of the "Bill of Usury" In this it is said, "Forasmuch as usury is by the word of God utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and detestable, as in divers places of the Holy Scriptures it is evident to be seen, which thing by no godly teachings and persuasions can sink into the hearts of divers greedy, uncharitable, and covetous persons of this realm, nor yet, by any terrible threatenings of God's wrath and vengeance," etc., it is enacted that whosoever shall thereafter lend money "for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest, to be had, received, or hoped for," shall forfeit principal and interest, and suffer imprisonment and fine at the king's pleasure.[1]
But, most fortunately, it happened that Calvin, though at times stumbling over the usual texts against the usance of money, turned finally in the right direction. He cut through the metaphysical arguments of Aristotle, and characterized the mass of subtleties devised to evade the Scriptures as "a childish game with God." In place of these subtleties, there was developed among Protestants a serviceable fiction—the statement that usury means illegal or oppressive interest. Under the action of this fiction, commerce and trade revived rapidly in Protestant countries, though with occasional checks from exact interpreters of Scripture. At the same period in France, the great Protestant jurist, Dumoulin, brought all his legal learning and skill in casuistry to bear on the same side. A certain ferret-like acuteness and litheness seem to have enabled him to hunt down the opponents of usance through the most tortuous arguments of scholasticism.
In England the struggle went on with varying fortune; statesmen on one side, and theologians on the other. We have seen how under Henry VIII interest was allowed at a fixed rate, and how the development of English Protestantism having at first strengthened the old theological view, there was, under Edward VI, a temporarily successful attempt to forbid usance by law. The Puritans, dwelling on Old Testament texts, continued for a considerable time especially hostile to the taking of any interest. Henry Smith, a noted preacher, thundered from the pulpit of St. Clement Danes in London against "the evasions of Scripture" which permitted men to loan money on interest at all. In answer to the contention that only "biting" usury was oppress-
- ↑ For Luther's views see his sermon, Von dem Wucher, Wittenberg, 1519, also the Tischreden, cited in Coquelin and Guillaumin, article Intérét. For the later more moderate views of Luther, Melanchthon, and Zwingli, making a compromise with the needs of society, see Böhm-Bawerk, p. 27, citing Wiskercann. For Melanchthon and a long line of the most eminent Lutheran divines who have denounced the taking of interest, see Die Wucherfrage, St. Louis, 1869, pp. 94 et seq. For the law against usury under Edward VI, see Cobbett's Parliamentary History, vol. i, p. 596; see also Craik, History of British Commerce, chap. vi.
