A57975:435
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. I take the answer thus: Those who are mere means, and only means referred to the end, they are inferior to the end: but the King as King, 1hath all his official and relative goodness in the world, as relative to the end. All that you can imagine to be in a King, as a King, is all relative to the safety and good of the people, Rom. 13.4. He is a minister for thy good. He should not, as King, make himself, or his own gain and honour, his end. I grant, the King, as a man, shall dye as another man, and so he may secondarily intend his own good; and what excellency he hath as a man, is the excellency of one mortal man, and cannot make him amount in dignity, and in the absolute consideration of the excellency of a man, to be above many men and a whole Kingdom: for the moe good things there be, the better they are, so the good things be multiplicable, as a hundred men are better then one: Otherwise, if the good be such as cannot be multiplied,2 as one God, the multiplication maketh them worse, as many Gods are inferior to one God. Now if Royalists can show us any more in the King then these two, we shall be obliged to them; and in both, he is inferior to the whole.
Ans. I take the answer thus: Those who are meere meanes, and only meanes referred to the end, they are inferior to the end: but the King as King, 1hath all his officiall and relative goodnesse in the world, as relative to the end. All that you can imagine to be in a King, as a King, is all relative to the safety and good of the people, Rom. 13.4. He is a minister for thy good. He should not, as King, make himselfe, or his own gaine and honour, his end. I grant, the King, as a man, shall dye as another man, and so he may secondarily intend his own good; and what excellencie he hath as a man, is the excellencie of one mortall man, and cannot make him amount in dignitie, and in the absolute consideration of the excellencie of a man, to be above many men and a whole Kingdome: for the moe good things there be, the better they are, so the good things be multiplicable, as a hundred men are better then one: Otherwise, if the good be such as cannot be multiplied,