Usury, a Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View

The word usury was very odious to the Christian mind and conscience. The moral nature of an act does not depend on the enacted statutes of human legislators, and the laws of economics are eternal. We must not permit our views of divine and economic truth to be perverted by this modern division of increase into legal and illegal. In order that the whole truth may be now expressed in our language we must combine with the old word usury the new word interest; then only will we have the full force of the revealed truth. Throughout this discussion usury is used in its full old classical meaning for any increase of a loan, great or small, whether authorized or forbidden by the civil state.