kind of servitude: and of the methods that should be taken by the heads of a family, to obtain such a servant. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Two lines from Joel]
printed by B. Green, 1696
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Once more, The Clothing of your Servants, at all Times, this also is a thing, that goes with their Food; and it should be Neat, Warm, and Modest. It is mentioned as the Character of a good Mistress, in Prov. 31. 21. She is not afraid of the snow, for her Household; for all her Household are Clothed [not, with Scarlet, as it is in our Translation; but] With Double Garments. Garments for the Winter, as well as for the Summer, and Garments for the Lords Day as well as for the Week-Day; and these Double Garments, for the Sobriety of them, well becoming the Condition ⟨p. 15⟩of a Servant; a Master should see that a Servant may be supplied with such Double Garments But this also, is not all that pertains unto the Food of the Servants; for there are some Servants, to whom Wages are by Contract Engaged; and it will be a Crying Sin, to Withhold those Wages. When a Laban, Oppressed a Servant, either by Denying, or by Delaying, of his Righteous Wages, the Righteous God Interposes, with a Vengeance against such a Master There are two Sentences of Sacred Writ, which fall methinks like Thunderbolts upon the Heads of such Oppressors; The One is that in Jer. 22. 13. Woe to him that uses his Neighbours Service, without Wages, and giveth him not for his Work. The Other is that in Deut. 24. 14, 15. Thou shalt not Oppress, an Hired Servant: At his Day thou shalt give him his Hire, neither shall the Sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his Heart upon it; Left he Cry against thee to the Lord, and it be come Sin unto thee.
Once more, The Clothing of your Servants, at all Times, this also is a thing, that goes with their Food; and it should be Neat, Warm, and Modest. It is mentioned as the Character of a good Mistress, in Prov. 31. 21. She is not afraid of the snow, for her Houshold; for all her Houshold are Clothed [not, with Scarlet, as it is in our Translation; but] With Double Garments. Garments for the Winter, as well as for the Summer, and Garments for the Lords Day as well as for the Week-Day; and these Double Garments, for the Sobriety of them, well becoming the Condition