Lex, rex: the law and the prince, a dispute for the just prerogative of king ... - Samuel Rutherford

Kings made by the people, though the office, in abstracto, were immediately from God.—The people
^ have a real action, more than approbation, in making a king.—Kinging of a person ascribed to the
people.—Kings in a special manner are from God, but it tblloweth not; therefore, not from the
people.—The place, Prov. viii. 15, proveth not but kings are made by the people.—Nebuchad-
nezzar, and other heathen kings, had no just title before God to the kingdom of Judah, and divers
other subdued kingdoms.

QUESTION VI.

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Whether or no the king be so allenarly from both, in regard of sovereignty and desig-

nation of his person, as he is noway from the people, but only by mere approba-

tion, ......... 16

The forms of government not from God by an act of naked providence, but by bis approving will.

—Sovereignty not from the people by sole approbation.—Though God have peculiar acts of pro-

vidence in creating kings, it followeth not hence that the people maketh not kings.—The P. Pre-

late exponeth prophecies true only of David, Solomon, and Jesus Christ, as true of profane hea-

then kings.—The P. Prelate maketh all the heathen kings to be princes, anointed with the holy

oil of saving grace.

QUESTION VII.

Whether the P. Prelate conclude that neither constitution nor designation of kings is

from the people, ........ 22

The excellency of kings maketh them not of God's only constitution and designation.—How sove-
reignty is in the people, how not.—A community doth not surrender their right and liberty to
their rulers, so much as their power active to do, and passive to suffer, violence.—God's loosing of
the bonds of kings, by the mediation of the people's despising him, proveth against the P. Prelate
that the Lord taketh away, and giveth royal majesty mediately, not immediately.—The subordina-
tion of people to kings and rulers, both natural and voluntary; the subordination of beasts and
creatures to man merely natural.—The place, Gen. ix. 6, "He that sheddeth man's blood," &c.
discussed.

QUESTION VIII.

Whether or no the P. Prelate proveth, by force of reason, that the people cannot be

capable of any power of government, ..... 28

In any community there is an active and passive power to government.—Popular government is not

that wherein the whole people are governors.—People by nature are equally indifferent to all

the three governments, and are not under any one by nature.—The P. Prelate denieth the Pope

his father to be the antichrist.—The bad success of kings chosen by people proveth nothing

against us, because kings chosen by God had bad success through their own wickedness.—The

P. Prelate condemneth king Charles' ratifying (Pari. 2, an. 1641) the whole proceedings of Scot-

land in this present reformation.—That there be any supreme judges is an eminent act of divine

providence, which hindereth not but that the king is made by the people.—The people not pa-

tients in making a king, as is water in the sacrament of baptism, in the act of production of

grace.

QUESTION IX.

Whether or no sovereignty is so in and from the people, that they may resume their

power in time of extreme necessity, 33

How the people is the subject of sovereignty.—No tyrannical power is from God.—People cannot

alienate the natural power of self-defence.—The power of parliaments.—The Parliament hath

more power than the king.—Judges and kings differ.—People may resume their power, not be-

cause they are infallible, but because they cannot so readily destroy themselves as one man may

do.—That the sanhedrim punished not David, Bathsheba, Joab, is but a fact, not a law.—There is

a subordination of creatures natural, government must be natural; and yet this or that form is

voluntary.

QUESTION X.

Whether or not royal birth be equivalent to divine unction, ... 39

Impunged by eight arguments.—Royalty not transmitted from father to son.—A family may be

chosen to a crown as a single person is chosen, but the tie is conditional in both.—The throne, by

special promise, made to David and his seed, by God, (Psal. lxxxix.,) no ground to make birth, in

foro Dei, a just title to the crown.—A title by conquest to a throne must be unlawful, if birth be
God's lawful title.—Royalists who hold conquest to be a just title to the crown, teach manifest
treason against king Charles and his royal heirs.—Only, bona forttmas, not honour or royalty, pro-

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perly transmitable from father to son.—Violent conquest cannot regulate the consciences of people

to snbmit to a conqueror as their lawful king.—Naked birth is inferior to that very divine unction,

that made no man a king without the people's election.—If a kingdom were by birth the king might

sell it.—The crown is the patrimony of the kingdom, not of him who is king, or of his father.—

Birth a typical designment to the crown in Israel.—The choice of a family to the crown, resolveth

upon the free election of the people as on the fountain cause.—Election of a family to the crown

lawful.

QUESTION XI.

Whether or no he be more principally a king who is a king by birth, or he who is a

king by the free election of the people, ..... 45

The elective king cometh nearer to the first king. (Deut. xvii.)—If the people may limit the king,
they give him the power.—A community have not power formally to punish themselves.—The
hereditary and the elective prince in divers considerations, better or worse, each one than another.

QUESTION XII.

Whether or no a kingdom may lawfully be purchased by the sole title of conquest, 48

A Twofold right of conquest.—Conquest turned in an after-consent of the people, becometh a just

title.—Conquest not a signification to us of God's approving will.—Mere violent domineering con-

trary to the acts of governing.—Violence hath nothing in it of a king.—A bloody conqueror not

a blessing, per se, as a king is.—Strength as prevailing is not law or reason.—Fathers cannot dis-

pose of the liberty of posterity not born.—A father, as a father, hath not power of life and death.

Israel and David's conquests of the Canaanites, Edomites, Ammonites not lawful, because con-

quest, but upon a divine title of God's promise.

QUESTION XIII.

Whether or no royal dignity have its spring from nature, and how it is true " Every

man is born tree," and how servitude is contrary to nature, . . 50

Seven sorts of superiority and inferiority.—Power of life and death from a positive law.—A dominion
antecedent and consequent.—Kings and subjects no natural order.—A man is born, consequenter,
in politic relation.—Slavery not natural from four reasons.—Every man born free in regard of
civil subjection (not in regard of natural, snch as of children and wife, to parents and husband)
proved by seven arguments.—Politic government how necessary, how natural.—That parents
should enslave their children not natural.

QUESTION XIV.

Whether or no the people make a person their king conditionally or absolutely; and

whether the king be tyed by any such covenant, .... 54

The king under a natural, but no civil obligation to the people, as royalists teach.—The covenant
civilly tyeth the king proved by Scriptures and reasons, by eight arguments.—If the condition,
without which one of the parties would never have entered into covenant, be not performed, that
party is loosed from the covenant.—The people and princes are obliged in their places for justice
and religion, no less than the king.—In so far as the king presseth a false religion on the people,
eatenus, in so far they are understood not to have a king.—The covenant giveth a mutual co-ac-
tive power to king and people to compel each other, thongh there be not one on earth higher than
both to compel each of them.—The covenant bindeth the king as king, not as he is a man only.—
One or two tyrannous acts deprive not the king of his royal right.—Though there were no posi-
tive written covenant (which yet we grant not) yet there is a natural, tacit, implicit covenant tying
the king, by the nature of his office.—If the king be made king absolutely, it is contrary to Scrip-
ture and the nature of his office.—The people given to the king as a pledge, not as if they became
his own to dispose of at his absolute will.—The king could not buy, sell, borrow, if no covenant
should tie him to men.-—The covenant sworn by Judah (2 Chron. xv.) tyed the king.

QUESTION XV.

Whether the king be univocally, or only analogically and by proportion, a father, 62

Adam not king of the whole earth because a father.—The king a father metaphorically and impro-

perly, proved by eight arguments.

QUESTION XVI.

Page Whether or no a despotical or masterly dominion agree to the king, because he is king, 64

The king hath no masterly dominion over the subjects as if they were his servants, proved by four arguments.—The king not over men as reasonable creatures to domineer.—The king cannot give away his kingdom or his people as if they were his proper goods.—A violent surrender of liberty tyeth not.—A surrender of ignorance is in so far involuntarily as it oblige not.—The goods of the subjects not the king's, proved by eight arguments.—All the goods of the subjects are the king's in a fourfold sense.

QUESTION XVII.

Whether or no the prince have properly the fiduciary or ministerial power of a tutor,

husband, patron, minister, head, master of a family, not of a lord or dominator, 69

The king a tutor rather than a father as these are distinguished.—A free community not properly and in all respects a minor and pupil.—The king's power not properly marital and husbandly.— The king a patron and servant.—The royal power only from God, immediatione simplicis constitutionis, et solum solitudine causes primm, but not immediatione applicationis dignitatis ad personam.—The king the servant of the people both objectively and subjectively.—The Lord and the people by one and the same act according to the physical relation maketh the king.—The king head of the people metaphorically only, not essentially, not univocally, by six arguments.—His power fiduciary only.

QUESTION XVIII.

What is the law or manner of the king (1 Sam. viii. 9, 11) discussed fully, . 72

The power and the office badly differenced by Barclay.—What is ?[V)Qp1 nDJi^D the manner of the king, by the harmony of interpreters, ancient and modern, 'protestants and papists.—Crying out (1 Sam. viii.) not necessarily a remedy of tyranny, nor a praying with faith and patience.—Resisting of kings that are tyrannous, and patience, not inconsistent.—The law of the king not a permissive law, as was the law of divorcement.—The law of the king (1 Sam. xii. 23, 24) not a law of tyranny.

QUESTION XIX.

Whether or no the king be in dignity and power above the people, . . 77

In what consideration the king is above the people, and the people above the king.—A mean, as a mean, inferior to the end, how it is true—The king inferior to the people.—The church, because the church, is of more excellency than the king, because king.—The people being those to whom the king is given, worthier than the gift.—And the people immortal, the king mortal.—The king a mean only,not both the efficient, or author of the kingdom, and a mean; two necessary distinctions of a mean.—If sin had never been, there should have been no king.—The king is to give his life for his people.—The consistent cause more excellent than the effect—The people than the king.—Impossible people can limit royal power, but they must give royal power also.—The people have an action in making a king, proved by four arguments.—Though it were granted that God immediately made kings, yet it is no consequent, God only, and not the people, can unmake him.—The people appointing a king over themselves, retain the fountain-power of making a king. —The mean inferior to the end, and the king, as a king, is a mean.—The king- as a mean, and also as a man, inferior to the people.—To swear non-self-preservation, and to swear self-murder, all one.—The people cannot make away their power, 1. Their whole power, nor 2. Irrevocably to the king.—The people may resume the power they give to the commissioners of parliament, when it is abused.—The tables in Scotland lawful, when the ordinary judicatures are corrupt.—Quod eflicit tale id ipsum magis tale discussed, the fountain-power in the people derived only in the king. —The king is a fiduciary, a life-renter, not a lord or heritor.—How sovereignty is in the people. .—Power of life and death, how in a community.—A community void of rulers, is yet, and may be a politic body.—Judges gods analogically.

QUESTION XX.

Whether inferior judges be essentially the immediate vicegerents of God, as kings, not

differing in essence and nature from kings, .... 88

Inferior judges the immediate vicars of God, no less than the king.—The consciences of inferior judges, immediately subordinate to God, not to the king, either mediately or immediately.—How

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