“Usury is a kind of lending of money, or corn, or oil, or wine, or of any other thing, wherein, upon covenant and bargain, we receive again the whole principal which we delivered, and somewhat more for the use and occupying of the same: as, if I lent one hundred pounds, and for it covenant to receive one hundred and five pounds, or any other sum greater than was the sum which I did lend. This is that that we call usury; such a kind of bargaining as no good man, or godly man, ever used; such a kind of bargaining as all men that ever feared God’s judgment have always abhorred and condemned. It is filthy gains, and a work of darkness: it is a monster in nature; the overthrow of mighty kingdoms; the destruction of flourishing states; the decay of wealthy cities; the plagues of the world, and the misery of the people. It is theft; it is the murdering of our brethren; it is the curse of God, and the curse of the people. This is usury: by these signs and tokens you may know it: for wheresoever it reigneth, all those mischiefs ensue. But how, and how many ways, it may be wrought, I will not declare: it were horrible to hear; and I come now to reprove usury, and not to teach it.
“Tell me, thou wretched wight of the world, thou unkind creature, which art past all sense and feeling of God; which knowest the will of God, and doest the contrary: how darest thou come into the church? It is the church of that God which hath said, ‘Thou shalt take no usury’; and thou knowest He hath so said. How darest thou read or hear the word of [[152]]God? It is the word of that God which condemneth usury; and thou knowest He doth condemn it. How darest thou come into the company of thy brethren? Usury is the plague, and destruction, and undoing of thy brethren; and this thou knowest. How darest thou look upon thy children? thou makest the wrath of God fall down from heaven upon them; thy iniquity shall be punished in them to the third and fourth generation: this thou knowest. How darest thou look up into heaven? thou hast no dwelling there; thou shalt have no place in the tabernacle of the Highest: this thou knowest. Because thou robbest the poor, deceivest the simple, and eatest up the widows’ houses: therefore shall thy children be naked, and beg their bread; therefore shalt thou and thy riches perish together.”
Extract from the Farewell Sermon preached in the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, by the Rev. David Jones, when the present system was in its infancy.
“And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things, and they derided him.”—[Luke xvi. 14].
“I do openly declare that every minister and every churchwarden throughout all England are actually perjured and foresworn by the 109th canon of our church, if they suffer any usurer to come to the sacrament till he be reformed, and there is no reformation without restitution.
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“And that you may know what usury is forbid by the word of God, turn to [Ezekiel xviii. 8, 13], and you will find that, whoever giveth upon usury or taketh any increase,—Mark it,—he that taketh any increase above the principal,—not six in the hundred, but let it be never so little, and never so moderate,—he that taketh any increase, is a usurer, and such a one as shall surely [[153]]die for his usury, and his blood shall be upon his own head. This is that word of God by which you shall all be saved or damned at the last day, and all those trifling and shuffling distinctions that covetous usurers ever invented shall never be able to excuse your damnation.
“Heretofore all usurious clergymen were degraded from Holy Orders, and all usurious laymen were excommunicated in their lifetime, and hindered Christian burial after death, till their heirs had made restitution for all they had gotten by usury.”
As this sheet is going to press, I receive a very interesting letter from “a poor mother.” That no wholesome occupation is at present offered in England to youths of the temper she describes, is precisely the calamity which urged my endeavour to found the St. George’s Company. But if she will kindly tell me the boy’s age, and whether the want of perseverance she regrets in him has ever been tested by giving him sufficient motive for consistent exertion, I will answer what I can, in next ‘Fors.’ [[155]]