Fenton, who restated
the old arguments with much force, and the _Usury Condemned_ of John
Blaxton, published in 1634. Blaxton, who also was a clergyman,
defined usury as the taking of any interest whatever for money,
citing in support of this view six archbishops and bishops and over
thirty doctors of divinity in the Anglican Church, some of their
utterances being very violent and all of them running their roots
down into texts of Scripture. Typical among these is a sermon of
Bishop Sands, in which he declares, regarding the taking of
interest: "This canker hath corrupted all England; we shall doe God
and our country true service by taking away this evill; represse it
by law, else the heavy hand of God hangeth over us and will strike us."
II. RETREAT OF THE CHURCH, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC.
But about the middle of the seventeenth century Sir Robert Filmer
gave this doctrine the heaviest blow it ever received in England.
Taking up Dr. Fenton's treatise, he answered it, and all works like
it, in a way which, however unsuitable to this century, was
admirably adapted to that.
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