A57975:713
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.
Lex, Rex. › Question 26: QUEST. XXVI. Whether the King be above the Law or no?
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.
Assert. 5. The King cannot but he subject to the coactive power of Fundamental Laws: 1Because this is a Fundamental Law, that the free Estates lay upon the King, that all the power that they give to the King as King, is for the good and safety of the people; and so what he doth to the hurt of his subjects, he doth it not as King.
Assert. 5. The King cannot but he subject to the coactive power of Fundamentall Laws: 1Because this is a Fundamentall Law, that the free Estates lay upon the King, that all the power that they give to the King as King, is for the good and safety of the people; and so what he doth to the hurt of his subjects, he doth it not as King.
- 1The King under the fundamental Laws.The King under the fundamentall Laws.
2. The Law saith, Qui habet potestatem constituendi etiam & jus adimendi. l. nemo. 37. l. 21. de reg. jure. Those who have power to make, have power to unmake Kings.
3. What ever the King doth as King, that he doth by a power ⟨p. 233⟩borrowed from, (or by a fiduciary power which is his by trust) the Estates, who made him King. He must then be nothing but an eminent servant of the State, in the punishing of others. If therefore he be unpunishable, it is not so much because his Royal power is above all Law-coaction, as because one & the same man cannot be both the punisher and the punished, and this is a Physical incongruity rather then a Moral absurdity. So the Law of God layeth a duty on the inferior Magistrate, to use the sword against the murderer, and that by virtue of his Office, but I much doubt it for that, he is to use the sword against himself in the case of Murder for this is a truth I purpose to make good;