from many passages in the Scriptures; but in the very beginning a horror of the crime was instilled into the minds of men by the prohibition contained in the law of Moses. ^ This law, however, upon a compari- son with other texts, would seem to have been more political in its purpose than moral in its object, and to have sprung from the "union of Church and State " — the compound of spiritual and civil government of which Moses was the head — and was framed to meet its necessities, and was peculiarly adapted to its institutions. But on the death of our Saviour, no part of the Jewish law was binding upon the conscience of any of mankind, that was not equally so before the law came to Moses. For by the divine event of our Saviour's crucifixion, the whole of that system was fulfilled and put an end to, and its injunctions were no longer obhgatory upon any of mankind — " unless, perhaps, upon such of the Jewish nation as continued to live under the civil form of government, to which the masonic rites, ceremonies, and ordinances were alone adapted." ^ This portion ' " Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother ; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury : unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury." — (^Deut. xxiii., 19, 20.)
^Flow. on Usury, p. 11.
of the Jews, then, transmitted through the epoch succeeding our Saviour's death, many of the precepts they had received in their law ; and primitive injunc- tions and ideas in regard to usury, were handed down among the rest. These latter, for reasons which we shall presently see, particularly received the sanction of popular opinion, and were afterwards applied, however incorrectly and illy suited, to other systems, widely differing from that for which the law was originally designed.