A57975:188
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.
P. Prelate. The people, 1Deut. 17. is said to set a King over them only, as 1 Cor. 6. The Saints are said to judge the world, that is, by consenting to Christs Judgement. So the people do not make a King by transferring on him sovereignty, but by accepting, acknowledging, reverencing him as King, whom God hath both constituted and designed King. Answ. This is said, but not a word proved: for the Queen of Sheba, and Hiram acknowledged, reverenced and obeyed Solomon as King, and yet they made him not King, 2as the Princes of Israel did. 2. Reverence and obedience of the people is relative to the Kings laws, but the peoples making of a King is not relative to the laws of a King; for then he should be a King giving laws, and commanding the people, as King, before the people make him King. 3. If the peoples approving and consenting that an elected King be their King, presupposeth that he is a King designed, and constituted by God, before the people approve him as King; Let the P. Prelate give us an act of God now designing a man King: for there are no immediate voices from heaven, saying to a people, This is your King, before the people elect one of six to be their King. And this infallibly proveth that God designeth one of six to be a King, to a people who had no King before, by no other act but by determining the hearts of the States to elect and design this man King, and pass any of the other five. 4. When God, Deut. 17. forbiddeth them to choose a stranger, he presupposeth they may choose a stranger: for Gods law now given to man in the state of sin, presupposeth he hath corruption of nature to do contrary to Gods law: Now if God did hold forth, that their setting a King over them, was but the peoples approving the man whom God shall both constitute and design to be King, then he should presuppose that God was to design a stranger to be the lawful King of Israel; and the people should be interdicted to approve and consent, that the man should be King whom God should choose: for it was unpossible that the people should make a stranger King, (God is the only immediate King-creator) the people should only approve and consent that a stranger should be King; yet upon supposal that God first constituted and designed the stranger King, it was not in the peoples power that the King should be a Brother rather then a stranger;