A57975:556
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.
1Obj. 5. In an absolute Monarchy there is not a resignation of men to any will as will, but to the reasonable will of the Monarch, which having the law of reason to direct it, is kept from injurious acts.
- 1Monarch. Governa. part 2. c. 1. pag. 31.
Ans. If reason be a sufficient restraint, and if God hath laid no other restraint upon some lawful King, ye reason, Then is Magistracy a lame, a needless ordinance of God, for all Mankind hath reason to keep themselves from injuries, and so there is no need of Judges or Kings to defend them from either doing or suffering injuries. But certainly this must be admirable. If God as Author of nature should make the Lyon King of all beasts, the Lyon remaining a devouring beast, and should ordain by nature all the sheep and Lambs to come and submit their corps to him, by instinct of nature, and to be eaten at his will, and then say, The nature of a beast in a Lyon is a sufficient restraint to keep the Lyon from devouring Lambs. Certainly a King being a sinful man, and having no restraint on his power, but reason, he may think it reason to allow rebels to kill, drown, hang, torture to death an hundred thousand Protestants, men, women, infants in the womb, and sucking babes, as is clear in Pharaoh, Manasseh and other Princes.
Ans. If reason be a sufficient restraint, and if God hath laid no other restraint upon some lawfull King, yee reason, Then is Magistracy a lame, a needlesse ordinance of God, for all Mankind hath reason to keepe themselves from injuries, and so there is no need of Iudges or Kings to defend them from either doing or suffering injuries. But certainly this must be admirable. If God as Author of nature should make the Lyon King of all beasts, the Lyon remaining a devouring beast, and should ordaine by nature all the sheepe and Lambs to come and submit their corps to him, by instinct of nature, and to be eaten at his will, and then say, The nature of a beast in a Lyon is a sufficient restraint to keepe the Lyon from devouring Lambs. Certainly a King being a sinfull man, and having no restraint on his power, but reason, he may thinke it reason to allow rebells to kill, drowne, hang, torture to death an hundred thousand Protestants, men, women, infants in the wombe, and sucking babes, as is clere in Pharaoh, Manasseh and other Princes.