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Chaptee II.

other has his action.

It is worthy of remark, that the united voice of all ages and nations, barbarous or civiUzed, has been raised against the practice of v^ury, properly so called. In the Koran of Mahomet, the institutes of Menu, the Tables of China, and in the Statutes of Europe, it is condemned and viewed by the people > TomphynsY.Barnet, 1 Salk., 22, A. D. 1693.

with disgust and aversion, and Dr. Fenton, in his learned work, says : " The testimony of all authority, civil' and humane, ecclesiastical and prophane, naturall and morall ; of all ages, old, new, middling ; of all churches, primitive, superstitious, reformed ; of all common weales, Jewish, Christian, heathenish ; of all lawes, forraine and domesticall, are against usurie ;" and triumphantly asserts the surprising fact, " that usurie was never even defended for fifteen hundred years after Christ." And other divines follow in similar strain. " God, nature, reason, all scripture, all law, all authors, all doctors, yea, all councils are against usurie. Philosophers, Greeks, Latins, Law- yers, Divines, Catholics, Heretics, all tongues, all nations, have thought an usurer as bad as a theefe.'"

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