A12367:253
A preparative to marriage The sum whereof was spoken at a contract, and enlarged…A preparatiue to mariage The summe whereof was spoken at a contract, and inlarged…
A preparative to marriage The sum whereof was spoken at a contract, and enlarged after. Whereunto is annexed a treatise of the Lords Supper, and another of usury. By Henry Smith.A preparatiue to mariage The summe whereof was spoken at a contract, and inlarged after. Whereunto is annexed a treatise of the Lords Supper, and another of vsurie. By Henrie Smith.
London: printed by Thomas Orwin for Thomas Man, 1591
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Usury is the sin which God will try now whether you love better than his word: that is, whether you will leave it if he forbid it: for if he flatly forbid it, and yet you wilfully retain it, then you love Usury better than Gods word. Therefore one saith well that our Usurers are Heretics, because after 1many admonitions, yet they maintain their error, and persist in it obstinately as Papists do in Popery. For this cause I am glad that I have any occasion to grapple with this sin, where it hath made so many spoils, & where it hath so many patrons: for it is said that there be moe of this profession in this City, than there be in all the ⟨image 135⟩land beside. There be certain sins which are like an unreasonable enemy which will not be reconciled to death, and this is one of those everlasting sins which live and die with a man. For when he hath resigned his pride and his envy and his lust, yet Usury remaineth with him, & he saith as Naaman said, Let the Lord be merciful 2unto me in this: let me have a dispensation for this, as though this were a necessary sin, and he could not live without it. There be three sins which are counted 3no sins, and yet they do more hurt than all their fellows, & those are Bribery, Nonresidency, and Usury: these three because they are gainful are turned from sins to occupations. How many of this City for all that they are Usurers, yet would be counted honest men, ⟨image 135⟩and would fain have Usury esteemed as a trade: whereas if it were not so gainful, it would be counted as great a sin as any other, and so it is counted of all but them which live by it. This is the nature of pleasure and profit to make sins seem no sins, if we gain any thing by them, but the more gainful a sin is, the more dangerous it is, and the more gainful Usury is, the more dangerous it is. I will speak the more of it, because haply you shall not hear of this matter again.
Vsurie is the sin which God wil trie now whether you loue better than his worde: that is, whether you will leaue it if he forbid it: for if hee flatly forbid it, and yet you wilfully retaine it, then you loue Vsurie better than Gods worde. Therefore one saith well that our Vsurers are Hereticks, because after