A practical exposition of the X. Commandments with a resolution of several momentous questions…A practical exposition of the X. Commandements with a resolution of several momentous questions…

But to speak to this point a little more distinctly, I suppose that something commanded in it may be found peculia • to the Estate and Common-wealth of Israel, and therefore referrable ⟨p. 430⟩to that part of the Divine Law which is commonly called Judicial, and in its direct authority only intended by the Lord for that people, and something common to all men, as flowing from the principles of equity and charity, held forth in the eighth Command; that which I conceive to be common, is the rule given for lending to the poor, which therefore we see is made binding by the Law of God, both toward an Israelite and a Stranger, and doth certainly import that we should lend to such freely, without regard to our own profit, and only for their supply and relief in charity, permitting a free use of our money; and as for the security of our repayment, minding it with that fair temper of equity and moderation, which we our selves would expect if necessitated to borrow: Besides, the rule should also influence our continuing and manner of exacting the debt, that all be done without rigour, and with that goodness, that even the loss of the principal, if so it should fall out, should be no grudge or disappointment. But the thing which I take to be peculiar to that people, is, that I think the trade of lending, or lending for profit, was absolutely to them prohibited among themselves, which is clear from Deut. 23.19. and the distinction there made betwixt an Israelite, from whom usury might not be taken, and a Stranger from whom profit is permitted. And the reasons of this Command might not only be the better prevention of rigorous loaning and exacting, the stirring up of all to honest and diligent labour (from which the hope of borrowing, as well as the profit of lending doth often keep back) and other such considerations too much neglected in all States and Politics, but also it might flow from other things particular in their condition, such as the equal distribution of their Land, secured to perpetuity by the recourse of their Jubilees, and it may be that the riches and conveniency of its situation for foreign traffic, with something peculiar in the rigid and covetous temper of that people, might also have occasioned this precept; certain it is, that this prohibition of the trade of loaning, and that Statute of the Seventh year of Release, have a manifest consonancy.