The subjoined letter is from a clergyman of the Church of England; I publish it with his permission, advising him at the same time to withhold his name, as the arguments he has brought forward are those which would generally occur to a mind ecclesiastically trained:—
10th September, 1872.
Sir,—At page 15 of the 21st letter of your ‘Fors Clavigera’ you tell the working men and labourers of this country that “lending for gain is sinful;” and you intimate, as I gather, that this is the teaching of the Bible. May I, therefore, be allowed to submit that this unqualified assertion, with its world-wide consequences, is not true?
In [Deut. xxiii. 20], you will find these words: “Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury.” And the margin (a), for the scope and meaning of this word “stranger,” refers you to [Deut. x. 19], which says, “Love ye therefore the stranger.” And the margin (b) refers us also to [Lev. xix. 35], which enjoins us to “love the stranger” as ourselves.
So that we are thus plainly taught—
I. That the lending upon usury cannot be in itself a sin, or God (c) could not have allowed it in any case whatsoever, any more than He could have allowed theft or lying (d).
II. That the lending to the stranger was not incompatible with the command, “Love ye the stranger,” or else God, in the laws and writings given by Moses, at one and the same time, stultifies and contradicts Himself (e).
III. That the laws forbidding usury, like the laws for preserving estates to their families by the year of Jubilee, and like the laws which bound Israelitish servants until the “year of release,” were peculiar and exclusive, and concerned only that people living in a peculiar and exclusive way. Outside that little patch of territory, but the size of our two largest English counties, the Jews were expressly told they might lend upon usury; and this at the same time that they were enjoined to love the stranger, and not to “oppress the stranger (f).”
Says old ‘Cruden’s Concordance:’—“It seems as lawful for me to receive interest for money, which another takes pain with, improves, but runs the hazard of in trade, as it is to receive rent for my land, which another takes pain with, improves, but runs the hazard of in husbandry.” What should we think of discovering in the holy books of some recently found people, a God so eccentric that he allowed you to invest money in tea, or sugar, or iron, or cotton, and get fifteen or even twenty per cent. out of it, and this from poor and rich alike, with whom you traded; but threatened you with his condemnation and everlasting displeasure if, at the same time, you helped a deserving man to commence business by lending him money at four per cent.; or lent money to your country until such time as it could pay its debts, for a moderate compensation, which would prevent you and yours from being ruined? (g) Love of self is as lawful as love of neighbour—“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” My neighbour is as much bound to give me some portion of the interest or gain he has earned with my money, as he would be chargeable with selfishness and grasping if he kept it wholly for himself. Trading much more whets the appetite for gain than the taking moderate interest for money. Would our Lord have held up that which was wicked in itself for our imitation, as He has done in [Matt. xxv. 27], if lending upon interest were sinful? (h) Nothing but this sight of the taking portion of the Bible without the other, and then summing up and pronouncing judgment upon a portion of the evidence only, thus arriving at an unsound judgment, would have led me to trouble you with these lines.
I remain, Sir,
Yours faithfully.