_Answ._ This controversy hath so many full treatises written on it, that I cannot expect that so few words as I must lay out upon it should satisfy the studious reader. All the disputes about the name of usury I pass by; it being, The receiving any additional gain as due for money lent, which is commonly meant by the word, and which we mean in the question. For the questions, Whether we may bargain for it, or tie the debtor to pay it? Whether we may take it after his gain as partaking in it, or before? Whether we must partake also in the loss, if the debtor be a loser? with other such like, are but subsequent to the main question, Whether any gain (called use) may be taken by the lender as his due for the money lent? My judgment is as followeth. I. There is some such gain or usury lawful and commendable. II. There is some such gain or usury unlawful and a heinous sin. I shall first give my reasons of the first proposition. I. If all usury be forbidden it is either by the law of nature, or by some positive law of supernatural revelation: if the latter, it is either by some law of Moses, or by some law of Christ: if the former, it is either as against the rule of piety to God, or against justice or charity to men. That which is neither a violation of the natural laws of piety, justice, or charity; nor against the supernaturally revealed laws of Moses or of Christ, is not unlawful. But there is some usury which is against none of all these; _ergo_ there is some usury which is not unlawful. I will first lay you down the instances of such usury, and then prove it. There is a parcel of land to be sold for a thousand pounds, which is worth forty pounds per annum, and hath wood on it worth a thousand pounds (some such things we have known): John N. is willing to purchase it; but he hath a poor neighbour, T. S. that hath no money, but a great desire of the bargain. J. N. loving his neighbour as himself, and desiring his wealth, lendeth him the thousand pounds upon usury for one year. T. S. buyeth the land, and selleth the wood for the same money, and repayeth it in a year, and so hath all the land for almost nothing; as if J. N. had purchased the land and freely given it him, after a year or two; the gift had been the same. _Object._ Here you suppose the seller wronged by selling his land almost for nothing. _Answ._ 1. That is nothing at all to the present case, but a different case by itself. 2. I can put many cases in which such a sale may be made without any wrong to the seller: as when it is done by some prince, or state, or noble and liberal person, purposely designing the enriching of the subjects, or after a war, as lately in Ireland. So that the question is, whether J. N. may not give T. S. a thousand or eight hundred pounds' worth of land, taking a year's rent first out of the land, or a year's use for the money, which cometh to the same sum.