N00618:69
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.
And at the same time all Sullenness, all Sauciness, ⟨p. 38⟩all Impudence, in your Deportments towards your Masters (or Mistresses) is to be abominated, as indeed most abominable. Sadly was that Good Man of the East, plagued with Bad Servants, when he could say, in Job. 19. 16 I called my Servant, and he gave me no answer. Servants that will speak Nothing, when modest Answers are Expected from them, and Servants that will speak Too much with a malapert Answering again, giving it may be, Two words for One, when they are Chidden for their Faults; and Servants that must have their own way and will; these are too Irregular Things to be Endured!
And at the same time all Sullenness, all Sa•ciness, ⟨p. 38⟩all Impudence, in your Deportments towards your Masters (or Mistresses) is to be abominated, as indeed most abominable. Sadly was that Good Man of the East, plagued with Bad Servants, when he could say, in Job. 19. 16 I called my Servant, and he gave me no answer. Servants that will speak Nothing, when modest Answers are Expected from them, and Servants that will speak Too much with a malapert Answering again, giving it may be, Two words for One, when they are Chidden for their Faults; and Servants that must have their own way and will; these are too Irregular Things to be Endured!
III. Let your Obedience to your Masters (and Mistresses) while you are Servants be such, as will manifest that you are the Obedient Children of God. You are the Animate, Separate, Active Instruments of other men. Servants, your Tongues, your Hands, your Feet, are your Masters, and they should move according to the Will of your Masters. It you are those Eye-servants, who will Obey your Masters no longer than their Eye is upon you, know it, the Eye of the All seeing, and Almighty God, is upon you, to Condemn you, for this Disobedience. The most becoming intercourse between Masters and Servants, is that in