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A47041
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Mr. David Jones's vindication against the Athenian Mercury concerning usury
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Jones, D. (David), fl. 1676-1720.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing J943C; ESTC R217057
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6,230
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10
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Mr. DAVID JONES's VINDICATION Against the Athenian Mercury CONCERNING USURY Gentlemen UPon March the 5th you took upon you to answer that part of Mr. David Jones's Farewel Sermon that related to Usury But in reality you have done no such thing For if you had Then in the First place You must have answer'd His Challenge Pag. 35. I do here openly make this Challenge to all the Patrons of Vsury if they will bring me any one approved Author among the Ancients that has defended Vsury I will bring them Fifty I will bring them Hundreds yea I will bring them whole Councils and Fathers that have unanimously condemned it And certainly that must needs be a very great Sin that among all the Ancients has no Patron that dares appear in it's Defence but has All against it with one consent And likewise What he there quoted out of Bishop Sanderson And till you do so all your Answers will be nothing at all to his Sermon And I do verily believe that neither You nor all Men living will ever be able to answer him as to that particular Secondly You must have answer'd The 17th Canon of the first Nicene Council which is referred to Pag. 35. whereby all Usurious Clergymen were degraded from Holy Orders Which I am credibly informed was never done but for a Mortal Sin And therefore Bishop Bedel that most excellent Reformer of Clerical Abuses in the Church of Ireland thought the degrading of a Bishop was too Sacred a thing to be done meerly upon Politick Considerations which I would have writ in Letters of Gold Bp. Bedell's Life Pag. 145. As likewise the 20th Canon of the Elibertin Council which is referred to in the same place whereby all Usurious Lay-men were Excommunicated in their Life-time As likewise the Lateran Council under Alexander the Third where it was Decreed that all manifest Usurers should be deprived of Communion and Fellowship of Christians in their Life and of Christian Burial after Death till their Heirs had restored their Usury At which Council this Question was put by Panormitan an Archbishop Whether Usury might not be dispensed with for the Redemption of poor Christians taken Captive by the Saracens And the Answer he had was to this effect Since both Old and New Testament detest the Crime of Usury no Dispensation was to be admitted for it no not for so charitable a Work as the Redemption of Christian Captives As likewise the 109th Canon of our Church where Usury not only excessive Usury any more than excessive Adultery but all Usury in general the least as well as the greatest is thought a sufficient Crime to keep any Man from the Sacrament And there you must have reconciled the Canon and the Statute-Law the one of which seems to allow of Usury and the other Excommunicates any Man that is guilty of it And that you might easily have done thus The Statute-Law does not Allow Usury but only Stints and Limits it to Six in the Hundred and so far gives way to it for the preventing of greater Mischiefs And this is not enough to excuse the Usurer in the Court of Conscience And thus the Jews deceived themselves in the matter of Polygamy and Divorce They thought Moses's Law had allowed them in those Sins But our Saviour shew'd them plainly that Moses gave them only a Toleration in them for the hardness of their Hearts The very Toleration or Permission of a thing shews its Badness For if it were Good it might be done without any Toleration or Permission at all And therefore we find in the 21 of King James the First That no Words contained in the Law about Usury should be Construed or Expounded to allow the practice of Vsury in point of Religion or Conscience And therefore notwithstanding the Statute-Law does stint and limit Usury for the avoiding of greater Evils yet it does not it cannot exempt the Usurers from Ecclesiastical Censures but leaves them to be Excommunicated by the 109 Canon And therefore Dominicas à Soto de Just Jur. l. 1. qu. 6. Art 2. is in the right on 't when he says Stews are permitted to prevent Adulteries and Vsury to avoid Theft As likewise Ezek. 18. 8 13. Where All Vsury and All Increase that way though never so little is said to be so great a Sin that whoever is guilty of it shall surely dye for it and his Blood shall be upon his own Head As likewise Jer. 15. 10. Where it is plain that if the Prophet had either taken or given upon Usury every one in the whole Earth might lawfully have Cursed him Thirdly You must have shew'n whether if Usury be at all lawful it be so lawful as to make a Trade of it as Mr. Jones's former Hearers in Lombard-Street do And there you must have answered what Bishop Sanderson says Pag. 37. If any thing can make a Calling Vnlawful certainly the Vsurer's Calling cannot be Lawful And therefore have a great care lest you by countenancing Usury after your Ability do harden any Man in his Sin and thereby do become guilty of his Sin and smart for it at the Day of Judgment He that approves or defends what Wicked Men do is worse than those Wicked Men that do those wicked things Rom. 1. 32. And this if you will give me leave to speak freely without thinking me Proud for presuming to direct your Society is what you must have done if you had answered Mr. Jones's Sermon But instead of this let us now see what it is that you have done First of all You have pick'd Two or Three Lines out of Pag. 34 38 which you represent as His. Whereas if you had that Charity and Sincerity and Respect to Truth you profess you would have represented them as they really are in effect the Words of God by his Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel whose joynt Authority he there quotes for them Secondly You have premised Two things namely That you do not intend to justifie the Rich who exact from the Poor nor those who immoderately desire Gain or Increase who are Idolaters And yet those very things some of Mr. Jones's former Hearers in Lombard-Street are notorious for As you may gather from His Sermon upon Family-Duties Pag. 19. Where he seems to tax some of them with Robbing of Orphans Oppressing Widows Grinding the Face of the Poor Griping Vsury and Suing out Pardons from the State for Extortion And if you had loved their Souls as well as he does notwithstanding all their Injustice against him you would have told them so as well as he did Namely you would have told them in plain terms that whatever you writ in your Mercury was not at all designed to Justifie their making Vsury their Calling Which even those few Modern Writers that are falsly esteemed Patrons of Usury have always Condemned And if a Man does not deal thus plainly with them he does nothing at all Their Jewels and their Precious Stones do so dazle and glister
and dart such a lustre upon their Eyes that they are perfectly Blinded insomuch that they can scarce see and know themselves when they are told to their Faces Thou art the Man And God grant that Mr. Jones's Successor may deal with them as impartially as he has done To which purpose I would desire him to read the excellent Bishop Jewel upon 1 Thes p. 121. But what speak I of the ancient Fathers of the Church There was never any Religion nor Sect nor State nor Degree nor Profession of Men but they have disliked Usury Philosophers Greeks Latins Lawyers Divines Catholicks Hereticks all Tongues and Nations have ever thought an Vsurer as dangerous as a Thief The very Sense of Nature proves it to be so If the Stones could speak they would say as much And if we had as Zealous Clergy now-a-days Usury would be thought as Detestable a Sin now as it was in the 13 of Eliz. and in the Reign of King Edw. VI. Where all Vsury or Increase c. was punished not only with the Forfeiture of Principal and All but with Imprisonment and Ranson at the Kings Will and Pleasure Again Bishop Jewel Pag. 144. After a long Discourse against Usury he has these Words Thus much I thought expedient to speak of the loathsom and Foul Trade of Vsury I know not what Fruit will grow thereby and what it will work in your Hearts If it please God it may do that good I wish I have done my Duty I call God for a Record unto my Soul I have not deceived you I have spoken unto you the truth If I be deceived in this matter O God thou hast deceived me Thou sayst Thou shalt take no Usury Thou sayst He that taketh Increase shall not live What am I that I should hide the Words of my God or keep them back from the Hearing of his People The Learned Old Fathers have taught us It is no more Lawful to take Usury of our Brother than it is to Kill our Brother c. And again Pag. 145. I hear there are certain in this City which wallow wretchedly in this Filthiness to wit Usury without Repentance I give them warning in the Hearing of you all and in the Presence of God that they forsake this cruel and detestable Sin If otherwise they continue therein I will open their shame and DENOVNCE EXCOMMVNICATION against them and publish their NAMES in this place before you all that you may know them and abhor them as the PLAGVES and MONSTERS of the World That if they be past all Fear of God they may yet repent and amend for Worldly Shame And this I humbly offer to Mr. Jones's Successors Consideration If he does not Preach against this Sin in Lombard-Street he will be guilty of their Blood and their Blood will be required at his Hands Thirdly You state the Question thus Whether it be absolutely unlawful to Receive I suppose you mean by Contract not by way of Gratitude Any increase of Any for the use of their Monies To which you give this Answer In the true signification of the Word 't is certainly Damnable but in the Sense you now use it 't is very lawful and necessary That is Usury in its true signification according to God's Word is certainly Damnable but in its false signification according to Man's Invention it is very lawful and necessary And here I would fain know of any Man First of all Which is to take place its true or its false signification God's Word or Man's Invention Truth or a Lye Christ or Belial Secondly I would fain know whether if Usury be not absolutely Unlawful Yet its being of Bad Report and its having the Appearance of Evil is not enough to hinder it from being made a Calling Certainly no Man can deny but there are a great many things which though they be not absolutely unlawful are yet absolutely unlawful to be made a Calling No Man can deny but that Usury is of Bad Report for all Ages have decry'd it And all the Earth may lawfully Curse an Usurer Jer. 15. 10. And no Man can deny but that Usury has the Appearance of Evil if it be not Evil indeed for it always appears in Bad Company It appears with Lying Backbiting Deceit Wrong and Bribery Psal 15. It appears with Idolatry Oppression Adultery Cruelty Vnmercifulness to the Poor Blood-shed and Murther Ezek. 18. And it appears with the Profanation of Holy things the abomination of Vncleanness and the unnatural Sins of Incest Ezek. 22. And 't is St. Basil's Observation upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It always appears in the midst of the greatest Evils And therefore certainly though it should not be absolutely unlawful yet it is so unlawful it is of such Bad Report and it has such Appearance of Evil that no Honest Man who avoids both upon pain of Damnation will ever adventure to make it a Calling Fourthly You affirm that the true Signification of Vsury in the Scripture is Extortion or grinding the Face of the Poor And you affirm also That it being allowed the Jews to take Vsury of Strangers Therefore it is not Morally Evil. From whence I make this Observation All Men allow that Extortion and grinding the Face of the poor are Morally Evil and Simply unlawful And consequently Scripture-Usury being Extortion according to you and Extortion or grinding the Face of the Poor being Morally Evil according to all It necessarily follows according to you that God never so much as allow'd the Jews to take Usury even from Strangers which has more truth in it as I shall shew hereafter than both your Propositions For say you He never allows that which is Morally Evil. And consequently either your First or Second or both your Propositions are all false And indeed so they are For the Proof of which I only premise thus much Extortion in our Land with relation to Usury in the Sense you say you now use it is the Exacting of more Usury than the Law allows That is It is the Exacting of more than Six in the Hundred And therefore your First Proposition which holds that Extortion or Grinding the Face of the Poor is only meant by Scripture-Usury is all false For Usury in the Scripture Language is not the exacting of more than Six in the Hundred But First of all The Exacting of One in the Hundred in Scripture-Usury Nehem. 5. 11. where Exacting the Hundredth part of the Mony lent is called Usury And v. 12. Requiring Nothing is opposed to it And consequently He that requires any thing tho never so little for the Use of Mony is a Scripture-Usurer Secondly The Law says Levit. 25. 36. Take thou No Vsury or Increase from thy poor Brother And the Prophet says Ezek. 18. 8. He that hath not given forth upon Vsury neither hath taken Any Increase From whence it is plain that whoever taketh any Increase tho never so little and not only he that taketh above Six in the