The fifth place is that of Matthew,5.22:"Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be guilty in judgement.And whosoever shall say to his brother,Raca,shall be guilty in the council.But whosoever shall say,Thou fool,shall be guilty to hell fire."From which words he inferreth three sorts of sins,and three sorts of punishments;and that none of those sins,but the last,shall be punished with hell fire;and consequently,that after this life there is punishment of lesser sins in purgatory.Of which inference there is no colour in any interpretation that hath yet been given of them.Shall there be a distinction after this life of courts of justice,as there was amongst the Jews in our Saviour's time,to hear and determine diverse sorts of crimes,as the judges and the council?Shall not all judicature appertain to Christ and his Apostles?To understand therefore this text,we are not to consider it solitarily,but jointly with the words precedent and subsequent.Our Saviour in this chapter interpreteth the Law of Moses,which the Jews thought was then fulfilled when they had not transgressed the grammatical sense thereof,howsoever they had transgressed against the sentence or meaning of the legislator.Therefore,whereas they thought the sixth Commandment was not broken but by killing a man;nor the seventh,but when a man lay with a woman not his wife;our Saviour tells them,the inward anger of a man against his brother,if it be without just cause,is homicide.You have heard,saith he,the Law of Moses,"Thou shalt not kill,"and that "Whosoever shall kill shall be condemned before the judges,"or before the session of the Seventy:but I say unto you,to be angry with one's brother without cause,or to say unto him Raca,or Fool,is homicide,and shall be punished at the day of judgement,and session of Christ and his Apostles,with hell fire.So that those words were not used to distinguish between diverse crimes,and diverse courts of justice,and diverse punishments;but to tax the distinction between sin and sin,which the Jews drew not from the difference of the will in obeying God,but from the difference of their temporal courts of justice;and to show them that he that had the will to hurt his brother,though the effect appear but in reviling,or not at all,shall be cast into hell fire by the judges and by the session,which shall be the same,not different,courts at the day of judgement.This considered,what can be drawn from this text to maintain purgatory,I cannot imagine.
The sixth place is Luke,16.9:"Make ye friends of the unrighteous mammon,that when ye fail,they may receive you into everlasting tabernacles."This he alleges to prove invocation of saints departed.But the sense is plain,that we should make friends,with our riches,of the poor;and thereby obtain their prayers whilst they live."He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord."The seventh is Luke,23.42:"Lord,remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom."Therefore,saith he,there is remission of sins after this life.But the consequence is not good.Our Saviour then forgave him,and,at his coming again in glory,will remember to raise him again to life eternal.
The eighth is Acts,2.24,where St.Peter saith of Christ,"that God had raised him up,and loosed the pains of death,because it was not possible he should be holden of it":which he interprets to be a descent of Christ into purgatory,to loose some souls there from their torments:whereas it is manifest that it was Christ that was loosed.
It was he that could not be holden of death or the grave,and not the souls in purgatory.But if that which Beza says in his notes on this place be well observed,there is none that will not see that instead of pains,it should be bands;and then there is no further cause to seek for purgatory in this text.