A57975:777
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.
This Question conduceth not a little to the clearing of the doubts concerning the Kings absolute power, and the supposed sole nomothetic power in the King. And I think it not unlike to the question, whether the Pope and Romish Church have a sole and peremptory power of exponing Laws, and the Word of God? We are to consider that there is a twofold exposition of Laws, one speculative in a School way, so exquisite Jurists have a power to expone Laws.1 2. Practical, in so far as the sense of the Law falleth under our Practice, and this is twofold; either private and common to all, or judicial and proper to Judges, and of this last is the question.
THis Question conduceth not a little to the clearing of the doubts concerning the Kings absolute power, and the supposed sole nomothetick power in the King. And I thinke it not unlike to the question, whether the Pope and Romish Church havt a sole and peremptory power of exponing Lawes, and the Word of God? We are to consider that therr is a twofold exposition of Lawes, one speculative in a Schoole way, so exquisite Iurists have a power to expone Lawes.1 2. Practicall, in so farre as the sense of the Law falleth under our Practice, and this is twofold; either private and common to all, or judiciall and proper to Iudges, and of this last is the question.
- 1A twofold exposition of Laws.A twofold exposition of Lawes.
For this Public, the Law hath one fundamental rule, Salus populi, like the King of Planets the Sun, which lendeth Star-light to all Laws, and by which they are exponed; whatever interpretation swerveth either from fundamental Laws of policy, or from the Law of Nature,1 and the Law of Nations, and especially from the safety of the public, is to be rejected as a perverting of the Law: and therefore, Conscientia humani generis, the natural conscience of all men, to which the oppressed people may appeal unto, when the King expoundeth a Law unjustly, at his own pleasure, is the last rule on earth, for exponing of Laws. Nor ought Laws to be made so obscure, as an ordinary wit cannot see their connection with fundamental truths of policy, and the safety of the people, and therefore I see no inconvenience, to say that, The Law it self is Norma & regula juduicandi, the Rule and directory to square the Judge, and that the Judge is the public practical interpreter of the Law