PERMANENCY OF THE PROHIBITION.
It is sometimes urged that the law of Moses with regard to usury was
not intended to be permanent but was only a wise and beneficent
regulation for that people in their peculiar condition; that as the
ceremonial was done away by the incoming of the New Testament
dispensation, so this prohibition was annulled and should be reckoned
among the effete laws of the ancient Hebrews.
In answer to this contention it may be replied:
(1) This prohibition is not ceremonial. It has no connection with the
rites and forms of their religion. It touches their character and
conduct but has no place in their forms of worship.
(2) Nothing can be presented from the Mosaic laws to prove that this
prohibition was only of a temporary character. It is in entire harmony
with the spirit of helpfulness and especially the protection of the
weak, that is so characteristic of the Mosaic order.
No induction from any of the Old Testament writers can be fairly made
to limit its application. The prophets place usury in the catalogue of
sins that are always and everywhere offensive to God. Nehemiah
condemns it as destructive to personal and civic freedom.
(3) There is no hint of its discontinuance in the new dispensation.
The Master gave a spiritual completeness to this law as he did to all
enactments requiring external moral character. He classed the usurers,
in his parables, among the dishonest, who took up what they had not
laid down.
The disciples, in their poverty and persecutions, were not specially
tempted by this sin, and it is not therefore prominent in their
history. But there is nothing in their teachings or practice that is
not in entire harmony with the binding continuance of the Mosaic
prohibition, and their practice and teaching are just such as we
should expect from Christian people in their condition and
circumstances who recognized the prohibition as permanent.
(4) The apostolic fathers, as the church grew and came into contact
with the world and was beginning to share in the business of the
world, to a man, regarded the prohibition as in full force and its
observance as one of the marked characteristics of the Christian,
distinguishing him from the worldling and the Jew. Conditions in the
apostolic age did not make this prominent but when the conditions were
changed and the church came in conflict with this sin, it is clearly
seen that the law was in a continuous binding force through the whole
period.
The later fathers were of the opinion, unanimously, that it was in
full force, not temporary or provincial, but binding for all time and
upon all people. That it is suspended is a modern idea, a suggestion
of the world to the church within the last few hundred years.