A57975:431
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. 1. It is false that the people doth, or can by the Law of nature resign their whole liberty in the hand of a King, 1. they cannot resign to others that which they have not in themselves, Nemo potest dare quod non habet, but the people hath not an absolute power in themselves to destroy themselves, or to exercise those tyrannous acts spoken of, 1 Sam. 8.11, 12, 13, 14, 15, &c. for neither God, nor Natures Law hath given any such power. 2. He who constituteth himself a slave is supposed to be compelled to that unnatural fact of alienation of that liberty, which he hath from his Maker, from the womb, by violence, constraint, or extreme necessity, and so is inferior to all free men, but the people doth not make themselves slaves when they constitute a King over themselves, because God giving to a people a King, the best and excellentest Governor on earth, giveth a blessing and special favour, Isaiah 1.26. Hosea 1. v. 11. Isaiah 3.6, 7. Ps. 79.70, 71, 72. but to lay upon his people the state of slavery, in which they renounce their whole liberty, is a curse of God, Gen. 9.25. Gen. 27.29. Deut. 28.32.36. But the people having their liberty to make any ⟨p. 148⟩of ten or twenty,1 their King, and to advance one from a private state to an honourable throne, whereas it was in their liberty to advance another, and to give him Royal power of ten degrees, whereas they might give him power of twelve degrees, and of eight, or six, must be in excellency and worth above the man, whom they constitute King, and invest with such honour: as Honour in the fountain, and honos participans & originans, must be more excellent and pure then the derived honour in the King, which is honos participatus & originatus. 2. If the servant give his liberty to his master, ergo, he had that liberty in him; and in that act, liberty must be in a more excellent way in the servant, as in the Fountain, then it is in the master: and so this liberty must be purer in the people then in the King: and therefore in that, both the servant is above the master, and the People worthier then the King: and when the people give themselves conditionally and Covenant-wise to the King, as to a Public servant, and Patron, and Tutor, as the Governor of Britain, out of his humour, gave himself to King Edward; there is even here a note of superiority;