A57975:276
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.
7. Argument. Where God hath not bound the conscience, men may not bind themselves, or the consciences of the posterity. But God hath not bound any nation irrevocably, and unalterably to a Royal Line, or to one kind of Government. Ergo, No nation can bind their conscience, and the conscience of the posterity, either to one Royal Line, or irrevocably and unalterably to Monarchy. The proposition is clear.
7. Argument. Where God hath not bound the conscience, men may not binde themselves, or the consciences of the posterity. But God hath not bound any nation irrevocably, and unalterably to a Royall Line, or to one kinde of Government. Ergo, No nation can binde their conscience, and the conscience of the posterity, either to one Royall Line, or irrevocably and unalterably to Monarchy. The proposition is clear.
1. No Nation is tied, jure divin•, by the tie of a divine Law to a Monarchy, rather then to another Government. The Parisian Doctors prove, That the precept of having a Pope is affirmative, and so tieth not the Church, ad semper, for ever; and so the Church is the body of Christ without the Pope; and all oaths to things of their nature indifferent, and to things, the contrary whereof is lawful, and may be expedient and necessary, lay on a tie only conditionally, in so far, as they conduce to the end. If the Gibeonites had risen in Joshua's days, to cut off the people of God, I think no wise man can think, that Joshua and the people were tied by the oath of God, not to cut off the Gibeonites in that case: For to preserve them alive as enemies, was against the intent of the oath, which was to preserve them alive, as friends demanding, and supplicating peace, and submitting. The assumption is clear If a Nation seeth that Aristocratical Government is better then Monarchy, hic & nunc: That the sequels of such a Monarchy is bloody, destructive, tyrannous, that the Monarchy compelleth the free subjects to Turkism, to gross Idolatry, they cannot by the divine bond of any oath captive their natural freedom, which is to choose a Government, and Governors, for their safety, for a peaceable and godly life; or fetter and chain the wisdom of the posterity unalterably to a Government, or a Royal Line, which hic & nunc, contrary to the intention of their oath, proveth destructive, and bloody. And in this case, even the King, though tied by an oath to govern, is obliged to the practices of the Emperor Otho. And as Speed saith,