648

TO THE READER.

CHRISTIAN READER, this ensuing treatise was neither penned nor intended for the press, but privately undertaken, that by the ventilation of the question truth might be cleared from mistakes. The same was Mr. Hobbes his desire at that time; as appeareth by four passages in his book, wherein he requesteth and beseecheth that it may be kept private. But either through forgetfulness or change of judgment, he hath now caused or permitted it to be printed in England, without either adjoining my first discourse, to which he wrote that answer, or so much as mentioning this reply, which he hath had in his hands now these eight years. So wide is the date of his letter," in the year 1652,"-from the truth, and his manner of dealing with me in this particular from ingenuity (if the edition were with his own consent). Howsoever, here is all that passed between us upon this subject, without any addition, or the least variation from the original.

[For an account of the dispute which led to the publication of this and the following tracts, see vol. i. pp. xxxi.-xxxiii. of the present edition of Bramhall's works, and the Preface to this volume.]

b pp. 18, 26, 35, and 80. [viz. of Hobbes' Letter to the Marquis of Newcastle as first published, Lond. 12mo. 1654: see below Numbers xi, xiv, xv, xxxvii. The latter part of Hobbes' Letter, viz. from Numb. xxv. inclusive to the end, was republished in 1676 (12mo. Lond.), with "Observations by a Learned Prelate of the Church of England lately deceased," viz. Dr. Benjamin Laney, who was Bishop of Peterborough, Lincoln, and Ely, successively from 1660 until his death in 1674; and the whole letter was published again, according to Wood (Ath. Oxon., iii. 1212), in 1684 (8vo., as the third edition).]

C

[The present editor has been unable

to meet with the original edition of
Hobbes' Letter; but it appears from
Hobbes' reply to Bramhall's Defence
(Animadv. on the Bishop's Epistle to
the Reader, p. 19), that it was printed
in London without the author's know-
ledge or consent, by "an English young
man,"
"who had been allowed to trans-
late it for the benefit of a French ac-
quaintance of Hobbes', and who,
"being a nimble writer, took a copy of
it also for himself." See also Bramhall's
Castigations of the Animadversions
(below p. 751, fol. edit.), Disc. ii.
Pt. iii.]

d [Scil. 1646-1654.
notes a, b. pp. 23, 24.]

с

See below

[It appears by the passage of Hobbes' reply to Bramhall's Defence above quoted in note c, that the person who edited Hobbes' Letter in the first instance, mistook the date, and printed it as "in 1652," instead of Aug. 20, 1645, which was the true date.]

Concerning the nameless author of the prefacef, who takes upon him to hang out an ivy-bush before this rare piece of sublimated stoicism, to invite passengers to purchase it, as I know not who he is, so I do not much heed it, nor regard either his ignorant censures or hyperbolical expressions. The Church of England is as much above his detraction, as he is beneath this question. Let him lick up the spittle of Dionysius by himself, as his servile flatterers did, and protest that it is more sweet than nectars: we envy him not; much good may it do him. His very frontispiece is a sufficient confutation of his whole preface; wherein he tells the world, as falsely and ignorantly as confidently, that "all controversy concerning Predestination, Election, Free-will, Grace, Merits, Reprobation, &c., is fully decided and cleared." Thus he accustometh his pen to run over beyond all limits of truth and discretion, to let us see that his knowledge in theological controversies is none at all, and into what miserable times we are fallen, when blind men will be the only judges of colours.

"Quid tanto dignum feret hic promissor hiatui?"

There is yet one thing more, whereof I desire to advertise the reader. Whereas Mr. Hobbes mentions my objections to [A.D. 1645] his Book De Civek, it is true, that ten years since I gave him about sixty exceptions, the one half of them political, the other half theological, to that book, and every exception justified by a number of reasons; to which he never yet vouchsafed any answer. Nor do I now desire it; for since that, he hath published his Leviathan

"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum1,"—

And I am

which affords much more matter of exception.
informed, that there are already two, the one of our own
Church, the other a strangerm, who have shaken in pieces

f [Scil. to the surreptitious edition of Hobbes' Letter. Who this was does not appear; further than what has been said above. For the style of his Preface, see below in the Castigations of Mr. Hobbes' Animadversions, Answ. to Animadvers. on the Bishop's Epistle to the Reader, p. 751 (fol. edit.), Disc. ii. Pt. iii.]

[Athen. Deipnosoph. vi. 13.]

h [From the title-page, apparently, of the first edition of Hobbes' Letter.] i [Hor., A. P., 138.]

k

p. 1. [of T. H.'s Letter, ed. 1654. See below Numb. i. p. 23.]

[Virg., Æn., iii. 658.]

[See below, in the Preface to the Catching of Leviathan, p. 869 (fol. edit.), Disc. iii. Pt. iii.]

the whole fabric of his city, that was but builded in the air, and resolved that huge mass of his seeming Leviathan into a new nothing, and that their labours will speedily be published. But if this information should not prove true, I will not grudge upon his desire, God willing, to demonstrate, that his principles are pernicious, both to piety and policy, and destructive to all relations of mankind, between prince and subject, father and child, master and servant, husband and wife; and that they, who maintain them obstinately, are fitter to live in hollow trees among wild beasts, than in any Christian or political society". So God bless us.

[Vide The Catching of the Leviathan, &c., below, Disc. iii. Pt. iii., at the end of this volume.]