THE DUTIES OF MASTERS TOWARDS THEIR SERVANTS.
IF you would have good servants, see that you be good masters, and do
your own duty, and then either your servants will do theirs, or else
all their failings shall turn to your greater good.[38]
_Direct._ I. Remember that in Christ they are your brethren and
fellow-servants; and therefore rule them not tyrannically, but in
tenderness and love; and command them nothing that is against the laws
of God, or the good of their souls. Use not wrath and unmanlike fury
with them; nor any over-severe or unnecessary rebukes or
chastisements. Find fault in season, with prudence and sobriety, when
your passions are down, and when it is most likely to do good. If it
be too little, it will imbolden them in doing ill; if it be too much,
or frequent, or passionate, it will make them slight it and despise
it, and utterly hinder their repentance: they will be taken up in
blaming you for your rashness and violence, instead of blaming
themselves for the fault.
_Direct._ II. Provide them work convenient for them, and such as
they are fit for; not such or so much as to wrong them in their
health, or hinder them from the necessary means of their salvation;
nor yet so little as may cherish their idleness, or occasion them to
lose their precious time. It is cruelty to lay more on your horse than
he can carry; or to work your oxen to skin and bones. Prov. xii. 10,
"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast;" much more of his
servant. Especially put not your servants on any labour which hazardeth
their health or life, without true necessity to some greater end. Pity
and spare them more in their health than in their bare labour. Labour
maketh the body sound; but to take deep colds, or go wet of their
feet, do tend to their sickness and death. And should another man's
life be cast away for your commodity? Do as you would be done by, if
you were servants yourselves and in their case; and let not their
labours be so great, as shall allow them no time to pray before they
go about it, or as shall so tire them as to unfit them for prayer, or
instruction, or the worship of the Lord's day, and shall lay them like
blocks, as fitter to lie to sleep or rest themselves, than to pray, or
hear, or mind any thing that is good. And yet take heed that you
suffer them not to be idle, as many great men use their serving men,
to the undoing of their souls and bodies. Idleness is no small sin
itself, and it breedeth and cherisheth many others: their time is lost
by it; and they are made unfit for any honest employment or course of
life, to help themselves or any others.
_Direct._ III. Provide them such wholesome food and lodging, and
such wages as their service doth deserve, or as you have promised
them.[39] Whether it be pleasant or unpleasant, let their food and
lodging be healthful. It is so odious an oppression and injustice to
defraud a servant or labourer of his wages, (yea, or to give him less
than he deserveth,) that methinks I should not need to speak much
against it among christians. Read James v. 1-5, and I hope it will be
enough.
_Direct._ IV. Use not your servants to be so bold and familiar
with you, as may tempt them to despise you; nor yet so strange and
distant, as may deprive you of opportunity of speaking to them for
their spiritual good, or justly lay you open to be censured as too
magisterial and proud. Both these extremes have ill effects; but the
first is the commonest, and is the disquiet of many families.
_Direct._ V. Remember that you have a charge of the souls in your
family, and are as a priest and teacher in your own house; and
therefore see that you keep them to the constant worshipping of God,
especially on the Lord's day, in public and private; and that you
teach them the things that concern their salvation (as is afterward
directed). And pray for them daily, as well as for yourselves.
_Direct._ VI. Watch over them that they offend not God: bear not
with ungodliness or gross sin in your family. Read Psal. ci. Be not
like those ungodly masters, that look only that their own work be
done, and bid God look after his work himself, and care not for their
servants' souls, because they care not for their own; and mind not
whether God be served by others, because they serve him not (unless
with hypocritical lip-service) themselves.
_Direct._ VII. Keep your servants from evil company, and from
being temptations to each other, as far as you can. If you suffer them
to frequent alehouses, or riotous assemblies, or wanton or malignant
company, when they are infected themselves, they will bring home the
infection, and all the house may fare the worse for it. And when Judas
groweth familiar with the Pharisees, he will be seduced by them to
betray his Master. You cannot be accountable for your servants if you
suffer them to be much abroad.
_Direct._ VIII. Go before them as examples of holiness and
wisdom, and all those virtues and duties which you would teach them.
An ignorant or a swearing, cursing, railing, ungodly master, doth
actually teach his servants to be such; and if his words teach them
the contrary, he can expect but little reverence or success.
_Direct._ IX. Patiently bear with those tolerable frailties which
their unskilfulness, or bodily temperature, or other infirmity, make
them liable to against their wills. A willing mind is an excuse for
many frailties; much must be put up with, when it is not from
wilfulness or gross neglect: make not a greater matter of every
infirmity or fault, than there is cause. Look not that any should be
perfect upon earth; reckon upon it, that you must have servants of the
progeny of Adam, that have corrupted natures, and bodily weaknesses,
and many things that must be borne with. Consider how faultily you
serve your heavenly Master, and how much he daily beareth with that
which is amiss in you, and how many faults and oversights you are
guilty of in your own employment, and how many you should be overtaken
with if you were in their stead. Eph. vi. 9, "And ye masters, do the
same things to them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master
also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him." Col.
iv. 1, "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and
equal," &c.
_Direct._ X. See that they behave themselves well to their
fellow-servants: of which I shall speak anon.
_Tit. 2. Directions to those Masters in foreign Plantations who have
Negroes and other Slaves; being a solution of several cases about
them._
_Direct._ I. Understand well how far your power over your slaves
extendeth, and what limits God hath set thereto.
As, 1. Sufficiently difference between men and brutes. Remember that
they are of as good a kind as you; that is, they are reasonable
creatures as well as you, and born to as much natural liberty. If
their sin have enslaved them to you, yet nature made them your equals.
Remember that they have immortal souls, and are equally capable of
salvation with yourselves. And therefore you have no power to do any
thing which shall hinder their salvation. No pretence of your
business, necessity, commodity, or power, can warrant you to hold them
so hard to work, as not to allow them due time and seasons for that
which God hath made their duty.
2. Remember that God is their absolute Owner, and that you have none
but a derived and limited propriety in them. They can be no further
yours, than you have God's consent, who is the Lord of them and you;
and therefore God's interest in them and by them must be served first.
3. Remember that they and you are equally under the government and
laws of God. And therefore all God's laws must be first obeyed by
them, and you have no power to command them to omit any duty which God
commandeth them, nor to commit any sin which God forbiddeth them; nor
can you, without rebellion or impiety, expect that your work or
commands should be preferred before God's.
4. Remember that God is their reconciled, tender Father, and if they
be as good, doth love them as well as you. And therefore you must use
the meanest of them no otherwise, than beseemeth the beloved of God to
be used; and no otherwise than may stand with the due signification of
your love to God, by loving those that are his.
5. Remember that they are the redeemed ones of Christ, and that he
hath not sold you his title to them. As he bought their souls at a
price invaluable, so he hath not given the purchase of his blood to be
absolutely at your disposal. Therefore so use them, as to preserve
Christ's right and interest in them.
_Direct._ II. Remember that you are Christ's trustees, or the
guardians of their souls; and that the greater your power is over
them, the greater your charge is of them, and your duty for them. As
you owe more to a child than to a day-labourer, or a hired servant,
because, being more your own, he is more intrusted to your care; so
also by the same reason, you owe more to a slave, because he is more
your own; and power and obligation go together. As Abraham was to
circumcise all his servants that were bought with money, and the
fourth commandment requireth masters to see that all within their
gates observe the sabbath day; so must you exercise both your power
and love to bring them to the knowledge and faith of Christ, and to
the just obedience of God's commands.
Those therefore that keep their negroes and slaves from hearing God's
word, and from becoming christians, because by the law they shall then
be either made free, or they shall lose part of their service, do
openly profess rebellion against God, and contempt of Christ the
Redeemer of souls, and a contempt of the souls of men; and indeed they
declare, that their worldly profit is their treasure and their god.
If this come to the hands of any of our natives in Barbadoes, or other
islands or plantations, who are said to be commonly guilty of this
most heinous sin, yea, and to live upon it, I entreat them further to
consider as followeth: 1. How cursed a crime is it to equal men and
beasts! Is not this your practice? Do you not buy them and use them
merely to the same end, as you do your horses? to labour for your
commodity, as if they were baser than you, and made to serve you?
2. Do you not see how you reproach and condemn yourselves, while you
vilify them as savages and barbarous wretches? Did they ever do any
thing more savage, than to use not only men's bodies as beasts, but
their souls as if they were made for nothing but to actuate their
bodies in your worldly drudgery? Did the veriest cannibals ever do any
thing more cruel or odious, than to sell so many souls to the devil
for a little worldly gain? Did ever the cursedest miscreants on earth,
do any thing more rebellious, and contrary to the will of the most
merciful God, than to keep those souls from Christ, and holiness, and
heaven, for a little money, who were made and redeemed for the same
ends, and at the same precious price as yours? Did your poor slaves
ever commit such villanies as these? Is not he the basest wretch and
the most barbarous savage, who committeth the greatest and most
inhuman wickedness? And are theirs comparable to these of yours?
3. Doth not the very example of such cruelty, besides your keeping
them from christianity, directly tend to teach them and all others, to
hate christianity, as if it taught men to be so much worse than dogs
and tigers?
4. Do you not mark how God hath followed you with plagues? and may not
conscience tell you that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and
bodies of so many? Remember the late fire at the bridge in Barbadoes:
remember the drowning of your governor and ships at sea, and the many
judgments that have overtaken you; and at the present the terrible
mortality that is among you.
5. Will not the example and warning of neighbour countries rise up in
judgment against you and condemn you? You cannot but hear how odious
the Spanish name is made (and thereby, alas! the christian name also,
among the West Indians) for their most inhuman cruelties in
Hispaniola, Jamaica, Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and other places, which
is described by Josep. a Costa, a Jesuit of their own; and though I
know that their cruelty who murdered millions, exceedeth yours, who
kill not men's bodies, yet yours is of the same kind, in the
merchandise which you make with the devil for their souls, whilst you
that should help them with all your power, do hinder them from the
means of their salvation. And on the contrary, what an honour is it to
those of New England, that they take not so much as the native soil
from them, but by purchase! that they enslave none of them, nor use
them cruelly, but show them mercy, and are at a great deal of care,
and cost, and labour for their salvation! Oh how much difference
between holy Mr. Elliot's life and yours! His, who hath laboured so
many years to save them, and hath translated the holy Bible into their
language, with other books; and those good men's in London who are a
corporation for the furtherance of his work; and theirs that have
contributed so largely towards it; and yours that sell men's souls for
your commodity!
6. And what comfort are you like to have at last, in that money that
is purchased at such a price? Will not your money and you perish
together? will you not have worse than Gehazi's leprosy with it; yea,
worse than Achan's death by stoning; and as bad as Judas his hanging
himself, unless repentance shall prevent it? Do you not remember the
terrible words in Jude 11, "Woe unto them! for they have gone in the
way of Cain, and ran greedily after the errors of Balaam." And 2 Pet.
ii. 3, 14, 15, "Through covetousness--they make merchandise of
you.--An heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed
children (or children of a curse) which have forsaken the right way,
and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor,
who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his
iniquity; the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of
the prophet." When you shall every one hear, "Thou fool, this night
shall thy soul be required of thee, and then whose shall those things
be which thou hast provided?" Luke xii. 19-21; will it not then cut
deep in your perpetual torments, to remember that you got that little
pelf by betraying so many souls to hell? What men in the world doth
James speak to, if not to you? Jam. v. 1-4, "Go to now, ye rich men,
weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches
are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten: your gold and silver
are cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and
shall eat your flesh as it were fire: ye have heaped treasure together
for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers which have reaped
down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the
cries of them which have reaped, are entered into the ears of the Lord
of sabaoth." How much more the cry of betrayed souls!
And here we may seasonably answer these cases. _Quest._ 1. Is it
lawful for a christian to buy and use a man as a slave? _Quest._
2. Is it lawful to use a christian as a slave? _Quest._ 3. What
difference must we make between a free servant and a slave?
To _Quest._ 1. I answer, There is a slavery to which some men may
be lawfully put; and there is a slavery to which none may be put; and
there is a slavery to which only the criminal may be put, by way of
penalty.
1. No man may be put to such a slavery as under the first direction is
denied, that is, such as shall injure God's interest and service, or
the man's salvation. 2. No man, but as a just punishment for his
crimes, may be so enslaved, as to be deprived of those liberties,
benefits, and comforts, which brotherly love obligeth every man to
grant to another for his good, as far as is within our power, all
things considered. That is, the same man is a servant and a brother,
and therefore must at once be used as both. 3. Though poverty or
necessity do make a man consent to sell himself to a life of lesser
misery to escape a greater, or death itself; yet is it not lawful for
any other so to take advantage by his necessity, as to bring him into
a condition that shall make him miserable, or in which we shall not
exercise so much love, as may tend to his sanctification, comfort, and
salvation: because no justice is beseeming a christian or a man, which
is not conjoined with a due measure of charity.
But, 1. He that deserveth it by way of penalty may be penally used. 2.
He that stole and cannot restore may be forced to work it out as a
servant; and in both these cases more may be done against another's
ease or liberty, than by mere contract or consent. He that may hang a
flagitious offender doth him no wrong if he put him to a slavery,
which is less penal than death. 3. More also may be done against
enemies taken in a lawful war, than could be done against the innocent
by necessitated consent. 4. A certain degree of servitude or slavery
is lawful by the necessitated consent of the innocent. That is, so
much, (1.) As wrongeth no interest of God. (2.) Nor of mankind by
breaking the laws of nations. (3.) Nor the person himself, by
hindering his salvation, or the needful means thereof; nor those
comforts of life, which nature giveth to man as man. (4.) Nor the
commonwealth or society where we live.
_Quest._ 2. To the second question I answer, 1. As men must be
variously loved according to the various degrees of amiableness in
them, so various degrees of love must be exercised towards them;
therefore good and real christians must be used with more love and
brotherly tenderness than others. 2. It is meet also, that infidels
have so much mercy showed them in order to the saving of their souls,
as that they should be invited to christianity by fit encouragements;
and so, that they should know that if they will turn christians, they
shall have more privileges and emoluments than the enemies of truth
and piety shall have. It is therefore well done of princes who make
laws that infidel slaves shall be free-men, when they are duly
christened. 3. But yet a nominal christian, who by wickedness
forfeiteth his life or freedom, may penally be made a slave as well as
infidels. 4. And a poor and needy christian may sell himself into a
harder state of servitude than he would choose, or we could otherwise
put him into. But, 5. To go as pirates and catch up poor negroes or
people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to
make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thievery
in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies
of mankind; and they that buy them and use them as beasts, for their
mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their souls, are
fitter to be called incarnate devils than christians, though they be
no christians whom they so abuse.
_Quest._ 3. To the third question, I answer, That the solution of
this case is to be gathered from what is said already. A servant and a
voluntary slave were both free-men, till they sold or hired
themselves; and a criminal person was a free-man till he forfeited his
life or liberty. But afterwards the difference is this; that, 1. A
free servant is my servant, no further than his own covenant made him
so; which is supposed to be, (1.) To a certain kind and measure of
labour, according to the meaning of his contract. (2.) For a limited
time, expressed in the contract, whether a year, or two, or three, or
seven.
2. A slave by mere contract is one that, (1.) Usually selleth himself
absolutely to the will of another as to his labour both for kind and
measure; where yet the limitations of God and nature after (and
before) named, are supposed among christians to take place. (2.) He is
one that selleth himself to such labour, during life.
3. A slave by just penalty, is liable to so much servitude as the
magistrate doth judge him to, which may be, (1.) Not only such labour,
as aforesaid, as pleaseth his master to impose. (2.) And that for
life. (3.) But it may be also to stripes and severities which might
not lawfully be inflicted on another.
1. The limitations of a necessitated slavery by contract or consent
through poverty are these: (1.) Such a one's soul must be cared for
and preserved, though he should consent to the contrary. He must have
time to learn the word of God, and time to pray, and he must rest on
the Lord's day, and employ it in God's service; he must be instructed,
and exhorted, and kept from sin. (2.) He may not be forced to commit
any sin against God. (3.) He may not (though he forcedly consent) be
denied such comforts of this life, as are needful to his cheerful
serving of God in love and thankfulness, according to the peace of the
gospel state; and which are called by the name of our daily bread. No
man may deny a slave any of this, that is not a criminal, punished
slave.
2. And the most criminal slave may not be forced to sin, nor denied
necessary helps to his salvation. But he may penally be beaten and
denied part of his daily bread; so it be not done more rigorously than
true justice doth require.
_Quest._ But what if men buy negroes or other slaves of such as
we have just cause to believe did steal them by piracy, or buy them of
those that have no power to sell them, and not hire or buy them by
their own consent, or by the consent of those that had power to sell
them, nor take them captives in a lawful war, what must they do with
them afterward?
_Answ._ 1. It is their heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in
charity to deliver them. 2. Having done it, undoubtedly they are
presently bound to deliver them; because by right the man is his own,
and therefore no man else can have just title to him.
_Quest._ But may I not sell him again and make my money of him,
seeing I leave him but as I found him?
_Answ._ No; because when you have taken possession of him, and a
pretended propriety, then the injury that is done him is by you; which
before was only by another. And though the wrong be no greater than
the other did him, yet being now done by you it is your sin.
_Quest._ But may I not return him to him that I bought him of?
_Answ._ No; for that is but injuring him by delivering him to
another to continue the injury. To say as Pilate, "I am innocent of
the blood of this just man," will be no proof of your innocency; yea,
God's law bindeth you to love, and works of love, and therefore you
should do your best to free him. He that is bound to help to save a
man, that is fallen into the hand of thieves by the high-way, if he
should buy that man as a slave of the thieves, may not after give him
up to the thieves again. But to proceed in the directions.
_Direct._ III. So serve your own necessities by your slaves as to
prefer God's interest, and their spiritual and everlasting happiness.
Teach them the way to heaven, and do all for their souls which I have
before directed you to do for all your other servants. Though you may
make some difference in their labour, and diet, and clothing, yet none
as to the furthering of their salvation. If they be infidels, use them
so as tendeth to win them to Christ, and the love of religion, by
showing them that christians are less worldly, less cruel and
passionate, and more wise, and charitable, and holy, and meek, than
any other persons are. Woe to them that by their cruelty and
covetousness, do scandalize even slaves, and hinder their conversion
and salvation!
_Direct._ IV. By how much the hardness of their condition doth
make their lives uncomfortable, and God hath cast them lower than
yourselves, by so much the more let your charity pity them, and labour
to abate their burden, and sweeten their lives to them, as much as
your condition will allow. And remember that even a slave may be one
of those neighbours that you are bound to love as yourselves, and to
do to as you would be done by, if your case were his. Which if you do,
you will need no more direction for his relief.
_Direct._ V. Remember that you may require no more of an innocent
slave, than you would or might do of an ordinary servant, if he were
at your will, and did not by contract except something as to labour or
usage which else you would think just and meet to have required of
him.
_Direct._ VI. If they are infidels, neither be too hasty in
baptizing them, when they desire it, nor too slow. Not so hasty as to
put them on it, before they understand what the baptismal covenant is;
or before you see any likelihood that they should be serious in making
such a covenant. Nor yet so slow as to let them alone to linger out
their lives in the state of those without the church. But hasten them
to learn, and stir up their desires, and look after them, as the
ancient churches did after their catechumens; and when you see them
fit by knowledge, belief, desire, and resolution, to vow themselves to
God on the terms of the holy covenant, then put them on to be
baptized. But if you should feel an abatement of your desires of their
conversion, because you shall lose their service, (much more if ever
you had a wish that they might not be converted, which is plain
devilism,) let it be the matter of your deep humiliation and
repentance.
_Direct._ VII. Make it your chief end in buying and using slaves,
to win them to Christ, and save their souls. Do not only endeavour it
on the by, when you have first consulted your own commodity; but make
this more of your end, than your commodity itself; and let their
salvation be far more valued by you than their service: and carry
yourselves to them, as those that are sensible that they are redeemed
with them by Christ from the slavery of Satan, and may live with them
in the liberty of the saints in glory.
[38] Rom. viii. 28.
[39] Col. iv. 1.