A57975:800
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.
3. The question is not so much concerning the authoritative Act ⟨p. 258⟩of War, as concerning the power of natural Defence, upon supposition, That the King be not now turned an habitual Tyrant, but that upon some acts of mis-information, he come in arms against his Subjects.
3. The question is not so much concerning the authoritative Act ⟨p. 258⟩of War, as concerning the power of naturall Defence, upon supposition, That the King be not now turned an habituall Tyrant, but that upon some acts of mis-information, he come in arms against his Subjects.
12. Arnisaeus maketh two sort of Kings, Some Kings integra Majestatis, of entire power and Sovereignty; some Kings by pactions or voluntary agreement, between King and people. But I judge this a vain distinction: For the limited Prince, so he be limited to a power only of doing just and right; by this is not a Prince integrae Majestatis of entire Royal Majesty, whereby he may do both good, and also play the Tyrant; but a power to do ill, being no ways essential, yea, repugnant to the absolute Majesty of the King of Kings, cannot be an essential part of the Majesty of a lawful King; and therefore the Prince limited by voluntary and positive paction only, to rule according to law and equity, is the good, lawful, and entire Prince, if he have not power to do every thing just and good in that regard, only he is not an entire and complete Prince. So the man will have it lawful to resist the limited Prince, not the absolute Prince; by the contrary, it is more lawful to me to resist the absolute Prince, then the limited, in as much, as we may with safer consciences resist the Tyrant, and the Lyon, then the just Prince and the Lamb. Nor can I assent to Cunnerus de officio princip. Christia. c. 5. & 17. Who holdeth, that these voluntary pactions betwixt King and people, in which the power of the Prince is diminished, cannot stand, because their power is given to them by Gods Word, which cannot be taken from them, by any voluntary paction, lawfully; and from the same ground, Winzetus in vlit. contr. Buchan. p. 32. will have it unlawful to resist Kings, because God hath made them unresistable.