A57975:513
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 absolute power to Tyrannize over the people,1 and to destroy them, is not a power from God: Ergo there is not any such royal power absolute. The proposition is evident, because that God who maketh Kings, and disposeth of Crowns, Prov. 8.15, 16. 2 Sam. 12.7. Daniel 4.32. must also create and give that Royal and Official power, by which a King is a King, 1. Because God created man, he must be the Author of his reasonable soul; if God be the Author of things, he must be the Author of their forms, by which they are, that which they are. 2. All power is Gods. 1 Chro. 29.11 Matth. 6.13. Ps. 62.11. P•. 68.35. Dan. 2.37. And that absolute power to Tyrannize, is not from God.2 1. Because if this Moral power to sin be from God, it being formally wickedness, God must be the Author of sin. 2. What ever Moral power is from God, the exercises of that power, and the acts thereof must be from God, and so these acts must be Morally good and just; for if the Moral power be of God, as the Author, so must the acts be. Now the acts of a Tyrannical power are acts of sinful unjustice and oppression, and cannot be from God. 3. Politicians say, There is no power in Rulers to do ill, but to help and defend the people, as the power of a Physician to destroy; of a Pilot to cast away the ship on a Rock, the power of a Tutor to wast the inheritance of the Orphan, and the power of father and mother to kill their children, and of the mighty to defraud and oppress, are not powers from God. So Ferdinand Vasquez illustr. quest. l. 1. c. 26. c. 45. Pruckman d. c. 3. §. Soluta potestas. Althus. pol. cap. 9. n. 25.