Seven treatises containing such direction as is gathered out of the Holy Scriptures, leading…Seuen treatises containing such direction as is gathered out of the Holie Scriptures, leading…

Now concerning the second, there is no doubt (as I have said) but that a ⟨p. 182⟩man may help himself with his own:¹ and therefore such annuities may §Fbe lawfully and Christianly bought and sold. But where (then) is the danger in this kind of traffic? I answer, it may be on the behalf of both parties.² On the sellers, by fraudulent and crafty dealing: as if he have either sold the same annuity before to another; or if he know it to be litigious, and encumbered, and so he selleth sorrow and trouble to his neighbour, in steed of a commodity. This dealing is so gross, and branded with the mark of infamy and dishonesty by the Lord himself, that I need say no more of it. On the buyers behalf,³ the sin and offence is, when he knowing the other must sell, and within a certain time, holdeth him off, as though he cared not for it, to the end he may have it, not according to the worth of it, and as many other §Gwill give, but for a little; perhaps half the value, and so copeth him up, and sucketh out of him no small advantage.⁴ This is a grinder of his neighbour. Thus come in the annuities that gripe more then ten in the hundred, when the seller might, if he had had good measure, have made his benefit almost as much more.⁵ This dealing, if it be used towards the wealthy, is rank oppression, when the buyer lieth thus in the wind, as it were, and will not give according to the value: but if it be practised upon the weak stated, and men behind hand, it is as the plucking off their skin from their body. If it be asked, what commodity a man may reap lawfully this way: I say, if he buy the annuity or rent of him,⁶ who is wealthy, so as there be plain dealing, he