Protestantism was led by Luther and
several of his associates into the same line of thought and
practice. Said Luther. "To exchange anything with any one and gain
by the exchange is not to do a charity; but to steal. Every usurer
is a thief worthy of the gibbet. I call those usurers who lend
money at five or six per cent." But it is only just to say that at
a later period Luther took a much more moderate view. Melanchthon,
defining usury as any interest whatever, condemned it again and
again; and the Goldberg _Catechism_ of 1558, for which he wrote a
preface and recommendation, declares every person taking interest
for money a thief. From generation to generation this doctrine was
upheld by the more eminent divines of the Lutheran Church in all
parts of Germany.
The English reformers showed the same hostility to interest-bearing
loans. Under Henry VIII the law of Henry VII against taking
interest had been modified for the better; but the revival of
religious feeling under Edward VI caused in 1552 the passage of the
"Bill of Usury.
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