A57975:487
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.
Because as they are to answer to God for unjust sentences, so also for no just sentences, and for not convening to judge, when Religion and Justice, which are fallen in the streets, calleth for them. 3. As God in a law of nature, hath given to every man the keeping and self-preservation of himself, and of his brother; Cain ought in his place to be the keeper of Abel his brother. So hath God committed the keeping of the Commonwealth, by a positive law, not to the King only, because that is impossible,1 Num. 11.14, 17. 2 Chron. 19.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1 Chron. 27. 4. If the King had such a power as King, and so from God, he should have power to break up the meeting of all Courts of Parliament, Secret Counsel, and all inferior Judicatures: And when the Congregation of gods, as Ps. 82. in the midst of which the Lord standeth, were about to pronounce just judgement for the oppressed and poor, they might be hindered by the King; and so they should be as just as the King maketh them, and might pervert judgement, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him, Esa. 5.23. because the King commandeth: And the cause of the poor should not come before the Judge, when the King so commandeth. And shall it excuse the Estates, to say, We could not judge the cause of the poor, nor crush the Priests of Baal, and the idolatrous Mass-Prelates, because the King forbade us. So might the King break up the meeting of the Lords of Session, when they were to discern that Naboths vineyard should be restored to him; and hinder the States to repress Tyranny: And this were as ⟨p. 176⟩much as if the States should say, We made this man our King, and with our good will we agree, he shall be a Tyrant. For if God gave it to him as a King, we are to consent that he enjoy it. 5. If Barclay and other flatterers have leave to make the Parliament but Counsellors and Advisers of the King;2