N00618:6
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.
When the Laws of Heaven were given to Israel, by the Hand of Moses, 'tis Observable, that the first of the Judgments then set before them, was about Servants: They had been Servants themselves; & it was very proper to Begin with such things as might mind them of their late Condition, & such things where of they might be further minded in their late Condition. Their Father Jacob, also had been hardly used as a Servant, for whole Sevens of Years, & in some Remembrance of it, the Lord begins His Laws with Prohibiting the Children of Jacob, to make one of their Nation a Servant more than Six.
WHen the Lawes of Heaven were given to Israel, by the Hand of Moses, 'tis Observable, that the first of the Judgments then set before them, was about Servants: They had been Servants themselves; & it was very proper to Begin with such things as might mind them of their late Condition, & such things where of they might be further minded in their late Condition. Their Father Jacob, also had been hardly used as a Servant, for whole Sevens of Years, & in some Remembrance of it, the Lord begins His Laws with Prohibiting the Children of Jocob, to make one of their Nation a Servant more than Six.
Reader, I have Considered, that the Second Edition of the Law, in the New Testament likewise, made no little mention of what belongs unto a Good Servant: and I have Considered the many Complaints which Families in all places made, of their wanting such a Blessing. That I might in this matter, be a Servant unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Souls of my Neighbours, both the Bond, & the Free, in Him, the following Essay, just as it was uttered unto my own Congregation, is here Exposed.