# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1864_S228
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

228 Martin Chemnitz on Usury.

it is the only covering of his skin in which he sleeps, then you shall give it
back to him before the sun goes down. And if he cries out to me, I will hear
him, etc. Deuteronomy 24:10–13: If you lend anything to your neighbor,
you shall not go into his house to take his pledge, but you shall stand
outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring his pledge out to you.
And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge in your
possession, so that the LORD may bless you and you may have
righteousness before him. In the same place, verse 6: You shall not take
the lower or the upper millstone as a pledge, for he has thereby pledged his
very life to you — that is, such a thing as the debtor cannot do without for
his necessary livelihood. The civil laws, to be sure, do not punish the
taking of such a thing in pledge, but love declares it wrong. So Christ
says, Luke 6:35: You shall not only lend when you hope that the principal
will be repaid, or when you have been secured for its restoration by a
pledge, but also when the poor man asks for a loan where even the
principal would be at risk — lend, expecting nothing back for it. And yet
such lending is not a gift, because the condition attached to it is that, if the
debtor comes into better circumstances and is well able to make
restitution, he should repay the principal; if not, the law says, you shall not
press him as a debt-collector would. So Scripture commands, in the third
estate, when contracts exhaust and oppress one's neighbor, the release of
the debt; as indeed Isaiah, chapter 58:6, speaks of bonds: Loose those
whom you have bound unjustly, set free those whom you burden, release
those whom you press; tear away every kind of load. And indeed it is in
itself no sin to demand repayment of a debt on the basis of promissory
notes, but when it conflicts with love, even lawful and just promissory
notes become unjust.

These are simple, certain, firm, and clear foundations, which offer a
clear judgment on many disputed questions. And indeed this diligence is
worthy of a scholar, that one should weigh the sources of the explanations,
to see for what reasons a thing is either approved or rejected. Some, in
order to find their way out of the labyrinth of many questions, have
devised various distinctions of usury — the profit-seeking kind, the
compensatory kind, the kind imposed as a penalty, the burdensome kind,
the loan-contract kind, etc. But this method here is easier and more
certain. Its application to the explanation of the questions is easy and
plain. Let us bring forward a few examples. As, when someone has the
goods of this world, and lends to a poor man, and demands interest over
and above the principal, so that his neighbor is bitten, burdened, and
exploited: here it is an entirely clear matter that this is condemned usury,
because Scripture commands that we come to the aid of impoverished
brothers through gratuitous service of love. If someone wanted to say:
If I am to lend without charge, then I will instead put my money to other
contracts, or keep it in the