Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

A fourth place is that of Matthew, 5. 25: "Agree with thine
adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any
time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver
thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto
thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid
the uttermost farthing." In which allegory, the offender is the
sinner; both the adversary and the judge is God; the way is this life;
the prison is the grave; the officer, death; from which the sinner
shall not rise again to life eternal, but to a second death, till he
have paid the utmost farthing, or Christ pay it for him by his
Passion, which is a full ransom for all manner of sin, as well
lesser sins as greater crimes, both being made by the Passion of
Christ equally venial.
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