A57975:337
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.
4. Arg. If the people be so given to the King, that they are committed to him as a pledge,1 oppignorated in his hand, as a pupil to a Tutor, as a distressed man to a Patron, as a flock to a Shepherd; and so as they remain the Lords Church, his people, his flock, his portion, his inheritance, his vineyard, his redeemed ones, then they cannot be given to the King as Oxen and Sheep, that are freely gifted to a man; or as a gift or sum of gold or silver, that the man to whom they are given may use, so that he cannot commit a fault against the oxen, sheep, gold or money, that is given to him, how ever he shall dispose of them.
4. Arg. If the people be so given to the King, that they are committed to him as a pledge,1 oppignorated in his hand, as a pupill to a Tutor, as a distressed man to a Patron, as a flocke to a Shepheard; and so as they remaine the Lords Church, his people, his flocke, his portion, his inheritance, his vineyard, his redeemed ones, then they cannot be given to the King as Oxen and Sheepe, that are freely gifted to a man; or as a gift or summe of gold or silver, that the man to whom they are given may use, so that he cannot commit a fault against the oxen, sheepe, gold or mony, that is given to him, how ever he shall dispose of them.
- 1The people are not given to the Kings keeping so as they be his own, as sheep or money are given.The people are not given to the Kings keeping so as they be his owne, as sheep or mony are given.
But the people are given to the King to be tutored and protected of him, so as they remain the people of God, and in covenant with him, and if the people were the goods of fortune (as Heathens say) he could no more sin against the people then a man can sin against his gold; now though a man by adoring gold, or by lavish profusion and wasting of gold may sin against God, yet not against gold; nor can he be in any covenant with gold, or under any obligation of either duty or sin to gold, or to lifeless and reasonless creatures properly, therefore he may sin in the use of them, and yet not sin against them, but against God. Hence of necessity the King must be under obligation to the Lords people in another manner, then that he should only answer to God, for the loss of men, as if men were worldly goods under his hand, and as if being a King he were now by this Royal Authority privileged from the best half of the law of nature, to wit, from acts of mercy, and truth, and covenant keeping with his brethren.