Clement Danes in London against "the evasions of Scripture" which
permitted men to lend money on interest at all. In answer to the
contention that only "biting" usury was oppressive, Wilson, a noted
upholder of the strict theological view in political economy,
declared: "There is difference in deed between the bite of a dogge
and the bite of a flea, and yet, though the flea doth lesse harm,
yet the flea doth bite after hir kinde, yea, and draweth blood,
too. But what a world this is, that men will make sin to be but a
fleabite, when they see God's word directly against them!"
The same view found strong upholders among contemporary English
Catholics. One of the most eminent of these, Nicholas Sanders,
revived very vigorously the use of an old scholastic argument. He
insisted that "man can not sell time," that time is not a human
possession, but something which is given by God alone: he declared,
"Time was not of your gift to your neighbour, but of God's gift to
you both."
In the Parliament of the period, we find strong assertions of the
old idea, with constant reference to Scripture and the fathers.
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