Prison-Pietie or, Meditations Divine and Moral. Digested into Poetical Heads, On Mixt and Various Subjects. Whereunto is added A Panegyrick to The Right Reverend, and most Nobly descended, Henry, Lord Bishop of London. By Samuel Speed, Prisoner in Ludgate, London |
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On a Usurer. |
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On a Usurer.
'Tis not the Usurer that gives relief,But rather robs the Spittle, plays the thief
With priviledge; whilst others do abhor it,
He boldly dares to plead a Statute for it.
Tell him of Godliness, you talk in vain;
For it is Gold, is both his God and gain.
Six in the Hundred from the meaner Tribes,
Continuation-money, other Bribes
Which he extorts, do make his bags swell o'r,
And keeps the Borrower continual poor.
Grigory Nyslen of him thus reports,
He's like a false Physician who exhorts
His feaverish Patient take for his relief
Cold Water, which doth much augment his grief.
So Money lent on Usury, doth seem
Relief, but in conclusion proves a Dream;
And as cold Water gives some present ease,
But the Effect prolongeth the Disease.
He follows Debtors, as the Eagles train
An Army, preying upon those are slain:
And men flock to him, when they seem forlorn,
As birds do gather to an heap of Corn;
For they desire, and strive their Food to get,
'Till they're entrapt within the Fowler's Net.
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He lives at ease a sedentary life.
His Pen's his Plow, and Parchment is his Field,
Ink is his Seed, and Time his Crop doth yield.
He's so hem'd in where'er he casts his eye,
He dayly views Objects of Charity:
But study'ng then to feather his own Nest,
Minds them of Principal and Interest.
To over-reach he bends his utmost strength,
And like the Butler's box sweeps all at length.
Agis th' Athenian General set fire
On all the Books and Bonds, for love or hire
He could procure, by those that did adhere
To finde them out, as goods of Usurer:
On which Agesilaus was wont to say,
The Market ne're had fairer Market day.
And Aristotle did this sort decry
As Harpies, strangers unto Unity.
This biting Usurer, or Man-eater, he
Is like the Shark that swimmeth in the Sea,
Devouring lesser Fish: So Ostrich right,
All Metals sute this Monsters appetite.
St. Matthew teacheth us in words but few,
Do as you would have others do to you:
Be kinde to the unthankful and the evil;
God's children scorn to imitate the Devil.
Nor will this Doctrine reach a Miser's scull,
Be merciful, as God is merciful.
St. Paul most piously adviseth thus,
In conversation be not covetous.
Thus Usery, throughout the Holy Writ,
Is held a hainous crime, and thought unfit
For Christian practice. Wealth could never buy
One little moment of Eternity.
It was Alphonsus saying, All such gain
Makes a Sepulchre for the Soul: In vain
Let Usurers God's Tabernacle hope,
That give their Conscience such a wretched scope.
Charity's kinde, helps to keep all things even,
But Usury excludes the Soul from Heaven.
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