N07105:120
The well-ordered family
The well-ordered family: wherein the duties of it's [sic] various members are described and urged. A small, but very comprehensive piece, suitable to be in the hand of every householder [sic]; and may be especially seasonable in the present day. / By that eminently pious and learned divine, Mr. Isaac Ambrose, Minister of the Gospel at Preston. ; [Two lines from John]The well-ordered family: wherein the duties of it's [sic] various members are described and urged. A small, but very comprehensive piece, suitable to be in the hand of every housholder [sic]; and may be especially seasonable in the present day. / By that eminently pious and learned divine, Mr. Isaac Ambrose, Minister of the Gospel at Preston. ; [Two lines from John]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland, 1762
The Well-Ordered Family. › Section 7: Of the Duties of Servants to their Masters.
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.
1. The inward Duty is Fear: Servants be subject to your Masters with all Fear, and account them worthy of all Honour: So proper is this Fear to a Servant, as where it is wanting, there is a plain denial of his Master's Place and Power: If I be a Master, where is my Fear? said God. Observe, I mean not an excessive slavish Fear; as when a Servant fears nothing but the revenging Power of his Master (such was the Fear of that unprofitable Servant, who could say to his Master, I knew that thou wert an hard Man, and I was afraid) but I mean an awful Fear of Provoking his Master's Wrath, so as it makes him cast every Way, how he may please his Master, and such a Fear draws him on cheerfully to perform his Duty.
1. The inward Duty is Fear: Servants be subject to your Masters with all Fear, and account them worthy of all Honour: So proper is this Fear to a Servant, as where it is wanting, there is a plain denial of his Master's Place and Power: If I be a Master, where is my Fear? said God. Observe, I mean not an excessive slavish Fear; as when a Servant fears nothing but the revenging Power of his Master (such was the Fear of that unprofitable Servant, who could say to his Master, I knew that thou wert an hard Man, and I was afraid) but I mean an awful Fear of Provoking his Master's Wrath, so as it makes him cast every Way, how he may please his Master, and such a Fear draws him on chearfully to perform his Duty.
2. Outward Duties which issue from this Fear, are Reverence, Obedience.
1. Reverence, which is manifested in Speech & Carriage. Thus Servants must give reverend Titles to their Masters, as Father, Lord, and Master, &c. They must yield Obeisance to them; as The Children of the Prophets, when they saw that the Spirit of Elijah rested on Elisha, they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the Ground before him.