If servants be of an ingenious disposition, willing and forward to do that which belongeth unto them, sorry when they have committed a fault, and careful to amend their faults, many things may be passed over in them, which must be corrected in others. To this may be applied the counsel of the wise-man, Take no heed to all the words that are spoken (Eccl 7:21). 4. Correction must be measured according to the greatness of the fault punished, and the circumstances whereby the fault may justly be aggravated. The servant that knew his master's will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes: but he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes (Luke 12:47,48) Many aberrations are daily committed contrary to every branch of this direction, in that masters and mistresses in exercising this part of their power are carried away with passion, and do that which they do in this kind after their own pleasure. Thus they turn a duty into sin, and by undue correcting of their servants provoke God to correct them in his wrath, either here or in the world to come. 17. Of masters' power over their servants in and about their marriage. The third point to be noted concerning a master's power over his servant, is about his servant's marriage. Sundry questions are moved about this point, which I will briefly resolve. 1. Quest. Have masters power to order and dispose their servant's marriage as they please?
Answ. No, not without the free consent of the servants themselves: for marraiges must be made with the free consent of the parties that are married. Object. The law implieth that a master hath power to give his servant a wife, for it sheweth whose those children shall be that are born to that servant, to whom a master hath given a wife (Exo 21:4).
Answ. 1. That law is to be understood of such servants as being strangers were bond-slaves, over whom masters had a more absolute power than over others. 2. The master's power of giving did not simply force the servant to marry the party so given: but restrained the servant from marrying any other than whom the master should give. 2. Quest. Is not a master's power in the matter of marriage as great over a servant, as a parent's over a child?
Answ. No (see Treatise 5, Section 20). 3. Quest. May a master deny his servant liberty to marry?
Answ. Yea, for the time that the servant hath covenanted to be a servant with his master. For that time a servant is part of his master's goods, and possessions. As bond servants were a master's possession for ever: so covenanted servants are his possession for the time of their covenant. When God gave the devil leave to seize on all that Job had, by virtue of that permission he seized on all kinds of Job's servants bond and free, as well as on his goods (Job 1:15,16): which he could not have done, if Job's servants had not been as his goods. Yet notwithstanding if servants shall make it known to their master, that necessity requireth they should marry, such respect ought to be had to the chastity even of servants, as in this case I may use the phrase which the Apostle useth in reference to children, Let them be married (1 Cor 7:36). 4. Quest. What if servants marry without consent of masters, is that marriage nullified thereby?
Answ. No. The marriage being otherwise rightly performed, remaineth a firm marriage: though the servants in so doing have sinned: for which their master may justly punish them. 5. Quest. May a master keep his servants so married without his consent from their bed-fellows?