ness, and good sense whicb. cause us to wonder that this can be the same man who was so infatuated regarding witchcraft. After an argument so conclusive as his, there could have been little left of the old anti-economic doctrine in New England.[1]
But while the retreat in the Protestant Church was henceforth easy, in the Catholic Church it was far more difficult. Infallible popes and councils, saints, fathers, and doctors, had so constantly declared the taking of any interest at all to be contrary to Scripture, that the more exact though less fortunate interpretation of the sacred text relating to interest continued in Catholic countries. When it was attempted in France in the seventeenth century to argue that usury "means oppressive interest," the Theological Faculty of the Sorbonne declared that usury is the taking of any interest at all, no matter how little, and the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel was cited to clinch this argument.
Another attempt to ease the burden of industry and commerce was made by declaring that "usury means interest demanded not as a matter of favor, but as a matter of right." This, too, was solemnly condemned by Pope Innocent XI.
Again, an attempt was made to find a way out of the difficulty by declaring that "usury is interest greater than the law allows." This, too, was condemned, and so also was the declaration that "usury is interest on loans not for a fixed time."
Still, the forces of right reason pressed on, and, among them, in the seventeenth century, in France, was Richard Simon. He attempted to gloss over the declarations of Scripture against usance in an elaborate treatise, but was immediately confronted by Bossuet, the greatest of French bishops, one of the keenest
and strongest of thinkers. Just as Bossuet had mingled Script-
- ↑ For Calvin's views, see his letter published in the appendix to Pearson's Theories on Usury. His position is well stated in Böhm-Bawerk, pp. 28 et seq., where citations are given. See also Economic Tracts, No. IV, New York, 1881, pp. 34, 35; and for some serviceable Protestant fictions, see Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury, pp. 60, 61. For Dumoulin (Molinæus), see Böhm-Bawerk, as above, pp. 29 et seq. For debates on usury in British Parliament in Elizabeth's time, see Cobbett, Parliamentary History, vol. i, pp. 756 et seq. The passage in Shakespeare is in the Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene III: "If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not as to thy friend; for when did friendship take a breed for barren metal from his friend?" For the right direction taken by Lord Bacon, see Neumann, Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle, 1865, pp. 497, 498. For Grotius, see the De Jure Belli ac Pacis, lib. ii, cap. xii; and for Salmasius and others mentioned, see Böhm-Bawerk, pp. 34 et seq., also Lecky, vol. ii, p. 256. For the saving clause inserted by the bishops in the statute of James I, see the Corpus Juris Eccles. Anglic, p. 1071; also Murray, History of Usury, Philadelphia, 1866, p. 49. For Blaxton, see his English Usurer; or. Usury Condemned, by John Blaxton, Preacher of God's Word, London, 1634. Blaxton gives some of Calvin's earlier utterances against interest. For Bishop Sauds's sermon, see p. 11. For Cotton Mather's argument, see the Magnalia, London, 1702, pp. 51, 52.
