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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	law_n	moral_a	precept_n	2,880	5	9.5945	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B04938	A poem on the test dedicated to His Royal Highnes the Duke of Albanie.	Paterson, Ninian, d. 1688.	1683 (1683)	Wing P701A; ESTC R181526	32,197	41

take the inheritance of the People by oppression which is expressely added importing in point of necessity he may do it and be neither Tyrant nor Robber For Achab all the World knows it was only his lustfull and covetous humor he gratified not minding the benefite of the common-wealth And for the tithes of the Levits It s known that it was not a ceremonial precept but morall founded on the judgment of right reason according to the Law of nature it self And therefore cannot be in it self unlawfull nature teatching us that a publick Person should be served of the publick And therefore tribute jure divino belongs to the publick Magistrat Mat. 17 25. and 22. and 15. verss Therefore all things both Sacred and civil must be serviceable to the publick benefit This I take to be the true meaning of this Mishpat Hameleck But if we speak particularly of the prerogative Royal Iustinian makes it to consist in these three the power of things Sacred the power of the publick good and the power of denuncing warr Bodinus in his Book de Republica lib. 1. cap. 10. extends it to these five 1. The power of making and abrogating Lawes 2. Supremacy of jurisdiction from which can be no appeal 3. Power of establishing all inferior Magistrats and Officers of State 4. Imposition and exaction of tribute 5. The power of warr To which Arniseus adds the right of publick wayes navigable Rivers mines of Gold and Silver and any thing that hes no particular owner that it should belong to the common Master as hunting confiscation coyning of money Arniseus lib. 2. de jure Majest cap. 1. n. 8. Neither will any that remembers we swear in the Test to defend the Kings prerogatives we hope think this digression impertinent To which we shall add the Golden observation of Chrysostome upon Rom. 13. That to leavy money and exact stents for the publick good is the peculiar prerogative of the Crown and therefore sayes he the Apostle sayes not give tribute but vers 7. render tribute render Custome non dicit date but reddite For the subject nihil gratuito dat debitum siquidem est res ista quod si non feceris perfidi poenas dabis The subject gives nothing to the King its debt which if he refuse he deserves to be punished as a false Traitor But to speak yet more particularly of the Royal prerogative in the most part of all Nations We begin with the Jews whose Royal prerogative as we have seen is set down particularly in Deut. 17. and 1 Sam. 8. tho contradicted by learned men to whom forecited we are not yet afraied to add Saint Gregorie Cajetan Abulensis and Vatablus on the place and even Aquinas too who in his Book de regimine principis Cap. 11. is expressely against our interpretation and in his Summs primâ secundae quest 6. Art 1. in answer to the fifth objection Illud jus non debebatur Regi ex institutione divina sed magis praenunciabatur usurpatio Regum qui sibi jus iniquum constituunt in Tyrannidem degenerantes subditos depraedantes But considering that the most part of Papists are ill affected towards all Kings as well as our Presbyterians the one making the Pope their Presbytery and the other the Presbytery their Pope Therefore all our Fanatick writers as Lex Rex Didoclavius and the rest hes all their arguments from Papists yet we hope we have said al 's much for our opinion as will abundantly satisfie any sober and intelligent Reader To come then to particulars we find the Law of the prerogative Royal amongst the Jews after that ancient one established by God himself and promulgat by Moses and Samuel al 's fully and al 's amply as can be constitute in the Person of Simon Macabeus 1 Macab 14. chap. from 41. to the 45. Wherein is contained the Sanction of the Law And the prerogatives are reckoned out to the number of twelve which at more length may be there seen and corresponds much with our own one or two only excepted Neither may it be objected he was their Captain only and not their King For his posterity did assume both the Title and Estate of the King without any innovating of these prerogatives as is known all along their Historie But more particularly what the Royal prerogative amongst the Jews was both before and after that may be more fully gathered from the writings of Iosephus against Appion and from his antiquities from Mennochius Sigoneus Bertramus and Cunaeus to which we may add the most part of the writings of Hottingerus all which have written fully and learnedly of the Laws and Customes of that Republick but especialy in his Smegma Orientale and Epitome utriusque juris judaici The Royal prerogatives amongst the Romans are fully described by Dionysius Halycarnasseus lib. 2. which were agreed upon as he sayes betwixt Romulus and the People of Rome the care of Religion and the Laws The convocating of the People and the absolute power of warr with many others there to be read which still continued till the time of Tarquin the proud who contemning these decrees and ordinances was deprived of his Kingdom and banished the City What it was afterwards may be known by Suetonius after the death of Iulius Caesar in Tiberius Cap. 30 31 32. And Tacitus Annales especially the first Book And afterward in processe of time how they were increased and established may be seen in the Commentaries of Claudius Rangolius ordinis minimorum S. Francisci de Paula who hes described them in a collection from Hottoman and Calvin Lawyers on 1 Sam. 8 11. Yea the lex regia as he there writes gave a kind of infinit power to the Emperours in all things that concerned the preservation or amplification of the common-wealth To whose writings we may add what hes been written by Scriverius his Respublica Romana and Lipsii Roma illustrata and by Dion Appianus and Pollybius the Greek Historians of whom it must be observed that they wrote the Roman History farr more impartially then any Roman 3. For the Greeks their prerogative Royal to wit of the Lacedemonians it is fully described by Halicarnasseus in his 5 Book Of the Macedonians by Quintus Curtius in his sixth Book of the warrs of Alexander anent the death of Philotas Parmenio's Son The Royal prerogative of Agamemnon and other Princes of Grecia may be collected from Homer And of the whole Greeks both their History and Priviledges may be gathered from Pausanias and Plutarch especially in the lives of Solon and Lycurgus and his Greek Questions But most elegantly and compendiously written by the learned Vbbo Emmius de Graecorum rebus publicis And from Postellus de Magistratibus Atheniensium To which may be added Meursii Athenae Nicolai Damasceni Historia 4. The prerogative of the Egyptians Assyrians and Persians may be collected out of Herodot and Zenophon and Diodorus siculus his 2 Book Cap. 3. But above all out of the

proper to God only to bind the conscience So sayes Calvin lib. 3. instit 9. cap. sect 15. And Sibrandus lib. 8. de pontifice Romano cap. 7. Vasques lib. 1. Illust contravers 28. 1. And these would only have the Magistrats power to reach the body or Fortunes of the subject alleadging no humane power can go further To which we oppose these following arguments 1. A man may bind his own conscience as is confessed by all in the case of Lawfull vowes they are in our own power before they are made Act. 5 4. But after that they are Gods bondes and do bind the conscience to performance Wherefore that doeth not altogether hold that God only can bind the conscience Otherwayes either vowes do not bind or else no man can ingage himself in them either of which to affirme is absurd I find Alsted Theol. cas cap. 2. reg 2. to make great use of this argument 2. In the Rom. 13. we learne that Magistrats have power and authority to enact Laws and therefore they are called powers 2. That these Lawes of the Magistrat do receive strength and force from the Law of God for the powers that are sayeth he are ordained of God 3. That the Laws made by the Magistrat have power to bind conscience v. 5. We must be subject not only for wrath but conscience sake And if we resist them we resist the ordinance of God and pull down Gods judgment and bring condemnation on our selves when we so do sayeth the Text verse 2. And therefore to contemne the Laws of men tho not expressely for then they are Gods but virtually contained in the word of God is to be disobedient to God himself 3. Consider that conscience hath relation not to God only but to man also Acts 24 16. Conscience both towards God and man it hath the principal relation to God as being the absolute binder thereof yet in and through him to man and his Laws also For it is to be here remarked that at that same instant Saint Paul was pleading before ane Heathen Magistrat 4. We must consider that we are not only to make conscience of Religion and the worship of God but of civil things also For tho things that are civil as civil do not of themselves and immediatly bind the conscience yet by vertue of ane higher Law to which they are subordinat and subjoyned being made by the Magistrat as the Minister of God and backed by his Authority which is Gods Seall so they oblidge the conscience and not to performe obedience to such Laws as for instance sumptuary Laws made for moderating expence at banquetings or burialls or in apparel or the like such as Aulus Gellius makes mention of in his 2 Book Cap. 24. out of Lucilius the old Poet and the Lex Fannea Emilia Ancia Iulia c. To contemne such Laws tho in it self be a civil fault only yet in another respect it is a moral sin the Law being made contrary both to Justice Charity Peace Saftey and Wel being of the common wealth 5. Who ever resists the ordination of God offends God but every offence of God is a wounding of conscience wherefore of necessity it must follow by the Law of contraries that we are bound in conscience to obey the Lawes of man He is the Minister of God Rom. 13. Gods Legat and Ambassador therefore what contempt he or his Laws for both are one the King being lex animata do sustaine from us it redoudes unto God whose Minister he is And God takes it done to himself what is done to or against the Magistrat Toutch not mine anointed 6. Every just and good Law flowes from the Law of God the Law of nature as the Stream from the Fountain And therefore hes an Intrinsick power of direction and obligation as a rule of life and manners The deviating from which is a sin and consequently a wounding of the conscience For if conscience be the sence of sin and fear of judgment as some discribe it tho rather by its effects then by it essential nature as else where I shall make evident then it is certain what ever induces to sin concernes conscience and brings along with it the fear of judgment but violating of a civil Law does inferr sin for every particular breach is a violation of the general Law of obeying the Magistrat and becomes a morall sin against the fifth Commandement Therefore by the rule of contraries the civil Law doth infallibly bind and inevitably oblidge the conscience 7. Every Law is either contrary to the will of God or conforme to it every Law is either just or unjust But herein we must cautiously observe a twofold injustice either intrinsick or extrinsick The intrinsick is when the mater of the Law it self is injust The extrinsick is when a thing intrinsically just in it self may be unjustly commanded and imposed upon me The first only takes away the obligation to obedience as dissolving the intrinsick ty of conscience for suppose a Prince should command something that in it self were not unjust meerly to please his own ambitious Tyrannical or covetous humor that indeed would be unjust on his part but I and every other subject were oblidged to obey tho he should sinne in commanding yet I should sinne if I obeyed it not But on the other hand no humane Laws that on the matter are unjust can obleidge the conscience for it is better to obey God than man From whence we may draw this invincible argument from the intrinsick nature of reason it self that no man at one and the same time can be oblidged to contradictories but if a man were oblidged to performe ane unjust Law he should be oblidged in conscience to that to the not performance whereof the Law of God oblidges him And to performe and not performe are contradictories Whereas humane Laws in things just oblidge the conscience by a supervenient obligation to the Law of God for obligatio prior tollit posteriorem But on the other hand if Laws be enacted by these who are not invested with lawfull power then they do not oblidge the conscience no more then a Sentence given by one who is no judge can oblidge the party to performance for where the power is wanting the efficient cause of the obligation is wanting also 8. We must distinguish betwixt a direct and indirect a mediat and immediat obligation we doe confesse the Lawes of man do not immediatly and directly oblidge the conscience but by vertue of Gods command requiring to give obedience to the Magistrat and his Laws under the paine of Gods wrath and displeasure We are bound to performe civil duties on grounds of Religion and so humane Laws tho not qua humane binds the conscience It s Gods command binds my conscience to observe mans as ye see it clearly and expressely Eccles 8 21. I Counsel you to keep the Kings commandement and that in regarde of the Oath of God It