A57975:347
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.
But I assert, that though the Word warrant us to esteem Kings fathers,1 Esa. 49.23. Jud. 5.7. Gen. 20. v. 2. yet are not they essentially and formally fathers by generation, Num. c. 11. v. 12. Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them? and yet are they but fathers metaphorically; 1. By office, because they should care for them as fathers do for children, and so come under the name of fathers in the fifth Commandment; and therefore rigorous and cruel Rulers are Leopards and Lyons, and Wolves, Ezech. 22.27. Zeph. 3.3. If then tyrannous Judges be not essentially and formally Leopards and Lyons, but only metaphorically, neither can Kings be formally fathers. 2. Not only Kings, but all Judges are fathers in defending ⟨p. 112⟩their subjects from violence and the sword, and fighting the Lords battles for them, and counselling them. If therefore Royalists argue rightly, A King is essentially a father, and, fatherly power and royal power are of the same essence and nature; As therefore he who is once a father, is ever a father, and his children cannot take up arms against him to resist him, for that is unnatural, & repugnant to the 5. Commandment: So he who is once a King, is evermore a King, and it is repugnant to the fifth Commandment to resist him with arms. It is answered, that the Argument presupposeth that Royal power, and Fatherly power is one and the same in nature, whereas they differ in nature, and are only one by analogy and proportion: for so Pastors of the Word are called fathers, 1 Cor. 4.15. it will not follow, that once a Pastor, evermore a Pastor; and that if therefore Pastors turn wolves, and by heretical doctrine corrupt the flock, they cannot be cast out of the Church. 3. A father, as a father, hath not power of life and death over his sons,2