Usury : $b a scriptural, ethical and economic viewElliott, Calvin
Religion
Usury : $b a scriptural, ethical and economic view
Elliott, Calvin
Usury
2. Family ties remain. The relation of husband and wife, of parents
and children, and the duties of their several positions in the home
have not changed. The family remains the social unit as it has been in
all ages. Sociology, the science of social and political organization,
is a permanent science. It does not change with the shifting temporal
conditions of the people. Those things which made for the general
welfare of ages ago are for the public weal now, and those things that
endangered the state then are to be avoided now.
3. The moral law remains unchanged and unchangeable, with all the
brilliant present there is no amendment to the ten commandments. The
ethical nature remains and the voice of conscience, approving the same
right and condemning the same wrong, is identical with the voice of
conscience in the time of Moses.
4. The laws of nature have not changed. The relation between a cause
and its sequence remains. Like causes produce like effects.
No living thing has changed its nature. A lion now is of the same
nature that it was in the time of Samson. So with every savage beast
that roams the jungle. Even the domesticated animals, with all the
effort and skill of intelligent man, have only been smoothed or
speeded a little. The horse, cow, sheep, or dog have held their old
forms and dispositions.
Seed time and harvest come and go and we are dependent for the same
shower and sunshine that gave Adam his first harvest.
We know some things they did not know and we have bettered our tools,
but the natural world has shown no signs of change.
5. The relation of things to each other have not changed. Plants must
have soil to grow in, animals must have vegetation to feed upon. Fish
must have water. And so with the thousands of relations of climate,
elements, soils, plants, animals, fishes, birds and insects, they are
the identical relations sustained ages and ages ago.
6. The nature of money has not changed. Its material and form and
denominations have been modified but the functions of money as a
storage of values and as a measure of values and as a medium of
exchange remain the same. Our gold and silver and paper money may be
more convenient and more exact, but its functions are just the same
as the Indians' wampum.
The law of supply and demand and the equity in commercial
transactions, great or small, are unchanged. Money could always be
used to make or gather more money in business. It is no more true now
than in the times of David or Nehemiah. If this had not then been
possible; if there had not been tempting opportunities, there would
have been no sin of usury for them to reprove.
Man's changed conditions are but trifling and incidental, relating to
himself. They do not affect a single natural or moral or economic law.
The changed conditions, which are urged as a reason that the
prohibition of usury is no longer binding, are only the conditions
brought about by the violation of that law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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