A57975:620
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 grant all, when God will bring a vengeance on Jerusalem, Prince and people both are hardened to their own destruction. Now God hath made all the three, in every Government where there is Democracy, there is some chosen ones resembling an Aristocracy, and some one for order presiding in Democratical courts, resembling a King. In Aristocracy as in Holland, there is somewhat of Democracy, the people have their Commissioners, and one Duke or General, as the Prince of Orange is some umbrage of ⟨p. 112⟩Royalty, and in Monarchy there are the three Estates of Parliament, and these contain the three Estates, and so somewhat of the three forms of Government, and there is no one Government just that hath not some of all three; powre and absolute Monarchy is Tyranny, unmixed Democracy, is confusion, untempered Aristocracy is factious Dominion, and a limited Monarchy hath from Democracy respect to public good without confusion. From Aristocracy safety in multitude of Counsels without factious emulation,1 and so a bar laid on Tyranny, by the joint powers of many; and from Sovereignty union of many children in one father: and all the three thus contempered have their own sweet fruits through Gods blessing, and their own diseases by accident, and through mens corruption; and neither reason nor Scripture shall warrant any one in its rigid purity without mixture: And God having chosen the best government to bring men fallen in sin to happiness, must warrant in any one a mixture of all three, as in mixed bodies the four Elements are reduced to a fit temper resulting of all the four, where the acrimony of all the four first qualities is broken, and the good of all combined in one.
Ans. I grant all, when God will bring a vengeance on Jerusalem, Prince and people both are hardened to their owne destruction. Now God hath made all the three, in every Government where there is Democracy, there is some chosen ones resembling an Aristocracy, and some one for order presiding in Democraticall courts, resembling a King. In Aristocracy as in Holland, there is somewhat of Democracy, the people have their Commissioners, and one Duke or Generall, as the Prince of Orange is some umbrage of ⟨p. 112⟩Royalty, and in Monarchy there are the three Estates of Parliament, and these containe the three Estates, and so somewhat of the three formes of Government, and there is no one Government just that hath not some of all three; powre and absolute Monarchy is Tyranny, unmixed Democracy, is confusion, untempered Aristocracy is factious Dominion, and a limited Monarchy hath from Democracy respect to publick good without confusion. From Aristocracy safety in multitude of Counsells without factious emulation,