A57975:295
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.
it were then reason that Herod behead John Baptist, and the Roman Emperors kill the witnesses of Christ Jesus. If Conquest, as just, be the title and lawful claim before Gods court, to a Crown; then certainly a stronger King for pregnant national injuries, may lawfully subdue and reign over an innocent posterity not yet borne. But what word of God can, 1. warrant a posterity not borne, and so accessory to no offence against the Conqueror (but only sin original) to be under a Conqueror against their will, and who hath no right to reign over them, but the bloody sword? for so Conquest, as Conquest, not as just, maketh him King over the posterity.1 But 2. the fathers may engage the posterity by an oath to surrender themselves as loyal subjects to the man who justly and deservedly made the fathers vassals by the title of the sword of justice. I answer, the fathers may indeed dispose of the inheritance of their children, because that inheritance belongeth to the father as well ar to the son; but because the liberty of the son being borne with the son, (all men being borne free from all Civill subjection) the father hath no more power to resign the liberty of his children, then their lives; and the father, as a father ⟨p. 87⟩hath not power of the life of his child,2 as a Magistrate he may have power, and as something more then a father, he may have power of life and death. I hear not what Grotius saith, Those who are not borne have no accidents, and so no rights, Non entis nulla sunt accidentia; then Children not borne have neither right, nor liberty, and so no injury (may some say) can be done to Children not borne, though the fathers should give away their liberty to the conqueror, those who are not capable of Law, are not capable of injury contrary to Law. Ans. There is a virtual alienation of rights and lives of children not borne unlawful, because the children are not borne; to say that children not borne, are not capable of law and injuries virtual, which become real in time might say, Adam did not an injury to his posterity by his first sin, which is contrary to Gods Word: so those who vowed yearly to give seven innocent children to the Minotaur to be devoured, and to kill their children not borne to bloody Molech, did no acts of bloody injury to their children;