PREFACE.

In the volume now published will be found the whole of Bramhall's Discourses against Hobbes, which form the third part of his collected Works. An account of the controversy that gave rise to them has been given in vol. i. pp. xxxi— xxxiii. A list of the tracts relating to it is here subjoined. 1. A Discourse of Liberty and Necessity by John Bramhall Bishop of Derry.-Written, and sent to the (then) Marquis of Newcastle to be transmitted to Hobbes, in 1645, after a verbal discussion of the subject in the Marquis's presence; but first published in 1655 with the two tracts to be next mentioned.

i. Of Liberty and Necessity; a Treatise wherein all Controversy concerning Predestination, Election, Free will, Grace, Merit, Reprobation, &c., is fully Decided and Cleared in Answer to a Treatise by the Bishop of Londonderry on the same Subject. Lond. 1654. 12mo. by Thomas Hobbes.-Written as a letter to the Marquis of Newcastle, Aug. 20. 1645, from Rouen, in answer to

:

The original edition of this letter (in 1654) the present editor has not seen; and Hobbes (Qu., Animadv. upon the Bp's. Epist. to the Reader, p. 19) speaks of it as written in 1646 instead of 1645. But as Bramhall had had the MS. in his possession a considerable time so early as April 1646

(see p. 23 of the present volume), and as the date of the letter as published in 1679 by Bp. Laney (see p. 19, note b of this vol.) is as above given (viz. Aug. 20. 1645), it seems probable that Hobbes was himself mistaken, and that 1645 is the true date.