A57975:206
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.
2. We may borrow the Prelates argument: inferior Judges execute the judgement of the Lord, and not the judgement of the King; ergo, by the Prelates argument, God doth only by immediate power execute judgement in them, and the inferior Judges are not Gods ministers executing the judgement of the Lord. But the Conclusion is against all truth, and so must the Prelates argument be. And that inferior Judges are the immediate substitutes and deputies of God, is hence proved, and shall be hereafter made good, if God will. 3. God is properly King of Kings, so is God properly causa causarum, the cause of causes, the life of lives, the joy of joys. What, shall it then follow, that he worketh nothing in the creatures by their mediation, as causes? Because God is light of lights, doth he not enlighten the earth and air by the mediation of the Sun? then God communicateth not life mediately by generation, he causeth not his Saints to rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious, by the intervening mediation of the Word. These are vain consequences. Sovereignty, and all power and virtue is in God infinitely: And what virtue and power of action is in the creatures, as they are compared with God, are in the creatures equivocally and in resemblance, and [Greek or Hebrew] in opinion, rather then really. Hence it must follow, 1. that second causes work none at all, no more then the people hath a hand or action in making the King, and that is no hand at all, as the Prelate saith, And God only and immediately worketh all works in the creatures, because both the power of working and actual working cometh from God, and the creatures in all their working, are Gods instruments: and if the Prelate argue so frequently from power given of God, to prove that actual reigning is from God immediately, Deut. 8.18. The Lord giveth the power, to get wealth: will it follow that Israel getteth no riches at all, or that God doth not mediately by them and their industry get them? I think not.
2. We may borrow the Prelates argument: inferiour Iudges execute the judgement of the Lord, and not the judgement of the King; ergo, by the Prelates argument, God doth only by immediate power execute judgement in them, and the inferiour Iudges are not Gods ministers executing the judgement of the Lord. But the Conclusion is against all truth, and so must the Prelates argument be. And that inferiour Iudges are the immediate substitutes and deputies of God, is hence proved, and shall be hereafter made good, if God will. 3. God is properly King of Kings, so is God properly causa causarum, the cause of causes, the life of lifes, the joy of joyes. What, shall it then follow, that he worketh nothing in the creatures by their mediation, as causes? Because God is light of lights, doth he not enlighten the earth and aire by the mediation of the Sun? then God communicateth not life mediately by generation, he causeth not his Saints to rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious, by the intervening mediation of the Word. These are vaine consequences. Soueraignty, and all power and virtue is in God infinitely: And what vertue and power of action is in the creatures, as they are compared with God, are in the creatures equivocally and in resemblance, and in opinion, rather then really. Hence it must follow, 1. that second causes worke none at all, no more then the people hath a hand or action in making the King, and that is no hand at all, as the Prelate saith, And God only and immediately worketh all workes in the creatures, because both the power of working and actuall working commeth from God, and the creatures in all their working, are Gods instruments: and if the Prelate argue so frequently from power given of God, to prove that actuall reigning is from God immediately,