A57975:144
Lex, Rex
Lex, rex The law and the prince : a dispute for the just prerogative of king and people : containing the reasons and causes of the most necessary defensive wars of the kingdom of Scotland and of their expedition for the aid and help of their dear brethren of England : in which their innocency is asserted and a full answer is given to a seditious pamphlet entitled Sacro-sancta regum majestas, or, The sacred and royal prerogative of Christian kings, under the name of J. A. but penned by Jo. Maxwell the excommunicate P. Prelate. : with a scriptural confutation of the ruinous grounds of W. Barclay, H. Grotius, H. Arnisœus, Ant. de Domi P. Bishop of Spalata, and of other late anti-magistratical royalists, as the author of Ossorianum, D. Fern, E. Symmons, the doctors of Aberdeen, &c. : in XLIV questions.Lex, rex The law and the prince : a dispute for the just prerogative of king and people : containing the reasons and causes of the most necessary defensive wars of the kingdom of Scotland and of their expedition for the ayd and help of their dear brethren of England : in which their innocency is asserted and a full answer is given to a seditious pamphlet intituled Sacro-sancta regum majestas, or, The sacred and royall prerogative of Christian kings, under the name of J. A. but penned by Jo. Maxwell the excommunicate P. Prelat. : with a scripturall confutation of the ruinous grounds of W. Barclay, H. Grotius, H. Arnisœus, Ant. de Domi P. Bishop of Spalata, and of other late anti-magistratical royalists, as the author of Ossorianum, D. Fern, E. Symmons, the doctors of Aberdeen, &c. : in XLIV questions.
London: printed for John Field, 1644London: printed for Iohn Field, 1644
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
(a)Hierom saith, to punish murderers and sacrilegious persons is not blood-shed, but the ministry and service of good Laws. So if the King be a living law by Office, and the law put in execution which God hath commanded, then as the Moral Law is by divine institution, so must the Officer of God be, who is Custos & vindex legis divinae, the keeper, preserver, and avenger of Gods Law, and (b)Basilius, this is the Princes Office, Ut opem serat virtuti, malitiam vero impugnet, when Paulinus Treverensis, Lucifer Metropolitan of Sardinia, Dionysius Mediolanensis, and other Bishops, were commanded by Constantine to write against Athanasius, they answered, Regnum non ipsius esse, sed d•i, aquo acceperit, the Kingdom was Gods, not his; as (c)Athanasius saith: (d)Optatus Milevitanus helpeth us in the cause where he saith with Paul, We are to pray for heathen Kings. The genuine end of the Magistrate saith (e)Epiphanius, is ut ad bonum ordinem universitatis mundi omnia ex deo bene disponantur atque administrentur. But some object, if the Kingly Power be of divine institution, then shall any other government be unlawful and contrary to a divine institution, and so we condemn Aristocracy, and Democracy as unlawful. Ans. This consequence were good, if Aristocracy and Democracy were not also of divine institution, as all my arguments prove; for I judge they are not Governments different in nature, if we speak Morally and Theologically, only they differ politically and positively; nor is Aristocracy any thing but diffused and enlarged Monarchy, and Monarchy is nothing but contracted Aristocracy, even as it is the same hand, when the thumb and the four fingers are folded together, and when all the five fingers are dilated, and stretched out, and where ever God appointed a King, he never appointed him absolute, and a sole independent Angel, but joined always with him Judges, who were no less to judge according to ⟨p. 8⟩