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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50551	Jus regium, or, The just and solid foundations of monarchy in general and more especially of the monarchy of Scotland, maintain'd against Buchannan, Naphtali, Dolman, Milton, &c.	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing M163; ESTC R945	87,343	224

JVS REGIVM Or The Just and Solid FOUNDATIONS OF Monarchy In General And more especially OF THE MONARCHY of SCOTLAND Maintain'd against Buchannan Naphtali Dolman Milton c. By Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE His Majesties Advocate in Scotland 1 Sam. x. 26 27. And there went with Saul a band of men whose hearts God had touched But the children of Belial said How shall this man save us And they despis'd him and brought him no Presents but he held his peace London Printed for R. Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in St. Pauls Church-yard 1684. TO THE University OF OXFORD THE King my Master and His Royal Brother being by their Natural Goodness inclin'd to pardon all Crimes except Flattery and by their Modesty to think all that Flattery which can be justly said of them I could not in Prudence dedicate this Book to Them since the First Part of it concerns The Right of the Monarchy And the second The Right of the Successor And therefore since to support a Crown is the next Honour to the bearing it this Dedication was due to you who have both in the last Rebellion and this Factious Age maintain'd the Royal Interest so learnedly and generously Your late Decisions against the Fanaticks have almost made my Reasonings useless for your Authority will weigh as much as any private Man's Arguments And what should have more Credit amongst Men than an illustrious Company of learn'd and pious Divines deciding for their Duty and Conscience against their Interest and Vanity Men who wish for no Crown save in Heaven and desire no Power save over their own Lusts and Passions To the Episcopal Church God hath fulfilled that promise of making Kings their Nursing Fathers the true Heirs and best Scholars of the Primitive Church happier than it in this that they do practise its Virtues without its Necessities and need not Poverty to make them Humble nor Armies to make them Loyal And who in it are so happy as you who can be Submissive without being Slaves Firm without being Opinionated Zealous without being Cruel and Pious without being Bigot To whom I cannot wish greater Blessings than that your Fame may grow as great as your Loyalty That your University may continue prosperous till another grow more Learn'd and that all honest Men may be as ready to serve you as Your Sincere Well-wisher and Humble Servant Geo. Mackenzie TO THE Reader BUchannan's Book De Jure Regni being lately Translated and many Copies dispers'd His Majesties Advocate in Duty to the King and Compassion to the People who are thus like to be poyson'd has written this Answer which was necessary notwithstanding of the learned Answers made by Barclay and Blackwood since beside that theirs are in Latin and so not useful to the People it is conceiv'd they understood not fully our Law nor was our Law so clear then as now Many Arguments have been invented since their time by Dolman Milton Nephthali c. and Experience has open'd our Eyes much since their time Blackwood's Arguments are calculated for the Romish Church and Barclay has mistaken essential Points Theirs run upon History and Philology this upon our Law the Laws of Nations Reason and Conveniency and I am afraid it will be said that there are too many new thoughts in mine THE Just Right OF MONARCHY In general but more especially of the KINGS of SCOTLAND asserted against Buchannan and others LVCIFER might in Reason have contented himself with that share of Knowledge Glory and Power which was bestowed upon him by his Almighty and Bountiful Soveraign And Adam should have rested satisfied with the Glory of having been made after the Image of God and with being his Lieutenant in this lower World But there are such strong Charms in Ambition and Vanity that the one resolved to hazard all that he possessed as being second rather than not try if he could be the first and the other desiring to improve his present share forfeited those excellencies which he enjoyed How jealous then should frail and fallen man be in debates with those whom the Almighty has appointed to be his Vicegerents amongst them and to whom he has said Ye are Gods And how hard is it for us to conquer that Vice which the one could not resist though he was all Light and the other though he was all Innocence What Nations under Heaven were so happy as we under the Reign of King Charles the First Secure against all Invasion from abroad by the situation of our Country and from all Oppression at home by its Laws and the gracious Concessions of our excellent Monarchs But more especially in that Age by the innate Vertues of that King who was severe to none but to himself and whose Prerogatives no Laws could bound so much as His own Goodness did And yet weary with the burden of our own prosperity we lusted after new improvements of Liberty and Property And after we had emptied our own Veins and Purses in fighting for these all we gained was to be Slaves and Beggars And having kill'd for Religion a King who had more of it than all who fought against him we split our own Church into a thousand pieces and from its murthered Body did arise those Sectarians like so many Worms and Insects But yet God Almighty desiring to try us once more and make us for ever inexcusable did not only deliver us from that Slavery that we had drawn upon our selves but because we were all Crimes he gave us a King who was all Clemency and who deserves to have been Elected if he had not been born our King And yet after that he had also condescended to all our new Extravagancies and that by His Conduct all Sciences flourish and Trade is so increased that Riches are become a Plague We are now troubled with Jealousies because we can be troubled with nothing else And murmuring against the gentlest and best of Kings we are tormented daily with Apparitions Visions Plots Pamphlets and Libels But under whom can we expect to be free from Arbitrary Government when we were and are afraid of it under King Charles the First and King Charles the Second And what King or Government can be secure from those who Conspire the death of this most merciful Prince and of this so ancient and so well moulded Government Amongst the other wicked Instruments in these Rebellions I must confess that our Country-men Buchannan one of the chief Ornaments and Reproaches of his native Country the Authors of Lex Rex Naphtali and Jus Populi Vindicatum have been Ring-leaders who have endeavoured extreamly to poyson this Nation by perswading the People 1. That our Monarchs derive their Rights from them 2. That therefore since they derive their Right from the People they are accountable to them for their administration and consequently they may be suspended or deposed by them 3. That the People may Reform without them and may rise in Arms against them if the Monarch hinder

in which they had been treated as Slaves And whereas these Republicans pretend that the King is but a Physician this shews that they design to have no King for any man may lawfully change his Physician and Buchannan's laying so much weight on this Argument makes me suspect much his honesty for no man can have so mean an opinion of his Sense And his comparing the Monarch to a Tutor is very extravagant for no man is sworn to have such a mans Heirs for Tutors the one is chosen by God the other by the Patient the one has a right by Law that is unalterable the others employment is meerly precarious But though he were a Tutor no man can remove his Tutor at pleasure as they say the People may remove their King Nor is a Tutor to be laid aside but by an Action before a Superior Judge wherein he is to be proved to have Malversed and therefore since there is no Superior Judge except God and that the People are not his Superiors it clearly follows that the People cannot lay aside their King Only I joyn so far with Buchannan in those Rhetorical expressions that I really think the Multitude is always so mad that they need a King to be their Physician and of so weak a Judgment like Minors that they need him for a Tutor and without his assistance and protection every hypocritical Bigot and ambitious Usurper would cheat them at his pleasure and make them not only a prey but but a Tool in their own Slavery Nor is their any force in that Argument The King was made for the People and not the People for the King and therefore the People are nobler than the King and ought to be prefer'd to Him For to this it is answered that 1. The Question here is not who is more preferable but who is the Superiour And though one good Christian be preferable to a thousand who are not so yet his Interest in the Commonwealth is not preferable the wiser part is still preferable to the greater part and yet the greater will over-rule the wiser A Shepherd is ordained for the Flock and yet it cannot be concluded that a Flock of Brutes is to be preferred to any reasonable Creature 2. The Kings Interest and the Peoples are inseparable in the Construction of Law which presumes That what the King does He does for the People and there is none above the King that can Judge Him if He does otherwise 3. Whether the Kings Power be derived from God or from the People yet if it be derived from God it is preferable because of Gods Ordinance Or if from the People it is preferable because they by Electing Him King have consented that it should be so and they having Trusted Him with the publick Interest the publick Interest is still preferable I know that Buchannan and others value themselves much upon the Instance of the Bruce and Baliol in which the people did Declare That they preferred the Bruce because the Baliol had enslaved the Kingdom to the English And it is generally urged That all Lawyers are clear that if a King alienate His Kingdom His people may disclaim Him But my answers are That if a King will alienate His Kingdom the Subjects are free in that case if at all not by their power to re-assume their first Liberty but because the King will not continue King and they are free by his Deed but not by their own Right 2. Even in that case Lawyers do irritate and annul the Deed but dissolve not the Contraveeners Right And as to that particular Instance it is well known that King Robert the First or the Bruce as we call him was desirous that the Parliament should threaten to choose another if He submitted his Interest to the Popes Decision who pretended then to be the Supream Judge over all Kings But though the Bruce to please the people should have shunned to quarrel with what they did in such a Juncture yet that could not wrong the Monarchy nor His Successors as shall be proved Having thus cleared that the Kings power is not derived from the people even though they had Elected Him and that He is an absolute King both by our Laws and the Nature of our Monarchy and that all this is most consistent with right Reason I come now to draw some Conclusions from these Principles The first Conclusion shall be That our Parliaments are not co-ordinate with our Kings in the Legislative Power but that the Legislative and Architectonick Power of making Laws as Lawyers term it does solely reside in the King the Estates of Parliament only consenting which will further appear by these Reasons 1. It cannot be denied but we had Kings long ere we had Parliaments we never having had any Parliaments till King Kenneth the Thirds Time Anno Dom. 988. according to the Computation of the severest Re-publicans themselves for till then we read only of the Proceres Regni or the Nobility or Chiefs of Clanes and Heads of Families who assembled upon all occasions to give the King advice and therefore our Parliaments cannot pretend that they were designed as a Co-ordinate power with the King while he did what was right much less to be his Judge when he did what was wrong 2. That our Kings made Laws of old without any consent and that these were submitted to by the people is clear not only from our Histories which do tell us that such Kings made such Laws without speaking any thing of either Nobility People or Parliament but even from our old Books of Statutes wherein there is no mention made of the consent of either the Nobility or Parliament The Laws at that time beginning simply The Kings Statutes as in all the Statutes of King William King Alexander the Second and in the Statutes of King Malcolm Canmore King David the First and King David the Second where there is not so much as mention made of the Nobility or the Parliament in the very beginning of the Statutes and that at other times the Nobility were only called and that only the Nobility did sit is very clear from the Inscriptions of those Parliaments such as in the Parliament of King Alexander the Second which bears to have been made with the common consent of the Nobility cum communi consensu Comitum suorum without speaking of any other State Nor do I find a word of Burgesses till the Parliament of King Robert the Third in 1400. and even according to this late Constitution it is undeniable that the Parliament have not even an equal power with the King much less a power above him 3. How can that Judicature have a Co-ordinate power with the King when no man can sit in it but by a priviledge from the King but so it is that all that are Members of Parliament sit there by a special priviledge from the King and there is nothing considered to capacitate them to sit but the Force and

Minors cannot be ill since God almighty us'd to make such a choice I know that Eccles 10. 16. says Woe unto the Land when thy King is a child but the Criticks interpret this of a King that is childish Puer intellectu moribus or because Factions arise by the opposition to his Regents and this inconveniency did more necessarily attend the allowing a Regent King during Life for both the Subjects and the true Heir rais'd Factions in that Case whereas the Subjects only are factious in the other and yet even they are no more factious for that short time than they are always in Commonwealths 4. The reason why the Minor King was to have one to supply his Non-age ceasing with his Majority it was unreasonable that the Remedy should have lasted beyond the Disease and the worst effect that could have been occasion'd by the Infant King's Minority was that the Kingdom should have been during that time govern'd by joint advice of Parliament Councils and Officers of State which in Buchanan's opinion in other places of his History and Book De Jure Regni is so excellent a Model that he decries Monarchy as much inferior to it 5. It was most inconvenient to accustom any private Family to live in the Quality of a King 6. It could not but occasion many Murders and much Faction for the true Heir could not live peaceably under this Eclipse and Exclusion nor could the Uncle live without making a Party to secure his pleasant Usurpation 7. As these Divisions and Factions were the natural and necessary Effects that were to be expected from this irregular Succession so it is very observable that from King Fergus to King Kenneth the third we had Seventy nine Kings amongst whom almost the half were the most impious tyrannical or lazy Kings that ever we had according to Buchanan's Character of them so happy and wise a thing is this so much magnified Election of a Successor by the People and their Representatives to supply the defects of the lawful Heir whereas from K. Kenneth the third to King CHARLES the Second inclusive we have had Thirty one Kings Twenty six of whom have succeeded by a due lineal Right and have prov'd vertuous Princes greater by their Merit than their Birth as if God had design'd to let us see that though most of them succeeded whil'st they were very young yet that he can chuse a fitter Successor than Parliaments can do whereas the other five Kings who came to the Crown against that Law of Kenneth the third viz. Constantine the Bald Grimus Mackbeth Donal Bain and Duncan the second were all persons who deserved very ill to be preferred to the true Heir and who as they came to the Crown against Law so govern'd without it And it is very strange that the Fanaticks who think that every throw of the Dice is influenc'd by a special Providence will not allow that God does by a special Providence take care who shall be his Representative who shall be the Pastor of his Flock and nursing Father of his Church let us therefore trust his Care more than our own and hope to obtain more from him by Christian Submission Humility and Obedience than we can by Caballing Rebelling and Sacrilegious Murdering or Excluding the TRUE SUCCESSOR POSTSCRIPT IN regard there is Pag. 194 195. mention made of an Act of Parliament determining the Succession of Robert the Second's Children and referr'd to here upon further Consideration the Author has thought fit to defer the printing of it till another time the Substance of it being inserted in the said Pages Books Printed for and Sold by RICHARD CHISWELL FOLIO SPeed's Maps and Geography of Great Britain and Ireland and of Foreign Parts Dr. Cave's Lives of the Primitive Fathers in 2. Vol. Dr. Cary's Chronological Account of Ancient Time Sir Tho. Herbert's Travels into Persia c. B. Wilkin's real Character or Philosophical Language Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity Guillim's Display of Heraldry with large Additions Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England in 2. Vol. Account of the Confessions and Prayers of the Murtherers of Esquire Thynn Burlace's History of the Irish Rebellion Herodoti Historia Gr. Lat. cum variis Lect. Bishop Sanderson's Sermons with his Life Fowlis's History of Romish Conspir Treas and Usurpat Dalton's Office of Sheriffs with Additions Office of a Justice of Peace with Additions Lord Cook 's Reports in English Edmunds on Caesars Commentaries Sir John Davis's Reports Judge Yelverton's Reports The Laws of this Realm concerning Jesuites Seminary Priests Recusants the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance explained by divers Judgments and resolutions of the Judges with other Observations thereupon by Will. Cawley Esq Josephus's Antiquities and Wars of the Jews with Fig. QVARTO DR Littleton's Dictionary Latine and English Bishop Nicholson on the Church Catechism History of the late Wars of New-England Dr. Outram de Sacrificiis Bishop Taylor 's Disswasive from Popery Parkeri Disputationes de Deo The Magistrates Authority asserted in a Sermon By James Paston Dr. Jane's Fast Sermon before the Commons 1679. Mr. John Jame's Visitation Sermon April 9. 1671. Mr. John Cave's Fast-Sermon on 30. of Jan. 1679. Assize Sermon at Leicester July 31. 1679. Dr. Parker's Demonstration of the Divine Authority of the Law of Nature and the Christian Religion Mr. William's Sermon before the Lord Mayor 1679. History of the Powder Treason with a vindication of the proceedings relating thereunto Speculum Baxterianum or Baxter against Baxter Mr. Hook's new Philosophical Collections Bibliotheca Norfolciana sive Catalogus Lib. Manuscript impress in omni Arte Lingua quos Hen. Dux Norfolciae Regiae Societati Londinensi pro scientiae naturali promovenda donavit OCTAVO BIshop Wilkin's Natural Religion Dr. Ashton's Apology for the Honours and Revenues of the Clergy Lord Hollis's Vindication of the Judicature of the House of Peers in the Case of Skinner Jurisdiction of the House of Peers in Case of Appeals Jurisdiction of the House of Peers in Case of Impositions Letters about the Bishops Votes in Capital Cases Dr. Grew's Idea of Philological History on Roots Spaniard's Conspiracy against the State of Venice Dr. Brown's Religio Medici with Digby's Observations Dr. Symposon's Chymical Anatomy of the York-shire Spaws with a Discourse of the Original of Hot Springs and other Fountains Hydrological Essays with an Account of the Allum works at Whitby and some Observations about the Jaundice Organon Salutis or an Instrument to cleanse the Stomach With divers new Experiments of the Vertue of Tobacco and Coffee with a Preface of Sir Hen. Blunt Dr. Cave's Primitive Christianity in three Parts Ignatius Fuller's Sermons of Peace and Holiness Doctor Sanway's Unreasonableness of the Romanists Record of Urines The Tryals of the Regicides in 1660. Certain genuine Remains of the Lord Bacon in Arguments Civil Moral Natural c. with a large account of all his Works by Dr. Tho. Tennison Dr. Puller's Discourse of the Moderation

them to Reform 4. That the People or their Representatives may Exclude the Lineal Successor and raise to the Throne any of the Royal Family who doth best deserve the Royal Dignity These being all matters of Right the plain and easie way which I resolve to take for refuting them so as the learned and unlearned may be equally convinced shall be first by giving a true account of what is our present positive Law 2. By demonstrating that as our present positive Law is inconsistent with those Principles so these our positive Laws are excellently well founded upon the very nature of Monarchy and that those Principles are inconsistent with all Monarchy And the third Class of my Arguments shall be from the Principles of common Reason Equity and Government abstracting both from the positiveness of our Law and the nature of our Monarchy And in the last place I shall answer the Arguments of those Authors As to the first I conceive that a Treatise De Jure Regni apud Scotos should have clear'd to us what was the power of Monarchs by Law and particularly what was the positive Law of Scotland as to this point for if these points be clear by our positive Law there is no further place for debate since it is absolutely necessary for Mankind especially in matters of Government that they at last acquiesce in something that is fix'd and certain and therefore it is very well observ'd by Lawyers and States-men that before Laws be made men ought to reason but after they are made they ought to obey which makes me admire how Buchannan and the other Authors that I have named should have adventur'd upon a debate in Law not being themselves Lawyers and should have written Books upon that Subject without citing one Law Civil or Municipal pro or con Nor is their Veracity more to be esteemed than their Learning for it 's undeniable that Buchannan wrote this Book De Jure Regni to perswade Scotland to raise his Patron though a Bastard to the Crown and the Authors of Lex Rex Jus Populi Vindicatum and others were known to have written those Libels from picque against the Government because they justly suffered under it I know that to this it may be answered That these Statutes are but late and were not extant in Buchannan's time and consequently Buchannan cannot be refuted by them 2. That these Statutes have been obtain'd from Parliaments by the too great influence of their Monarchs and the too great Pusillanimity of Parliaments who could not resign the Rights and Priviledges of the People since they have no Warrant from them for that effect To the first of which I answer that my Task is not to form an Accusation against Buchannan but against his Principles and to demonstrate that these Principles are not our Law but are inconsistent with it and it is ridiculous to think that any such Laws should have been made before those Treasonable Principles were once hatched and maintained for Errors must appear before they be condemned and by the same Argument it may be as well urged that Arius Nestorius c. were not Hereticks because those Acts of General Councils which condemned their Heresies were not extant when they first defended those opinions and that our King had not the power of making Peace and War till the Year 1661. But 2dly For clearing this Point it is fit to know that our Parliaments never give Prerogatives to our Kings but only declare what have been their Prerogatives and particularly in these Statutes that I shall Cite the Parliament doth not Confer any New Right upon the King but only acknowledge what was Originally his Right and Prerogative from the beginning and therefore the Parliament being the only Judges who could decide whether Buchannans Principles were solid and what was Jus Regni apud Scotos These Statutes having decided those points controverted by him there can be hereafter no place for Debate and particularly as to Buchannan his Book De jure Regni apud Scotos it is expresly condemn'd as Slanderous and containing several offensive Matters by the 134 Act Parl. 8. Ja. 6. in Anno 1584. which was the first Parliament that ever sate after his Book was printed To the 2 d I answer that it being controverted what is the Kings Power there can be no stronger Decision of that Controversie in Favours of the King than the acknowledgment of all Parties Interested and it is strange and unsufferable to hear such as appeal to Parliaments cry out against their Power their Justice and Decisions and why should we oppress our Kings and raise Civil Wars whereby we endanger so much our selves to procure powers to Parliaments if Parliaments be such ridiculous things as we cannot trust when they are impowred by us and if there be any force in this answer of Buchannans there can be none in any of our Laws for that strikes at the Root of all our Laws and as I have produced a Tract of reiterated Laws for many Years so where were there ever such free unlimited Parliaments in any Nation as these whose Laws I have Cited 2dly Whatever might be said if a positive Contract betwixt the King and People were produced clearing what were the just Limits of the Monarchy and bounding it by clear Articles mutually agreed upon yet it is very absurd and extravagant to think that when the Debate is what is the King of Scotlands just Power and Right and from whom he Derives it that the Laws and repeated Acknowledgements of the whole Representatives of the People assembled in the Supream Court of the Nation having no open force upon it but enacted at several times in many several Parliaments under the gentlest peaceablest and wisest Kings that ever they had should not be better believed than the Testimonies of three or four byass'd and disoblig'd Pedants who understood neither our Laws nor Statutes and who can bring no clear fundamental Law nor produce no Contract nor Paction restricting the King or bounding his Government 3dly That which adds a great deal of Authority to this Debate and these Statutes is that as this is clear by our positive Law so it is necessarily inferred from the nature of our Monarchy and is very advantagious for the Subjects of this Kingdom which I shall clear in the second and third Arguments that I shall bring against those Treasonable Principles nor can they be seconded by any solid Reason as I shall make appear in answering the Arguments of those Authors I know that Nephthaly the Author of Jus Populi and our late Fanatical Pamphlets alleadge that our Parliaments since 1661. are null and unlawful because many who have right to Sit as Members or to Elect Members were excluded by the Declaration or Test but my answer is First That these were excluded by Acts of Parliament which were past in Parliaments prior to their exclusion and so they were excluded by Law and no man can be said to