Castigations of Mr. Hobbes his last animadversions in the case concerning liberty and universal necessity wherein all his exceptions about that controversie are fully satisfied.

The Preface.

HItherto I have made use onely of a buckler to guard my self from Mr. Hobbes his assaults. What passed between him and me in private had been buried in per∣petual silence, if his flattering Disciples (not without his own fault, whether it were connivance or neglect is not material to me) had not published it to the World to my prejudice, And now having carved out mine own satisfaction, I thought to have de∣sisted here, as not esteeming him to be a fit ad∣versary, who denieth all common principles, but rather to be like a pillar of smoake breaking out of the top of some narrow chimny, and spread∣ing it self abroad like a cloud, as if it threat∣ned to take possession of the whole Region of the air, darkening the skie, and seeming to pierce the heavens. And after all this, when it hath offended the eyes a little for the present,

the first puffe of wind, or a few minutes, do al∣together disperse it.

I never nourished within my breast the least thought of answering his Leviathan, as * 1.1 having seen a great part of it answered before ever I read it, and having moreover received it from good hands, that a Roman Catholick was about it: but being braved by the authour in print, as giving me a title for my answer, Behemoth against Leviathan. And at other times being so solicitous for me what I * 1.2 would say to such a passage in my answer to his Leviathan, imagining his silly cavils to be irrefragable demonstrations; I will take the liberty (by his good leave) to throw on two or three spadefulls of earth, towards the final in∣terrement of his pernicious principles and other mushrome errours, And, truly, when I pon∣der seriously the horrid consequences of them, I do not wonder so much at his mistaken excep∣tion to my civil form of valediction, [So God * 1.3 blesse us,] miscalling it A buffonly abusing of the Name of God to calumny. He conceived me amisse, that because in times less scrupulous and more conscientious, men used to blesse themselves after this form at the nam∣ing of the devil; therefore I did intend it as a prayer for the deliverance of all good Chri∣stians

from him, and his blasphemous opi∣nions.

I do believe there never was any Authour Sacred or Profane, Ancient or Moderne, Christian, Iew, Mahumetan, or Pagan, that hath inveighed so frequently and so bitterly a∣gainst all feined phantasmes, with their first devisers, maintainers, and receivers, as T. H. hath done, excluding out of the nature of things the souls of Men, Angels, Devils, and all in∣corporeal Substances, as fictions, phantasmes, and groundlesse contradictions. Many men fear the meaning of it is not good, that God himself must be gone for company, as being an incorporeal substance, except men will vouch∣safe by God to understand nature. So much T H. himself seemeth to intimate. This concourse of causes, whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like * 1.4 concourse of former causes, may well be called (in respect they were all set and or∣dered by the eternal cause of all things, God Almighty) the Decree of God. If Gods eternal Decree be nothing else but the con∣course of natural causes, then Almighty God is nothing else but nature. And if there be no spirits or incorporeal substances, he must be either nature or nothing. T. H. defieth the

Schooles, and therefore he knoweth no differ∣ence between immanent, and emanant or tran∣sient Actions, but confoundeth the eternal De∣crees of God before all time, with the execution of them in time, which had been a foule fault in a Schooleman.

And yet his Leviathan, or mortal God, is a meer phantasme of his own devising, neither * 1.5 flesh nor fish, but a confusion of a man and a whale, engendered in his own brain: not unlike Dagon the Idol of the Philistims, a mixture of a god and a man and a fish. The true literall Leviathan is the Whale-fish. Canst thou * 1.6 draw out Leviathan with an hook? whom God hath made to take his pastime in the great and wide sea. And for a metaphorical Leviathan, I know none so proper to personate that huge body as T. H. himself. The Levia * 1.7 than doth not take his pastime in the deep with so much freedom, nor behave himself with so much height and insolence, as T. H. doth in the Schooles, nor domineer over the lesser fishes with so much scorn and contempt, as he doth over all other authours; censuring, branding, contemning, proscribing whatsoever is contra∣ry to his humour; bustling and bearing down be∣fore him whatsoever cometh in his way, creat∣ing truth and falshood by the breath of his

mouth, by his sole authority without other rea∣son; A second Pythagoras at least. There have been self conceited persons in all Ages, but none that could ever King it like him over all the children of pride. Ruit, agit, rapit, tundit & prosternit. * 1.8

Yet is not his Leviathan such an absolute Soveraign of the Sea as he imagineth. God * 1.9 hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty. The little mouse stealeth up thorough the Elephants trunke to eat his brains, making him die desperately mad. The Indian rat creepeth into the belly of the gaping Crocodile, and knaweth his bowels a∣sunder. * 1.10 The great Leviathan hath his adver∣saries; the sword-fish which pierceth his belly beneath, and the thrasher-fish, which beateth his head above: and whensoever these two unite their forces together against him, they destroy him. But this is the least part of his Levia∣thans sufferings. Our Greenland fishers have found out a new art to draw him out of his Castle, that is, the deep, though not with a fish∣hook, yet with their harping-irons, and by gi∣ving him line and space enough to bounce and tumble up and down, and tire himself right out, and trie all his arts, as spouting up a sea of water out of his mouth to drown them, and

striking at their Shallops with his taile to over∣whelm them: at last to draw this formidable creature to the shore, or to their ship, and slice him in pieces, and boile him in a Caul∣dron, and tun him up in oil.

I have provided three good harping-irons for my self to dart at this monster, and am re∣solved to try my skill and fortune, whether I can be as successeful against this phantastick Leviathan, as they are against the true Le∣viathan.

My first dart is aimed at his heart, or Theo∣logical part of his discourse, to shew that his principles are not consistent either with Chri∣stianity, or any other Religion.

The second dart is aimed at the chine, where∣by this vast body is united and fitted for ani∣mal motion, that is, the political part of his discourse; to shew that his principles are per nicious to all formes of Government, and all Societies, and destroy all relations between man and man.

The third dart is aimed at his head or ra∣tional part of his discourse; to shew that his principles are inconsistent with themselves, and contradict one another. Let him take heed, if these three darts do pierce his Leviathan

home, it is not all the Dittany which groweth in Creet that can make them drop easily out of his body, without the utter overthrow of his cause.

—haerebit lateri lethalis arundo

Notes

• * 1.1

  D R. C. P. I. S.
• * 1.2

  Qu. p. 20. ibid. p. 340.
• * 1.3

  Qu. p. 20.
• * 1.4

  Qu. p. 80.
• * 1.5

  Leviathan a meer phan∣tasme.
• * 1.6

  Job 41. 1. Psal. 104. 25.
• * 1.7

  T. H. The true Le∣viathan.
• * 1.8

  Job 41. 34.
• * 1.9

  1 Cor. 1. 27.
• * 1.10

  Leviathan no Sove∣raign of the sea.