Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	fee_n	rent_n	tenant_n	1,454	5	9.7296	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64066	Quæstio quodlibetica, or, A discourse whether it may bee lawfull to take use for money	Filmer, Robert, Sir, d. 1653.; Twysden, Roger, Sir, 1597-1672.	1653 (1653)	Wing T3555; ESTC R14802	53,162	192

of it which hee made therefore I justly challenge Rent for it The like case is for money the Borrower hath the use of it and though the money bee not the worse for using yet the Lender is the worse by missing the commodity which the other makes of it and the Borrower is bettered by the employment of it Also it is objected pag. 148. That money is voyd of all immediate use in it self to the possessor while hee doth enjoy it Ans. So it is with Land which immediately neither clothes nor feeds any man but by the mediation of tillage and pasturage both are effected and though no man immediately eats or wears money yet by the meanes of it food and raiment are procured Another objection is That money the more it doth increase the more it may which is unnaturall and contrary to other encrease Answ. It is so in other sorts of increase for one Sheep brings forth a Lamb and that Sheep and Lamb in time bring forth a double increase which multiplies to a third and so forward so one hundred pound brings forth ten pound and both together in time increase to produce eleven pound The only difference is that money is more durable than other fruitfull things which by course of Nature are more perishable Of the ungodliness of Vsury It is ungodly and impious against the first Table because it dependeth not upon Gods Providence but is assured by ●onds against the Act of God Ans. 1. Dr. Fenton forgets that he said Vsury belongs to the second Table Why is it here made a breach of the first Secondly the Vsurers security is to arm himself against the ●●dinary fraudes negligencies or other follies of the borrower If by the hand of God an extraordinary loss do happen by the like means also an extraordinary gaine may be raised sometimes both which belong to the borrower except the mercy of the lender to whom he is to trust relieve him And surely the Vsurer hath greater cause and seems also to trust God more than any other man and is least armed against him He had need pray against foul-weather tempest wind and wrack for although hee be no Husbandman Merchant Tradesman nor Labourer yet by the thriving of all these he must live if all or any of these miscarry it is not his bonds many times which help him Neither against the hand of God onely is he unarmed but against the fraudes of men many times his security cannot defend him How many have been defrauded of their principall debts by fraudulent deeds of gift by concealing of goods and divers other waies It is true some few in a City may sometimes attain to a noted wealth by Usury but these are but as ciphers in comparison of hundreds who living by the like employment of money do scarce attain to a moderate gain whereby to maintain themselves in their first condition and many tim●s as skilfull Usurers as the best what by the loss sometimes of interest sometimes of principal and other whiles of both and many times by the lying still of their mony for want of reasonable security have proved in the end perfect Beggers by this trade And what greater argument can there be of the hazard and danger of mony that is lent than the common opinion of the world which esteems a small revenew in land of Fee simple more safe and certain than almost a double encrease in mony with perpetual hazard and for this cause land is dearer than money As for taking of Bonds for payment it is no more injurious to the Providence of God than to have a bond or covenant of a Tenant for the payment of his rent for although some yeares by the unseasonablness of the year or by some other act of God the land yeelds not the rent contracted for yet the Tenant is absolutely bound to pay it without any condition of gaining so much by the land And the reason is grounded upon great equity and is all one both for contracts of land and money to be abs●lute Neither GOD n●r Nature have proportioned the valuation of Lands Commodities or Moneys no Text can be brought to prove an Acre must be sold at such a price or a commodity at such a rate the worth of things in proportion one to another is a humane arbitrary custom grounded upon the several necessities or opinions of each particular Nation Thus the common estimation doth allow Lands Goods and Money taken with all casualties hazards and charges to be worth one year with another about a certain value and it is reasonable that such a certain value should be contracted for so that as the Seller or Letter is not to participate of the extraordinary gaines that may bee raised so hee is not to sustain the losses if any doe happen Of the Injustice of Vsury It is further urged pag. 98. that it is unjust because it takes hire for loan and sels Charity which should be free so that things are not lent but let if they goe for hire Ans. 1. Dr. Fenton can shew no reason why money may not be let as well as len● as well as a house or a horse which may be both I ought in great necessity to lend freely to the poor yet this work of Charity doth not hinder me from letting the same thing where there is not the like necessity If the use of money for a time be worth mony in buying and selling as Dr. ● confesseth pag. 99. The rule may better hold in Letting which is no work of Charity though both in Letting and Selling Charity is to guide us It doth not follow that because I must lend a shilling for a day therfore I may not lend a pound for a year Besides even in letting for hire there is often both Charity and friendship shewed As if I let a thing for half the value the use of it is worth to one whom others dare not trust with their goods If some things which are spent in the first use may be sold for increase why may not other things that are used be let in the same sort since letting is but a temporary kind of selling and selling in effect a perpetuall kind of letting If such things as are bought this day for ten pound may be sold to morrow for eleven pound may not the same ten pound which by buying and selling may encrease in one day to thus eleven pound may it not by letting encrease in a whole year to as much Nor can there be any reason shewed since mony hath a gainfull use in it self and as Solomon saith answereth all things why I may not as well let a hundred pound in mony as a hundred-pounds worth of Cattell houses or lands which I buy with my mony And because they often tell us that he that beares the hazard must have the gain I must ask what they will say to a lease for life wherin both parties hazard yet but one gaines Dr. Andrews

Bishop of Winchester hath an argument against Vsury taken from the Rule of our Saviour Luke 6.31 as ye would that men should do to you do yee also to them likewise Nemo saith he sibi vellet Vsuras infligi cum fratre sic agat igitur No man is willing to have Vsury taken of him therefore he must not take himself every man desires to borrow freely therefore he must lend freely Ans. The Rule of our Saviour must necessarily be thus expounded Whatsoever yee will that is Whatsoever you will according to right reason or commom Iustice for if any man be so unreasonable or so frantick as to will that others should kill him yet my Lord of Winchester will not say that therefore that man may kill another So he that desires to borrow freely breaks the Rule of common equity and rectified reason by coveting his neighbours goods for he that desireth to benefit himself by the use of another mans goods doth therein uncharitably desire the hinderance of his neighbour Also it is objected that the greatness of gain which is made by Vsury is unlawfull pag. 100 Ans 1. This is no proof against all increase of mony but onely against excessive gaines whereas it should bee proved that Vsury of a penny in the hundred is a sinne as well as of ten pounds Secondly By this Rule all gain of merchandising is condemned which is ordinarily far greater than that of tenne in the hundred Thirdly The greatness of gain by Lending must be estimated by the common opinion of the Country otherwise how can any mans Conscience warrant him to purchase any inheritance Men buy land to them and to their heires for ever that is till Doomesday which when it will come no man knowes and yet as if every purchaser knew the hour he bargaineth for land at fifteen or sixteen yeares purchace But the last day may come within a year or within fifteen or perhaps not within fifteen hundred yeares howsoever it bee uncertain yet the publique valuation doth esteem it Certain And no man buyes land at 15. yeares purchace upon Condition that Doomes-day come not before because perhaps then he may have a dear penny worth Nor upon Condition that if the world last longer then fifteen yeares that thence forward the purchaser should pay a further sum No but Custome thinks fit to make an absolute bargain though by the meer act of God it may bee made a dear purchace As the argument of the greatness of gain in Vsury makes against trading or merchandising so thereby also bargaining for leases for term of yeares will be made unjust And this may the better appear if we examine one of Dr. Fentons examples of Vsury in this kind If saith he pag 21. purposely to avoid the Statute I will purchase an annuity of twenty pound per annum with an hundred pound for ten yeares this is bargain and sale yet the very same with Vsury differing onely in parchment and manner of Covenanting subject to the same iniquity and in quality poisoned with purpose of avoiding the Statute and penalty of Vsury Ans. ● If onely the purpose to avoid the Statute makes his Case to bee Vsury then before the Statute it was no Vsury for there could bee no purpose to avoid a penalty that was not and this is to make Vsury a breach only of Mans Law and not of Gods Let us ask Dr. Fenton whether a lease for yeares and annuity bought with mony bee Vsury simply in it self he dares not say it his answer is pag 129 We cannot condem it for Vsury and yet he seeth most apparently it is of the very self same nature with Lending upon bonds and differs onely in the security upon bond a man ties himself upon a lease a man ties his land in both these there is the like increase by mony and both pay alike at the end Secondly this Case I find put of a lease that brings in above tenne in the hundred thereby to make it more odious but give us leave to put it in other termes and then ask his opinion If with a hundred pound I purchase an anuity of tenne pounds per annum and twenty shillings over yearly for tenne yeares Is this Vsury because it is an increase above the principall It is the very self-same bargain in nature with his it differs only in the quantity of the increase Now both by his definition and argument as well the increase of a penny is Usury as of tenne pounds in the hundred so then by his doctrine a man may not buy a lease worth one penny more than his principall If it bee pretended that bargain and sale of leases be lawfull if it be reasonable otherwise not then if the unreasonableness onely of the bargain make it a sinne of Vsury then the former doctrine which saith all increase is Vsury is thereby denied And I confess that an unreasonable bargain is a sinne but of theft in generall not of Vsury Thirdly The principall purpose in buying an annuity or lease for yeares is to gain by a hundred pound which since it could not safely bee done by bonds therefore by a second intention men labour to avoid the Statute so that to gain and in gaining to avoid the Statute is the purpose of such Contracts and not chiefly to avoid the Statute which might best be avoided by not purchasing at all Fourthly It is no sinne to avoid a statute by lawfull meanes if the Contract of bargain and sale bee in it self lawfull why should it be a vice and not a vertue thereby to avoid the penalty of the Law since lawes are purposely made to force men to avoid them by lawfull meanes Fiftly Whereas Dr. Fenton pag. 129. concludeth that if simply without any pretence such annuity of rent bee bought or sold wee cannot condemn it for Vsury It followes that the pretence or intention of the heart and not the Contract makes it Vsury and that as he himself confesseth pag. 128 if the intention be right that which formally is Vsurious upon the matter may i● justice bee equivalent to a lawfull Contract If formall Vsury may bee no Vsury wee must look for a new definition of Vsury in the Consciences of men and not in Dr. Fentons treatise And if Vsury bee committed in Buying and Selling what Contract will bee found in the world without Vsury To Instance in some other Contracts let us consider of the absolute buying and selling of land or of purchasing an annuity for life because these two Contracts are esteemed by most men to be the lawfullest of all others yet in both these the just and ordinary valuation both of fee simple land and of leases for lives is grounded and guided by Vsury onely and as the use of money goeth higher or lower so the prices of these rise and fall so that in very truth he that purchaseth land is the greatest Vsurer in the world because he maketh the greatest and certainest gain