A57975:243
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.
Ans. Whether the King and the under Magistrate differ essentially, we shall see. The P. Prelate saith all Politicians grant it,1 but he saith untruth; he bringeth Moses, and the Judges, their power to prove the power of Kings; and so either the Judges of Israel and the Kings differ not essentially, or then the Prelate must correct the spirit of God terming one book of Scripture [Greek or Hebrew] Kings, and another [Greek or Hebrew] Judges, and make the book of Kings the book of Judges. 2. The Magistrates condition is not better then the Kings, because the Magistrate is to judge by an known Statute and ⟨p. 62⟩Law, and the King not so. God moulded the first King, Deut. 17.18. when he sitteth judging on his Throne, to look to a written Copy of the Law of God, as his rule. Now a power to follow Gods Law is better then a power to follow mans sinful will: so the Prelate putteth the King in a worse condition then the Magistrate, not we, who will have the King to judge according to just statutes and laws. 3. Whether the King be censurable and deposable by the multitude, he cannot determine out of our writings. 4. The communities law is the law of nature, not their arbitrary lust. 5. The Prelates treasonable railings, I cannot follow; he first saith, that we agree not ten of us to a positive faith, and that our faith is negative, but his faith is Privative, Popish, Socinian, Arminian, Pelagian and worse, for he was once of that same faith that we are of. 2. Our Confession of Faith is positive, as the confession of all the reformed Churches, but I judge he thinketh the Protestant Faith of all the reformed Churches but negative. 3. The incommodities of Government before our reformation were not fancied, but printed by Authority, all the body of Popery was printed, and avowed as the Doctrine of the Church of Scotland and England, as the learned Author, and my much respected brother evidenceth in his Ludensium, [Greek or Hebrew], The Canterburian self conviction. 4. The Parliament of England was never yet found guilty of Treason. 5. The good Counsellors of great States-men, that Parliaments of both Kingdoms would take from the Kings Majesty, are a faction of perjured Papists, Prelates, Jesuits, Irish cut-throats, Strafford's, and Apostate subverters of all Laws divine, humane, of God, of Church, of State.