IUS REGIUM: Or, the Just, and Solid FOUNDATIONS OF MONARCHY In General, and more especially of the MONARCHY of SCOTLAND: Maintained against Buchannan, Naphthali, Dolman, Milton, etc.  
BY Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE, His Majesty's Advocate.  1 Sam. 10.26, 27. 
26. And there went with Saul a band of men, whose hearts God had touched.  
27. But the Children of Belial said, how shall this man save us? and they despised him, and brought him no presents, but he held his peace.  
EDINBURGH, Printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson, Printer to His most Sacred Majesty, Anno DOM. 1684.   

The Design.  
BVchannans Book De jure Regni being lately Translated, and many Copies dispersed. His Majesty's Advocate, in Duty to the King, and Compassion to the People, who are thus like to be poisoned, 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 conceived 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, Nephthaly, etc. And Experience has opened our Eyes much since their time. Blackwoods' 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.   

ERRATA.  
Page 90. For Pliny Read Tacitus.   

TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.  
THe King my Master, and His Royal Brother, being by their natural goodness inclined 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 Dedicat 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, maintained the Royal Interest, so learnly, and generously. Your late Decisions against the fanatics, 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 Learned 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 can 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 Opiniatre. 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 an other grow more Learned; and that all honest men, may be as ready to serve you, as  
Your sincere Wellwisher, and humble Servant, Geo. Mackenzie.   

THE Just Right OF MONARCHY In General, but more especially of the KINGS of SCOTLAND, asserted against Buchannan and others.  
LUCIFER might in Reason have contented himself with that share of Knowledge, Glory, and Power, which was bestowed upon him, by his Almighty, and Bountiful Sovereign. And Adam should have rested satisfied, with the Glory of having been made after the Image of God, and with the 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, forefeited 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 Monarches: But more especially in that Age, by the innat Virtues of that King, who was severe to none, but to himself; and whose Prerogatives, no Laws could bond 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 fight for these; all we gained, was to be Slaves, and Beggars. And having killed 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 murdered Body, did arise those Sectarians, like so many Worms, and Infects. 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 ourselves; 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 Countrymen Buchannan (one of the chief Ornaments, and Reproaches of his native Country) the Authors of Lex Rex, Naphtali, and Ius Populi Vindicatum, have been Ringleaders, who have endeavoured extremely to poison this Nation by persuading the People:  
1. That our Monarches derive their Rights from them.  
2. That therefore since they derive their Right from the People, they are accountable to them for 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 them to Reform.  
4. That the People or their Representatives may seclude 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 easy 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 these 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 cleared to us what was the power of Monarches 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 fixed and certain, and therefore it is very well observed by Lawyers and Statesmen, 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 adventured 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 persuade Scotland to raise his Patron, though a Bastard to the Crown: and the Authors of Lex Rex, Ius 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 buchanan's time, and consequently Buchanan cannot be Redargued by them.  
2. That these Statutes have been obtained from Parliaments, by the too great influence of their Monarches, and the too great Pusillanimity of Parliaments, who could not resign the Rights and Privileges 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 Buchanan, but against his Principles, and to demonstrat, 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 these 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, etc. were not Heretics; 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 Ius Regni apud Scctor. 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 expressly condemned 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 sat after his Book was printed.  
To the 2 d, I answer, that it being controverted what is the King's Power, there can be no stronger Decision of that Controversy in Favours of the King than the acknowledgement 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 ourselves to procure powers to Parliaments, if Parliaments be such ridiculous things as we cannot trust when they are empowered 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 Scotland's 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 Supreme 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 biased and disobliged 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 advantageous for the Subjects of this Kingdom, which I shall clear in the second and third Arguments that I shall bring against these 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 Ius populi, and our late Fanatical Pamphlets allege that our Parliaments since 1661. are null and unlawful, because many who have Right to sit as Members, or to Elect Members were secluded by the Declaration or Test: But my answer is, First, That these were excluded by Acts of Parliament, which were passed in Parliaments prior to their exclusion, and so they were excluded by Law, and no man can be said to be illegally excluded from his Seat in Parliament, who is excluded by a clear Statute. 2dly, If this were not a good answer, than the Papists might pretend that they are unjustly excluded, because they will not take the Oath of Supremacy, and because they are Papists; and how can the fanatics pretend to make this objection, since they by the same way excluded the King's Loyal Subjects in the Year 1647. and 1649. etc. Or how would these Authors have railed at any Malignant for using this Argument against them, which they use now most impudently against us with far less justice, for their Parliaments were unjust upon other Heads, as being inconsistent with the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, and so their acts of exclusion were null in themselves. 3dly. All the Statutes made since 1661. are necessary consequences of former Laws, and so are rather renewed than new Laws. 4 lie. If this were allowed there could be no end of controversy, for all who are excluded would still allege that they were unjustly excluded, and consequently there could be no submission to Authority, and so no Society nor Peace.  
The last answer that our Dissenters make when they are driven from all their other grounds is, that they, though the lesser, are yet the sounder part of the Nation; but this shift does not only overturn Monarchy, but establishes Anarchy, and though they were once settled in their beloved Commonwealth, this would be sufficient to overturn it also, for every little number of Dissenters, nay, and even the meanest Dissenter himself might pretend to be this sounder part of the Commonwealth; but God Almighty foreseeing that pride or ignorance would suggest to frail Mankind this principle, so inconsistent with all that Order and Government, whereby he was to preserve the World, he did therefore in his great Wisdom convince men by the Light of their own Reason, that in matters of common concern, which were to be determined by Debate, the greater number should determine the lesser; and such as drive beyond this Principle, shall never find any certain Point at which they may rest: and by the same Reason, the Law has pronunc'd it safer to rest in what is decided, though it be unjust, than to cast loose the authority of Decisions, upon which the peace and quiet of the Commonwealth does depend, who would be so humble and just, as to confess that his Adversary has the juster side? Or who would obey if this were allowed? And what Idea of Government or Society could a man form to himself, allowing once this principle.  
It is also very observable, that those who pretend to be the sounder part, and deny obedience upon that account, are still the most insolent and irregular of all the Society, the greatest admirers of themselves, and the greatest enemies to peace, and so the unfitest to be Judges of what is the sounder part, though they were not themselves parties: But what pretence is there for that Plea in this case, where the foundations of our Monarchy, have been unanimously acknowledged by many different Parliaments, in many different Ages, chosen at first from the Dictates of Reason, and confirmed after we had in many Rebellions, found how dangerous all those popular pretences are, and in which we agree with the Statesmen, lawyers and Divines of all the well Governed Nations under Heaven, who are born under an hereditary Monarchy, as it is confessed we are.  
To return then to the first of those Points, I lay down as my first position, that our Monarches derive not their Right from the People, but are absolute Monarches, deriving their Royal Authority immediately from God Almighty; and this I shall endeavour to prove, first from our positive Law.  
By the 2. Act Par. 1. Ch. 2 d. in which it is declared, That His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, have for ever, by virtue of that Royol Power which they hold from God Almighty over this Kingdom, the sole choice and appointment of Officers of State, Counsellors and Judges.  
But because this Act did only assert that our Kings did hold their Royal Power from God, but did not exclude the people from being sharers in bestowing this Donative, therefore by the 5 th' Act of that same Parliament, they acknowledge the Obligation lying on them in Conscience, Honour and Gratitude, to own and assert the Royal Prerogatives of the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom, which the King's Majesty holds from God Almighty alone; and therefore they acknowledge that the King's Majesty only, by virtue of His Royal Prerogative, can make Peace and War, and Treaties with foreign Princes.  
Because this last Statute did only assert that the King did hold His Imperial Crown from God alone, but did not decide from whom our Kings did only derive their Power; therefore by the 2 d· Act Par. 3 d Ch. 2 d. It is declared that the Estates of Parliament considering that the Kings of this Realm, Deriving their Power from God Almighty alone, they do succeed Lineally thereto, etc. Which Statutes do in this agree with our old Law; for in the first Chapter of Reg. Magist. vers. 3. These Words are, That both in Peace and War, our Glorious King may so Govern this Kingdom committed to Him by God Almighty, in which He has no Superior but God Almighty alone, which Books are acknowledged to be our Law, and are called the King's Laws by the 54 th' Act Par. 3 d jam. 1. and the 115. Act Par. 14. jam. 3.  
These our Laws both Ancient and Modern, can neither be thought to be extorted by force, nor enacted by flattery, since in this we follow the Scripture, the Primitive Church and their Councils, the Civil Law and its Commentators, and the wisest Heathens, both Philosophers and Poets. As to the Scripture, God tells us, That by him Kings Reign, and that he hath anointed them Kings, and that the King is the Minister of God. David tells us, That God will give strength to his King, and deliverance to his King, and to his Anointed. Daniel says to Nebuchadnezar, The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom. And to Cyrus, God gave to Nebuchadnezar thy Father a Kingdom, and for the Majesty that he gave him, all Nations trembled.  
As to the Fathers, Augustin de Civit. Dei, l. 5. c. 21. Let us not attribute unto any other, the power of giving Kingdoms and Empyrs, but to the true God. Basil in Psal. 32. The Lord setteth up Kings and removeth them. Tertul: apol: contra gentes, Let Kings know, that from God only they have their Empire, and in whose power only they are. And Ireneus having proved this point fully, ends thus, l. 5. c. 24. By whose Command they are born men, by his likewise they are ordained Kings. This is also acknowledged by the Councils of Toledo 6. c. 14 of Paris 6. c. 5. vid Council aquis gran. 3. c. 1.  
Amongst our late Divines, Marca the famous Archbishop of Paris, Concord: sacerd: & imperij, l. 2. c. 2. n: 2. asserts, That the Royal Power is not only bestowed by God, but that it is immediately bestowed by God upon Kings: and Refutes Bellarm. ●de laico c. 6. maintaining, That the jesuits Doctrine in this, lessens Authority, and raises Factions, and contradicts both the Design and Word of God. Duvalius de suprem. potest. Rom. Pontif. p. 1. q. 2. Asserts that Kings derive their Rights by the Laws of God and Nature, non ab ipsa Republica & hominibus; and in all this the fanatics and Republicans agree with the Jesuits against Monarchy.  
In the Civil Law this is expressly asserted, Cod. de vet. Cod. enucleand. Deo auctore nostrum gubernante imperium quod nobis a coelesti majestate traditum est, Nou. 6. in init. Nou. 133. in proem. in Nou. 80.85, 86. justinian acknowledges his Obligation to care for his People, because he received the Charge of them from God; and certainly Subjects are happier, if their Kings acknowledge this, as a duty to God, than if they only think it a Charge conferred on them by their People, and that they are therefore answerable to them.  
That the Doctors and Commentators are of this opinion, is too clear to need Citations, vid. Arnis. cap. de Essentia Majest: Granswinkel. de jur. Maj. cap. 1. & 2.  
As to the Heathens, Hesiod. in Theog. verse 96. says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kings are from God. Homer says their Honour is from God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— Iliad. 1. verse 197. Themistcus asserts, that the Regal Power came from God, Orat. 5. with whom agrees Dion. Chrisostom Orat. 1. diotog. apud Stob. serm. etc. Plat. in polit. etc. But above all, Aristotle in polit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And Plutarch. Ages & Cleom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
If to these Statutes and Citations it be answered, that God Almighty may indeed be the principal and chief Author of Monarchy, and that Monarches may derive their Power from him, as from the Supreme Being, that directs all more immediate Causes, and yet the People may be the immediate Electors of Monarches, and so Kings may derive immediately from them their Power; and thus these Statutes are not inconsistent with the principle laid down by Buchanan and others, whereby they assert, that Kings in general, and particularly the Kings of Scotland, derive their Power immediately from the People.  
To this my answers are, that first, if we consider the propriety of the Words, there can be nothing more inconsistent, than that Kings should derive their Power from God Almighty alone, and yet that they should derive it from the People, for the Word Alone, is of all other words the most exclusive. 2dly, The design of the Parliament in that acknowledgement was to condemn, after a long Rebellion, the unhappy Principles which had kindled it; and amongst which, one of the chief was, that our Kings derived their Power from the People, and therefore they might qualify, or resume what they at first gave, or might oppose all Streaches in the Power they had given, and might even punish, or depose the King when he transgressed, none of which Principles could have been sufficiently condemned, by acknowledging that, though God was the chief Author, yet the People were the immediate Electors. 3dly, There needed no Act of Parliament be made for acknowledging God to be the chief Author, and first Fountain of every Power, for that was never controverted amongst Christians. 4thly, That foolish gloss cannot at all consist with the Inferences deduced from that Principle in the former Statutes: for in the 2. Act, Par. 1. Char. 2. It is inferred from His Majesty's holding His Royal Power from God alone, that therefore he hath the sole choice of his own Officers of State, Privy Counsellors, and Judges; And in the 5. Act, it is inferred from the same Principle, that because he derives his Power from God alone, that therefore it is Treason to rise in Arms without his Consent, upon any pretext whatsoever: And in the 2. Act, Par. 3. Char. 2. It is concluded, that because our Kings derive their Power from God Almighty alone, therefore it is Treason in the People to interrupt, or divert their Succession, upon any Difference in Religion, or other pretext whatsoever; whereas all this had been false, and inept Reasoning, if the design of the Parliament had not been to acknowledge that our Kings derived not their Power from the People, for though they derived their Power from God, as the supreme Being only, and not as the immediate bestower, and if the People were the immediate bestowers of that Power, than the People might still have pretended, that they who gave the Power, might have risen in their own Defence, when they saw the same abused, and might have diverted the Succession, when it descended upon a person who was an enemy to their Interest: but how false this gloss is, will appear more fully from the following Arguments, and it is absolutely inconsistent with St. Augustins' opinion, formerly cited, wherein he forbids to attribute the giving of Kingdoms to any other but to God.  
My second Argument for proving that Kings derive their Power from God alone, and not from the People, shall be from the principles of Reason. For First, The Almighty's design being to manifest his Glory, in Creating a World, so vast and regular as this is, and his goodness in Governing it, and that Men might live peaceably in it, having both Reason and Time to Serve him, it was consequential that he should have reserved to himself the immediate dependence of the supreme Power, to preclude the extravagant and restless multitude, from those frequent Revolutions which they would make, and Desolations which they would occasion, if they thought that the supreme Power depended on them, and that they were not bound to obey them for Conscience sake; so that those expressions in Scripture were very useful in this to curb our Insolences, and to fix our restlessness; and it seems that Kings are in Scripture, said to be gods, to the end it might be clear that they were not made by Men· 2dly, God Almighty being King of Kings, it was just, that as inferior Magistrates derived their Power from the King, so Kings should derive their Power from God, who is their King; and this seems to be clear from that analogy, which runs in a Dependence, and Chain through the whole Creation. 3dly, As this is most suitable to the principles of Reason, so it is most consonant the analogy of Law, by which it is declared, that no Man is master of his own Life, or Limbs, nemo est Dominus membrorum suorum; and therefore, as no Man can lawfully take away his own Life, so neither can he transfer the power of disposing upon it to any other Man, and consequently this Power is not derived to Kings and Princes by private Men, but is bestowed upon them by God Almighty, who is the sole Arbiter of Life and Death, and who can only take it away, because he gave it: And if it be objected, that this last branch of the Argument, seems either to prove nothing, or else to prove that there can be no Elective Monarchies. To this it is answered, that even in Elective Monarchies, the Nomination proceeds only from the People, but the Royal Power from God, as we see in inferior Magistracies, such as Burrows Royal, etc. the People Elect, and so the Nomination is from them, but the power of Governing proceeds from the King, and not from the Electors, and therefore as the People who Elected the Magistrates in these Towns, cannot Depose them by their own Authority, so neither can the People Depose their King, but the punishment of him belongs to God Almighty. I confess, that if the People Choose a King with express Condition, that they may punish him as the Lacedaemonian Kings were punishable by those Magistrates, called the Ephori, the Kings are in that case accountable to the People, but then they are not Monarches, having supreme Power as our Kings have, and who are therefore declared to hold their Power immediately from God, and not to be at all punishable by the People.  
The 4 th' Argument that I shall use, for proving that our Kings derive not their power from the People, shall be from the natural Origin of Monarchy, and of ours in particular, which I conceive to be that Right of Paternal Power which is stated in them; for understanding whereof, it is fit to know, that God at first created only one Man, that so his Children might be subject to him, as all Children yet are to their Parents: and therefore the Jesuitical and Fanatical Principles, that every man is born Free, and at Liberty to choose what form of Government he pleaseth, was ever, and is most false, for every man is born a Subject to his own Parents, who, if they were not likewise subject to a Superior Power, might judge and punish them Capitally, lead them out to War, and do all other things that a King could do, as we see the patriarchs did in their own Families. And as long as it is known who is the Root of the Family, or who represents it, there is no place for Election, and people Elect only when the memory of this is lost, and such as overcome the Heads of Families in Battle, succeed to them in their Paternal Right.  
If it be answered, that the Father may by nature pretend to a power over his Children, or it may be an Elder Brother over his Cadets, yet there is no tye in nature subjecting Collaterals, as Uncles, and their descendants to those descended from the Eldest Family. To this I reply, that 1. This power over all the Family was justly given by nature, to shun divisions, for else every little Family should have erected itself in a distinct Government, and the weakest had still been a Prey. 2. We see that Abraham did lead out to War, and in every thing Act as King, not only over his own Children, but all the Family, and whole Nations, are called the Children of Israel, the Children of Edom, etc. 3. That must be concluded to be established by natural instinct, which all men in all Ages and Places allow and follow; but so it is, that all Nations in all Places, and Times have ever allowed the Eldest Son of the Eldest Family to govern all descended from the Stock, without new Elections; and the Author of the late famous Moral Essays have admired this as one of the wisest Maxims that we have from Natural Instinct; for if the wisest, or strongest were to be choosed, there had still been many Rivals and so much Faction and Discord, but it is still certain who is the Eldest Son, and this precludes all Debate, and prevents all Dissension: For applying this to our Case, it is fit to know, that if we believe not our Historians, than none else can prove that the People of Scotland did at first Elect a King, that being contrary to the acknowledgements of our own Statutes; and all Buchannans Arguments, for restricting Kings, being founded upon the authority of our Historians, who, (as he says,) assert that K. Fergus was first Elected King by the People, if he be not able to prove that our Kings owe their Crowns to the Election of the People, without any inherent or previous Right, all his Arguments vanish to nothing, but on the other hand, if we consider exactly our Historians, we will find that our King's Reign over us by this Paternal Power; and though I am not very fond of Fabulous Antiquities, yet if Tradition, or Histories can be believed in any thing, they should at least be believed against Buchannan, and those who make use of them, to restrict the power of our Kings, and by our Histories it is clear, that Gathelus having led some Forces into Egypt, he after several Victories, settled in Portugal, called from him Portus Gatheli, from which an Colony of that Race transported itself into Ireland, and another into Scotland; nor should this be accounted a Fable, since Cornelius Tacitus, in the Life of Agricola, makes the Scots to be of Spanish, and the Picts to be of Germane Extraction.  
The Scottish Colonies finding themselves oppressed by the Britain's, and Picts, they sent over into Ireland to Ferquhard, and he sent them a considerable Supply, under the Command of Fergus his Son, who having secured them against their Enemies, all the Heads of the Tribes acknowledged him for their King, and swore that they should never admit of any other Form of Government than Monarchy; and that they should never obey any except Him and his Posterity, which if they broke, they wished that all the Plagues and Miseries that had formerly fallen on their Predecessors, might again fall upon their Posterity, as the punishment of that Perjury. All which Religious Vows and Promises, Sealed by those dreadful Oaths voluntarly given, were graven on Marble Tables, and Consigned for preservation into the custody of their Priests: and these are Boetius own words, Fol. 10. From which I observe, 1. That as our Laws assert, that our Kings derive their Power from God, and not from the People, so we ought not to believe the contrary upon the Faith of our Historians, except they were very clear, and unanimous in contradicting our Laws, whereas it appears to me, that our Laws agree with our History, for Gathelus was not at all Elected by the People, but was himself the Son of a King, and did Conquer by his own Subjects, and Servants, and all those who are descended from his Colonies, were by Law obliged to obey the Eldest Son, and Representative of that Royal Family. And Ferquhard is acknowledged to have been his only Successor, nor did ever any of the Scottish Tribes pretend to the Supremacy, and our Histories bear, that none of our Tribes would yield to another; and the Fatal Marble Chair that came from Spain, remaining with these who went to Ireland, does evince that the Birthright remained with them; and therefore when Fergus the Son of Ferquhard came over, he brought over with him the Marble Chair, which was the mark of Empire. And Boetius immediately upon his arrival calls him King, and Fordon the most Ancient of our Historians, lib. 1. cap. 36. calls him, Fergusius Filius Ferardi aut Ferquhardi ex antiquarum Regium prosapia genitus, qui ambitione Regnandi stimulatus magnam sibi juvenum copiam assimulavit & Albionem continuo progressus est & ibidem super eos Regem primum se constituit, that is to say, he made himself the first King▪ therefore K. james. Basil. Doron, pag. 201. asserts, that K. Fergus made himself King and Lord as well of the whole Lands, as of the whole Inhabitants. 2. We read nothing at all of the consent of the People, but of the Heads of the Tribes, who had no Commission from the People, each of them having by his Birthright a Power to Command his own Tribe, and consequently, the Royal Power was not derived to Fergus from the People, but had its Original from this Birthright that was both in them, and Fergus, and he succeeded in the Right of those Chiefs to Command their respective Families; and Boetius brings in King Fergus, lib. 1. num. 5. Speaking of himself, as a pious Parent, as one who owes to them what a Parent owes to his Children: sunt pij Parentes in Liberos propensi, & debemus vobis quod proli genitores. And the consent given by the Chief of the Clanns, and the People did not give, but declare the former Right, as our consent now does in Acts concerning the Prerogative, and as the Vote of the Inquest does in the Service of Heirs; and thus at the Coronation of our Kings, it is still said by our Historians, that such a man was declared King, communi suffragio & acclamatione. 3. This consent being only given in the Army cannot be said to have been universally by the People, nor do we read that the People did Commissionat the Army, or that the Army consulted the People; and in general it cannot be instanced, that the People did in any Nation universally consent to Election, nor is it possible all the People can meet. And in Pole, which is the only Elective Monarchy we know, the Freeholders' only consent, and yet every private Man and Woman have as great interest, according to these pretended Laws of Nature, as they have: & potior est conditio negantis. Nor do we find that the Commons, and mean People have any interest in the Elections, of our Magistrates, or Parliament Men; so that Popular freedom by Birth, and the interest of the People, in Popular Elections are but mere Cheats invented to engage the Rabble, in an aversion to the established Government, when factious and insolent Spirits, who cannot submit themselves to Government, design to cheat the Multitude by fair Pretences, and to bribe them by Flattery.  
If it be pretended, that it is not certain, whether King Fergus was eldest So● to Ferquhard, nor is it probable, that if he had been such, he would have preferred an uncertain Conquest in Scotland, to his secure Succession in Ireland. To this it is answered, that all our Histories bear, that King Ferquhard sent his Son Fergus, and when a Son is spoken of indefinitely, in such Cases, he is actually understood to be the Eldest. 2. He brought with him the Marble Chair, the mark of Empire, which would not have been allowed to a Cadet. 3. It is said, that having settled the affairs of Scotland, he returned into Ireland to settle the differences there about the choosing of a new King, which does import that he should have been King,, if he had not preferred Scotland to Ireland, and the reason of this preference was, because Ireland was then divided amongst many Kings, and his Predecessors had but a very small share of it at that time, and Scotland being a part of a greater Isle, he probably found in this greater Isle, a higher flight for his Hopes, and more latitude for his Ambition.  
But albeit the Kings of Scotland had been originally and at first elected by the People, yet it does not at all follow necessarily as Buchannan, Dolman, and our other Republicans pretend, that therefore they may reject them at their pleasure, or which is all one, when they imagine that the Kings Elected by them serve not the ends for which they were designed, and that for these Reasons. 1. It cannot be denied, but that the People may consent to an Election of a Monarch without Limitatons; for from the Principles of Nature, we may learn, that whatever is in ones power may be by them transferred upon another; and therefore, if the People be endued with a power of governing themselves, they may certainly transfer this Power upon another; and we see that all Christians, and even our Republicans allow, that men may sell themselves to be Slaves, a custom not only mentioned but approved by God himself, so far does consent reach beyond what is necessary for maintaining this Point. 2. If this could not be, than there could be no such thing as absolute Monarchies, which is against the received Opinion of all Nations, and against the Doctrine of all Authors, who, though they debate that this, or that Monarchy, in a particular Country is not Absolute, yet it was never controverted by any man alive, but that the People might consent, and in many places have consented to absolute Monarchies; and by the famous Lex Regia, amongst the Romans, Populus ei & in eum omne Imperium suum, & Potestatem transtulit, instit. de jur. nat. gent. & civ. § 6. Mentioned likewise by that Famous Lawyer Ulpian, l. 1. ff. de constitut. Princ.  
3. We see this consequence to be very false in many other cases, and therefore it cannot be necessary here, for we find that a man chooses a Wife, yet it is not in his power to put her away; Cardinals choose the Pope, and Chapters the Bishop, and yet they cannot depose them; the Common Council choose Magistrates, and yet they cannot lay them aside.  
4. This Reasoning is condemned as most fallacious, by most learned, and disinterested Lawyers, and therefore it cannot be infallible, as is pretended: vide Arnisaeum cap. 3. num. 2. Haenon. dis. Pol. 9 num. 44. Panorm. ad cap. 4. de Cler. non residend. Zasius ad l. non ambigitur num. 3 ff. de legibus, Nor have any Lawyers differed from this common opinion of mankind, except some very few, who have differed from a Principle of Pique, rather than of Judgement.  
The next thing that I am to prove in this my first Proposition, is, that Our King is an Absolute Monarch, and has the Supreme Power within this his Kingdom, and this I shall endeavour to prove, First, From our positive Law, 2. By several Reasons deduced from our Fundamental Laws and Customs. 3. From the very nature of Monarchy itself, and the Opinion of Lawyers who write upon that Subject, and who define Absolute Monarchy to be a Power that is not limited or restricted by coactive Law, Arnisaeus, de essentia Majest. cap. 3. num. 4.  
By the 25. Act Parl. 15. ja. 6. The Parliament does acknowledge, that it cannot be denied, but his Majesty is a free Prince, of a Sovereign Power, having as great Liberties, and Prerogatives, by the Laws of this Realm, and Priziledge of his Crown, and Diadem, as any other King, Prince, or Potentat whatseever. And by the 2. Act Parl. 18. ja. 6. The Parliament consenting to his Majesty's restoring of Bishops, declare and acknowledge the absoluteness of our Monarchy, in these words. The remeed whereof properly belongs to his Majesty, whom the whole Estates, of their bound n duty, with most hearty and faithful affection, humbly and truly acknowledge to be a sovereign Monarch, absolute Prince, judge and Governor, over all Persons, Estates and Causes, both Spiritual and Temporal, within his said Realm.  
And by the first Act of that same Parliament. The Estates and whole Body of this present Parliament, acknowledge all with one voluntar, humble, faithful, united heart, mind, and consent his Majesty's sovereign Authority, Princely Power, Royal Prerogative, and privilege of his Crown, over all Persons, Estates, and Causes whatsoever, within his said Kingdom.  
And because no Acts were ever made, giving Prerogatives, nor even declaring Prerogatives to have been due, until some special controversy did require the same, so that Possession, and not positive Law, was the true measure of the Prerogative; therefore the Parliament doth in that same Act approve, and perpetually confirm all the Royal Prerogatives, as absolutely, amply, and freely in all respects, and considerations, as ever his Majesty, or any of his Royal Predecessors possessed, used, and exercised the same; and they promise that his Majesty's Imperial Power, which God has so enlarged, shall never be in any sort impaired, prejudged, or diminished, but rather reverenced, and augmented as far as possibly they can.  
In the preface to our Books of Law, called Regiam Majestatem, it is acknowledged that the King has no Superior, except the Creator of Heaven and Earth, who Governs all. Foreign Lawyers also, such as Lansius de Lege Regiae, num. 49. and others do number the King of Scotland amongst the absolute Monarches.  
My second Argument for proving our King to be an absolute Monarch, shall be from my former position, wherein I hope I have proved sufficiently, that our Kings derive not their Right from the People; for if the King derive not his Power from the People, the Monarchy can never be limited by them, and consequently it must be an absolute Monarchy; for there could be nothing more unjust, more unnatural, and more insolent, then that the People should pretend a Right to limit and restrict that Power which they never gave; and the only reason why Buchannan, and his Complices, do assert our Monarchy to be a qualified and limited Monarchy, being that the People, when they first Elected our Kings, did qualify and restrict their Government. This position being false as appears by the absolute Oath, and original Constitution above set down, which is lessened, or qualified by no condition whatsoever, therefore the conclusion drawn from it must be false likewise.  
The third Argument shall be deduced from the Nature of Monarchy, and in order thereto, I lay down as an uncontroverted principle, that every thing must be constructed to be perfect in its own Nature, and no mixture is presumed to be in any thing; but he who alleges, that the thing controverted is added against Nature, must prove the same; and therefore since Monarchy is that Government whereby a King is Supreme, the Monarch must be presumed, neither to be obliged to Govern by the advice of the Nobility, (for that were to confound Monarchy with Aristocracy) nor by the advice of the People (for that were to confound it with Democracie;) and consequently if Buchannan, and others design to prove, that our Kings are obliged to Govern, by the advice either of the Nobility, or People, or are subject to be Chastised by them, they must prove, that our Kings, at their first Creation, were Elected upon these Conditions, the very Essence and Being of Monarchy, consisting in its having a Supreme, and absolute Power. Arnisaeus c. 30. Vasquez l. 1. Contrav. c. 47. Budaeus in l. princeps. Zas. ibid. ff. de legibus, pone enim, says Arnisaeus, populum in Regem habere aequalem potestatem neutrum pro summo venditari posse. When we hear of a Monarch, the first notion we have is, that he is subject to none; for to be a Subject and a Monarch, are inconsistent; but if we hear that his Nobility, or People, or both may Depose, or punish him, we necessarily conclude by the Light of Nature, that they, and not He, are the supreme Governors. Thus we see, that in allowing our King to be an absolute Monarch, we have only allowed him to be a Monarch, and to have what naturally belongs to him, and that by as necessary a consequence; for as every Man is presumed to be reasonable, because reason is the Essence of Man, so is a King presumed to be absolute, except these limitations whereby the Monarchy is restricted, could be proved by an express Contract.  
4thly, How is it imaginable, but that if our Predecessors had Elected our Kings upon any such Conditions, but they would have been very careful to have limited the Monarchy, and this Contract had with these conditions been recorded, whereas on the contrary we find, that albeit great care was taken to record the Oath of Allegiance made to the King, and to grave the same upon Marble Tables, consigned unto the custody of their Priests, as sacred Oracles; yet none of all our Historians make the least mention of any limitations in these Oaths, or by any other Contract; and to this day our Oaths of Supremacy, and Allegiance, are clogged and lessened by no limitations.  
If it be answered, that these limitations do arise from the nature of the thing itself, there being nothing more unreasonable, and contrary to the nature of Government, then that a Monarch, who was designed to be a Protector to his People, should be allowed to destroy them. To this it is answered, that Monarchy by its nature is absolute, as has been proved, and consequently these pretended limitations are against the nature of Monarchy, and so arise not▪ ex natura rei, nor can there any thing be more extravagant, than to assert that, that which is contrare to the nature of Monarchy, should arise from its nature, and it might be with greater reason pretended, that because the great design of men in Marriage, is to get a Helper, that therefore they may repudiat their Wives, when they find them unsupportable, and that the putting them away in such cases, is consistent enough with the nature of their Oath, though simple, and absolute; this cause of Divorce arising from the nature of Marriage itself: This is after Vows to make Inquiry, and what Vow, or Oath could be useful, if the giver were to be judge how far he were tied, and if his conveniency were the measure of his Obligation. But since I shall hereafter fully prove, that these limitations are as dangerous to the Subjects, as to the Prince, and that ten thousand times more Murders, and other Insolences have been committed in Civil Wars, upon the false pretence of Liberty, than ever was committed by the worst of Kings; it must necessarily follow, that those limitations ought not to be admitted after an absolute Oath, for eviting inconveniencies, which at the balance appear to be of no weight.  
5. It cannot be denied, but our Kings have ever had the power of Peace and War, the calling and disolving of parliaments, and a negative Voice in them, the remitting of Crimes, and nomination of Judges; and therefore it must be presumed, that since the Law has not limited them in those things, it has limited them in nothing; for by involving us in War, they may expose our Fortunes, our Wives and Children to the greatest of dangers; and it had been great folly to limit them in any thing, after those great Prerogatives were allowed: And though our Histories do bear, That Peace and War were ordinarily determined by the advice, and consent of the Nobility, yet that does no more infer a necessity not to do otherways, than the ordinary stile of all our Proclamations, bearing to be with advice of our Privy Council, infers a necessity upon the King to do nothing without their advice; and how could the consent of the Nobility have been necessary in the former Ages, since all their Right flowed from the King Himself, and that neither they then, nor the Parliament now, had, or have a Power equal with the King, much less above Him, as shall be fully proved in the first Conclusion, that I am to draw from this Doctrine; only to what I have said, I must here add, that it being proposed to our Predecessors, at the swearing the Oath of Allegiance to King Fergus, whether they would be governed by a King, who should have absolute Power, or by the Nobility, or by a Multitude? it was answered, that lest they should have many Kings in place of one, they abhorred to bestow the the Absolute Power either upon the Nobility, or upon the Multitude.  
6. I cannot but exceedingly commend our Predecessors, for making this reasonable choice of an absolute Monarchy, for a Monarch that is subject to the impetuous caprices of the Multitude when giddy, or to the incorrigible Factiousness of Nobility when interested, is in effect no Government at all; and though a mixed Monarchy may seem a plausible thing to Metaphisical Spirits and Schoolmen, yet to such as understand Government, and the World, it cannot but appear impracticable; for if the People understand that it is in their Power to check their Monarch, the desire of command is so bewitching a thing, that probably they will be at it upon all occasions; and so when the King commands one thing, the Nobility will command another, and it may be the People a third. And as it implies a contradiction, that the same Persons should both command and obey: so where find we those sober and mortified men, who will obey, when they may command. Let us consider what dreadful extravagancies, and cruelties appeared at Rome, betwixt the Tribunes of the People, and the Senate, one of six Kings had a Son, who ravished a Woman, and thereupon the Kings were expelled, but every year almost produced a Civil War, wherein vast numbers of free Romans were murdered, and in the contest betwixt Sylla and Marius, 90. Senators, 15. Consuls, 2600. Gentlemen, and 100000. others were murdered, and after the whole Commonwealth was exhausted in the Wars betwixt Cesar and Pompey; and in the immediate succeeding War betwixt Augustus, Anthony, and Lepidus, wherein every man lost either a Brother, a Father, or a Son, Rome returned again to its Monarchy, and was never so happy, as under Augustus. The People of Naples complaining lately of their Taxes, put themselves under the Command of Reforming Massaniello, by whose extravagancies they suffered more in one Month, than they had done under the Spainsh cruelty in an hundred years. But our late Reformation in Britain seems to have been permitted by God, to let us see that mixed Governments having power to Reform Kings, are more insufferable than Tyranny; for by it we saw that the multitude consists of Knaves and Fools, and both these are the worst of Governors, that the best of Kings will be thought wicked, when Subjects are his Judges, who resolve not to obey, and that it is impossible to know what is right, when every man is Judge of what is wrong. The impracticableness likewise of this popular Supremacy, will yet more convincingly appear, if we consider that the People are to be Judges, because of their natural freedom, for then all men should have equal right to be Reformers, and these can never meet nor consult together: And if it be answered, that the People may send their Representatives, my Reply is, that the greatest half of the Nation are neither Freeholders nor Burgesses; and yet those only are called the Representatives of the people; and what absurd Tricks and Cheats are used in choosing even those Representatives, and it may be the resolution prevails by the Vote of the greatest Fool or Knave in the Meeting; and if any one man remove by sickness or accident, at the passing of a Vote; or if any of the multitude be brybed or have prejudice, though on a most unjust account, that which would have been the interest of the Nation, turns to be against it, so infallible a Judge is the multitude. And I have seen in popular Elections, hundreds cry for a thing, and thereafter ask what was the matter.  
7 lie, If the the Proceres Regni, or Nobility are to be the check upon our Kings, and to be trusted with this coercive power of calling them to an account, as Buchannan pretends; then I desire to know who invested them with this power, for it was never pretended that it is naturally inherent in them: And if the people invested them, I desire to know by what Act the people transferred this power upon them, for they have no Law, nor original Constitution for this, as our Kings have for their Right; and passing over the dangers may arise from their having this power, because of the Factiousness, Poverty, Picques, Humours, or Ignorance that may be incident to them, it seems to me strange, why we the people should trust such to be our Checks over the King, who are His own Creatures, owing their Honours to Him, and expecting daily from Him Employments and Estates? and if they and the people differ, who is to be Judges of those Controversies? Nor can the Nobility and Commons assembled in Parliament have this coercive power, for the Reasons which I shall hereafter offer; and therefore none has it, but the King is Supreme in himself, and accountable to none, save God Almighty alone. But more of this will be found in the Sequel of this Discourse, upon other occasions.  
8 lie, Whatever proves Monarchy to be an excellent Government, does by the same Reason prove absolute Monarchy to be the best Government; for if Monarchy be to be commended, because it prevents Divisions, than a limited Monarchy, which allows the people a share, is not to be commended, because it occasions them; if Monarchy be commended, because there is more expedition, secrecy, and other excellent Qualities to be found in it, then absolute Monarchy is to be commended above a limited one; because a limited Monarch must impart his secrets to the people, and must delay the noblest designs until malicious and factious Spirits be either gained or overcome: And the same anallogy of Reason will hold in reflecting upon all other advantages of Monarchy, the Examination whereof I dare trust to every man's own breast.  
9 lie, It was fit for the People that their Kings should be above Law, because the severity of Law will not comply with that useful, though illegal Justice which is requisite in special cases, for since summum jus is summa injuria, and since impossibile est sola innocentia vivere, we may well conclude, that absolute Monarchy is necessary to protect the guilty innocent by Remissions, to break Laws justly, in a Court of Chancery, and to crook them uprightly in our Courts by an officium nobile. For strict and rigid Law is a greater Tyrant, than absolute Monarchy.  
I know that some pretend that the 25. Act 15. Par. ja. 6. declaring the King to be an absolute Prince, is only to be interpreted in opposition to the Pope's Authority, he being so far absolute, only as not to be Subject to the Pope, who pretended then a Jurisdiction over all Kings. But the answers to this are clear; First, This Statute is made to declare the Kings of Scotland to have Right by their Inherent Prerogative, to their exacting Customs for all Merchandise, because they are absolute Monarches, which Argument had been ridiculous, if this absoluteness had only been in opposition to the Pope, nor is there any mention of the Pope in all this Statute; and what interest hath the Pope in our Customs. 2dly, When the King's power is by our Statutes raised above the Pope, it is done by declaring him Supreme, and not by declaring him absolute. 3dly, All Lawyers, and Statesmen divide Monarchies in absolute and limited Monarchies, and the word Absolute, is still taken in opposition to limited, as is clear by Arnisaeus, Bodin, etc. And whereas it is pretended that these words in this Statute, acknowledging the King to be absolute, are only expressed transiently and enunciatively, but are not Decisive and Statutory. It is answered, that our Parliaments never give our King's Prerogatives, but only acknowledge what our Kings have by an Inherent and Independent Right; and these words in this Statute, are of all others in our Laws, expressed with most of Energy, for they are ushered with, It cannot be denied, but His Majesty has as great Liberties and Prerogatives, as any Monarch whatsoever: and this acknowledgement is made the Foundation of His Right to exact Customs. And in true Reasoning, nothing is made the proposition of an Argument, but that which is most uncontrovertable.  
I foresee that our fanatics and Republicans, will be ready to misrepresent absolute Monarchy, as Tyranny: But a Tyrant is he, who has no Right to Govern; and so he may be opposed, as the common Enemy of all the Society. And it is ridiculous to pretend with Hobbs, That we are obliged to obey whoever is once in possession; for that were to invite men to Torment us, and to justify Crimes by success. Nor can it be from this deduced, that since it is lawful to oppose any who are in Possession, that it is therefore lawful to oppose our Monarchy: because they have (as Algernon Sidney pretends·) Usurped over us, a power inconsistent with our natural Liberty. And owe their Right to that Prescription, which the greatest Tyrants may maintain by force, and to that consent which they may procure by Violence, or Flattery. For to this I answer, That our Monarches have their power established by Birthright, by Consent, by Prescription, and by Law; which are all the ways whereby any Right can be legally Established. But it is a gross mistake in Buchannan, and others, to conclude a lawful King punishable as a Tyrant, because he becomes vicious: For though God may punish him as such, yet his People cannot; that were to raise the Servant above the Master, and to occasion a thousand Disorders to redress one. and when King james acknowledges, that a good King thinks Himself made for his People, and not His People for Him. That is only said with reference to the Kings, duty to God, but not with Relation to the People's Duty to their King. And when Trajan delivering the Sword to the Proconsul, said Pro me, si mereor, in me. Grotius observes justly, That this was spoke as a Philosopher, and not to subject himself to the others jurisdiction. And so Buchannan did most traitorously advise the Printing this on our Coin. Nor does this Title of absolute Monarch, empower him to dispose upon our Estates. For it is fit to know, that Government is the Kings, and Property is the Subjects Birthright. Monarchy is a Government, and so can include no more, than what is necessary for Government. And though the Turk or Mogul, arrogat to themselves, the total Property of their Subjects, in this they are Tyrants, and not Kings. And when our Statute abovementioned, says, That our Kings have as much power as they, this is only to be understood of what Right they have by the Nature of Monarchy, Rex nomen est jurisdictionis non dominij, say the Lawyers: For the Law having said, that all things were the Emperors, l: been a Zenone. §. Sed scimus C. de Quadr: Prescript. The Emperor asked the famous Lawyer Bulgarus in what sense all was his, who is mightily praised for having answered, Omnia Rex possidet imperio singuli dominio, Accurs: in praem. ff. in Verb: Sanctioni, For what is once ours cannot be taken away without our consent: And therefore by the 5. Act, 1. Par. Ch. 2. It is declared lawful for the King to make Garrisons, His Majesty entertaining them on His own expense. And by the Act 3. Par. 3. Ch: 2. It is declared that the people shall not be subject to free Quarter, etc. And yet right reason teacheth us, that all the Land of Scotland having been once the Kings (for the Law saith, that the King is Safitus ratione Coronae, in all the Lands of Scotland) His Majesty is therefore presumed Proprietar of all, and every thing belongs to him, if some other cannot instruct a right which is the sense of that Law, Nemo terram nisi authoritate Regiâ possideto: And of King Malcolm Canmor's Law, that Rex distribuit totam Terram Scotiae hominibus suis. And it therefore clearly follows, that the King has Dominium directum, a right of Superiority, as all Superiors have, and that the people on whom he has bestowed these Lands, are obliged to concur in the expense with him, for the defence of it. For as if he had retained the Property, he would have been able with the Fruits and Rents to have defended it. So it is not agreeable to sense or reason that they to whom he has granted it, should not be obliged to defend it, especially seeing all the Rights made by the King, are in Law presumed mere Donations; For it cannot be denied but that all Lands were originally granted by the King, and so must have originally belonged to himself: for no person can give what is not his own; and our Law acknowledgeth, that all Lands belong to the King, except where the present Heretor can instruct a Right flowing from our King, and that he is the Fountain of Property, as well as of Justice. 2. In Law, all who are engaged in a Society, as to any thing that is the subject of the Society, should contribute to its preservation; and therefore the King having the Dominium directum, and the Vassal Dominium ut isle▪ it follows, that the Vassals of the Kingdom should contribute towards its preservation, and the King may expect justly an equal Contribution towards the defraying the necessary expense, and thence it was, that by our old Law, all Heretors were obliged to furnish some unum Militem, unum Sagittarium, or Equitem: Some a Bowman, some a Soldier, some a Horseman: But thereafter the King having changed these Holding, because all betwixt 60. and 16. were obliged to come to the Field with 40. days Provision, which was all that was then necessary; it follows, that now that way of making War being altered, the Subjects should contribute towards the way that is necessary for defending the Kingdom. 3. The King by His Forces protects our Persons, and by His Navies protects our Commerce, by His Ambassadors manages all our public Affairs, and by His Officers, and Judges, administrates Justice to us: And so it is just that all this should be done on our expenses, and that we should defray the public expenses of the Government, and so much the rather, because by a special Statute with us, it is declared that the King may impose what He pleases on all that is Imported, or may discharge us to export any thing without which we could not live; and what ever he gets from us, he distributes amongst us, without applying one shilling of it to his own private use.  
The King, or whoever has the management of the Government, have in the opinion of Lawyers, Dominium eminens, a Paramount and transcendent Right over even private Estates, in case of necessity, when the common Interest cannot be otherwise maintained; and this Grotius, though no violent friend of Monarchy, doth assert ve ve.ry positively and clearly; and it cannot be denied that a King may take any man's Lands, and build a Garrison upon it, paying for it; and that in case of a Siege, the King may order whole Suburbs to be burnt down for the security of the Town: And whence is this power, save from that Paramount and Supereminent Right that the King has over all private Estates, for the good of the whole So. ciety and Kingdom? Nor can it be denied▪ that the King may in time of War Quarter freely; and it is in his power to declare War, when, or where he pleases: Nor do the former Statutes oppose this, for they exclude not necessity that has no Law, and is itself that Law which gave David right to eat the Shewbread, and the Christian Emperors right to sell the Goods of the Church for maintaining their Armies, with consent of the Primitive Fathers; and this is so necessarily inherent in all administration, that the very Master of a Ship has power to throw over the Goods of Passengers and Merchants in a storm, for the preservation of the Ship: And they are not enemies to the King, but to themselves, who would deny the King this power.  
The third Class of Arguments that I am to use against these principles, shall be from Reason, and Experience in Fortification and Corroboration of our positive Law, and the nature of our Monarchy; for since humane Reason itself is liable to so many Errors; and since men when they differ, are so wedded to their own Sentiments, that few are so wise as to see their own mistakes, or so ingenuous as to confess them, when they see them: Therefore prudence and necessity has obliged men to end all Debates by making Laws: and it is very great vanity and Insolence in any private men, to balance their own private Sense against the public Laws; that is to say, the Authoritative Sentiments, and the legal Sense of the Nation.  
If we were then to Establish a new Monarchy, were it not prudent and reasonable, for us to consider what were the first Motives which induced our Predecessors to a Monarchy, and Boethius and Lesly both tell us, that lest they might be distracted by obeying too many, it was therefore fit to submit to one, if then this Reason was of force at first to make us submit to a Monarchy, it should still prevail with us to obey that Monarchy, and not gape idly after every new Model, Ne multos Reges sibi viderentur creare summam rerum aut optimatibus, aut ipsi multitudini permittere aspernabantur, says Boethius, fol: 6. Here the advantages of being Governed by Aristocracy, or Democracie, were expressly considered and rejected; so that we have our Predecessors choice, founded on their way of Reasoning, added to the Authority of our Law; and after, we their Successors, had seen the mischiefs arising from the pretences of Liberty and Property, with all the advantages that seeming Devotion could add to these. Our Representatives, after two thousand years' experience, and after a fresh Idea of a long civil War, wherein these Arguments and Reasons adduced by Buchannan, were fortified and seconded by thousands of Debates: They did by many passionate Confessions, and positive Laws acknowledge, that the present Constitution of our Monarchy. is most excellent, Act 1. Par: 1. ch: 2 d. That inevitable prejudices and miseries do accompany the invading the Royal Prerogative. Act 4. That all the troubles and miseries they had suffered, had sprung from these Invasions. Act 11. That all the bondage they had groaned under, was occasioned by these Distractions. Act 2. Par. Sess: 2. Ch. 2. So that we have here also a Series of Parliaments, attesting the reasonableness of the Constitution of our Monarchy, and His Majesty's Prerogatives.  
2. We must not conclude any thing unreasonable, or unfit, because there are some inconveniencies in it; for all humane Constitutions have their own defects. But I dare say, the principles of my Adversaries have moe than mine; for commonwealths are not only subject to err, because they have their passions as well as King; but they are subject to more passions: for 1. These who Govern in commonwealth and Aristocrasies', have Rivals whom they fear, and against whom, upon that account, they bear Revenge, which Kings want. 2, They are not so much concerned in these, they Govern as Kings; the one considering the Common Interest, as a Tennent does Lands, of which he takes his present advantage, though he should destroy it; the other caring for it as a Proprietar does for his own Ground; the one Jading it, as a Man does a hired Horse; the other using it as a Man does his own. 3. The people are ordinarily Governed by these who are the worst of men; for these ordinarily can flatter and cheat most, and can best use the Hypocrites Vizorn: Whereas the best Men ordinarily are abstemious, modest, and love a private Life, and were there ever such Villains as Governed us in the last Age? And in this too, can we deny but our pretenders to Liberty and Property, are the Cheats of the Nation? Who, to be in Employment, hate such as are in it, or are such as are discontented for being put out of it, or are Bankrupts, who resolve to make up their broken Fortunes by it. 4. Even good Men when they are raised to Govern, grow Insolent, of which Princes are not capable, for they are still the same. 5. Kings and Princes know they will be Charged with what they do; but the multitude knows, that the public in general, and not any one Man will be blamed: and so every private Man thinks himself secure, whilst he shifts it over on another; or else lessens it, by dividing it amongst many. 6. They are very subject to Factions, most Men scorning to obey their fellow Subjects; and when they are in Factions, who knows whom to obey; and those Factions will again subdivide in new ones, and so in infinitum; and when either prevails, they spare none, because their opposites are Enemies: But Kings pity even Rebels, remembering that they are their own. And I dare say, that more were Murdered and Ruined in one year, of the last Reforming Age, than suffered by the great Turk, the Mogul, and the King of France in twenty years. And more severity was exercised in one year by these Reformers, than by all this Race of our Kings; these 600. years. 7. If it be said, that Kings have ill Ministers, so have Commonwealths and we observed in Scotland, that after we had taken from our King the Prerogative of choosing Judges and Counselors, our Parliament did the next year, choose the greatest Blockheads, and Idiots in all the Nation, whom the Ringleaders advanced, to the end they might Govern all themselves; to which Cheat, Kings cannot be liable, it being their Interest to have able Ministers▪ And whereas Kings have no Interest to prefer one to another: yet in popular Governments, every one endeavours to prefer his own Relations. 8. In difficult Cases, haste and expedition requires, that one should be trusted: and even the Romans behoved in great dangers, to employ a Dictator, who was accountable to no man for any thing he did. 9 There can be no Secrecy in popular Governments, as in Monarchy, and what many must know, all may. 10. Enemy's may always get some in popular Governments to side with them, and upon specious pretexts, to retard all good Designs; and when popular men are Debating for shadows, the occasion slips away irrecoverably. 11. Either Commonwealths employ no extraordinary persons, being ever jealous: or if any man become such by great Actions, or long Experience, he is presently ruined. And it is observable in this Age, that the great Zobieskie durst never undertake any great thing since he became King of Pole. And if we consider the severity of Venice against their Nobles, and their Executing Men, without citing or hearing them, and that upon mere jealousies. We must confess, that there is less Liberty there, than under the worst of Monarchies; nor was ever any people so miserable as Rome, during their Republic, having been ruined in every age with civil Wars, and having had no great man, who died not miserably, after many false and popular Accusations, and did not the Wit find little of that Justice which he magnified in Republics.  
But whatever may be said against the inconveniencies arising from the passions, humours, and insolences of the Populace in Commonwealths, yet much more may be said against the allowing that Prerogative to them under a Monarchy, for that were to Distract for ever the Government betwixt two contradictory Supreme Powers, and make the People miserable in not knowing whom to obey when they differ, and to make Government, which should defend against a Civil War, become the cause of it; for how can it be in reason expected, but that if the People know they can control the King, ambitious, and discontented Ring-lerders, or ignorant and bigote Multitudes will be always endeavouring to use this their Prerogative, since it seems always glorious, and oft times advantageous to oppose Kings, whereas on the other hand Kings cannot but be always jealous of, and fear popular Invasions, and both these Powers shall like Neighbouring Princes, be always endeavouring to gain advantages upon one another, and in these Contests shall be spent all the time and pains that should be bestowed in resisting the Common Enemy, which cannot but very much lessen the Love which Princes ought to have for their People, and the Respect which People ought to have for their Prince, and how can it be imagined, but that in this case the People shall always groan under greater misfortunes than these which they felt betwixt the Bruce and the Balliol, the King and Queen? Pretended Factions in the Minority of K. james 6. and the Houses of Lancaster and York, because the one can never end, being inherent in the nature of the Government, whereas the other are but accidental and temporary, All which cannot but appear very probable, as well as dreadful to those who consider the late Rebellion, wherein the People pretending that the King had violated their Liberties, they murdered and pillaged all such as were not of their Opinion, and after they had ruined their Prince, the People divided and fought one against another, the greater part pretending they ought to be obeyed, because of their numbers, and the lesser pretending that they were the sounder part, and had the better Cause, and it is impossible in such a case to find a Judge of Controversies. Which is another unanswerable Argument against the People's Supremacy, by which all they can gain is an endless Liberty of ruining one another without hope of Redress. Nor can Parliaments remedy this, for we have seen opposite Parliaments Sitting at the same time Forfeiting one another, whilst the astonished Multitude stood at a Gaze, not knowing whom to obey, and praying that God would Re-establish our lawful Monarchy, with which, when it was Miraculously Restored, they were so overjoyed as men are when they are freed from the Galleys, in which they had been Treated as Slaves.  
And whereas these Republicans pretend that the King is but a Physician, this shows that they design to have no King, for any man may lawfully change his Physician, and Buchannans 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 man's Heirs for Tutors, 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.  
A Tutor has not an inherent Right of Property as a King hath to the Government of the Nation, and to the Imperial Crown thereof, only I join so far with Buchannan in these 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 Judgement like Mi. nors, 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 a Tool in their own Slavery.  
Nor is there 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 aught to be preferred to Him. For to this it is answered, that 1. The question here is not, who is more preferable, but who is the Superior? And though one good Christian be preferable to a thousand, who are not so, yet their Interest in the Commonwealth is not preferable; the wiser part is still preferable to the greater part: and yet the greater will overrule 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 King's Interest and the People's 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 King's Power be derived from God, or from the People? Yet if it be derived from God, it is preferable, because of God's 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 public Interest, the public Interest is still preferable. I know that Buchannan and others, value themselves much upon the Instance of the Bruce and Balliol, in which the people did Declare, that they preferred the Bruce, because the Balliol had enslaved the Kingdom to the English. And it is generally urged, that all Lawyers are clear, that if a King Alienat His Kingdom, His people may Disclaim Him. But my answers are, That if a King will Alienat His Kingdom, the Subjects are free in that case, not by their power to reassume 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 irritat 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 Pope's Decision, who pretended then to be the Supreme Judge, over all Kings. And john Major, as many other Popish Writers were still enemies to the Supremacy of Kings upon that account. But though the Bruce, to please the people, should have shunned to quarrel 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 King's 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-ordinat with our Kings, in the Legislative Power; but that the Legislative and Architectonick Power of making Laws (as Lawyers term it) does Solly 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 3 ds. time, according to the Computation of the severest Republicans 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 coordinate power with the King, whilst 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 acquiesced in 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 King's Statutes, as in all the Statutes of King William, King Alexander 2 d. and in the Statutes of King Malcolm Canmore: King David the first, and King David the 2 d. 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 these Parliaments, such as in the Parl. K. Alexander 2 d. 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 K. Robert the 3 d. 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-ordinat power with the King, when no man can sit in it but by a privilege from the King: but so it is, that all that are Members of Parliament, sit there by a special privilege from the King, and there is nothing considered to capacitate them to sit, but the Force and Energy of that Privilege, without respect, either to what Land they possess, or what number of People they represent. And thus the Nobility and Bishops, sit there, by virtue of the King's Creation; and the King may Create a hundreth Noblemen that morning that the Parliament is to sit, though none of all the hundreth, have not one foot of Land in Scotland; and though the Barons must have some Land, else they cannot Represent any Shire; yet though a Gentleman had 5000. pounds Sterling a year, he could not sit there, except he be the King's immediate Vassal, and holds his Lands of His Majesty in capite: So that he sits not by virtue of his Land, but as Capacitated by the King. And though these who Represent the Burrows Royal are Commissionated by the people of their burgh's; yet the people who sent them, are not considered in that Commission, but the power only which the King gives them to send: For though a Town had a hundreth thousand Inhabitants, and another only twenty Inhabitants: yet these 100000 could not be Re-presented in Parliament, except the King had Erected their Town in a Burgh Royal, From which I evince two things, 1. That the Parliament is the King's Council, in which he may call any He pleases, and not as the people's Representatives only, since there are great multitudes in the Nation, Represented by none there: For though they Represent their Constituents in Parliament, yet the power of sending Representatives, is derived from the King Originally, and flows not from any proper Right inherent in those whose Representatives they are. 2. That Judicature cannot have a Co-ordinat power with the King, which He needs not Call except He pleases, and which He can Dissolve when He pleases: and in which, when they are Met, He has a Negative Voice, which can stop all their Proposals, and Designs; For, if they were Co-ordinat with the King, then par in parem non habet imperium, and it is against common Sense to think that these two can be equal, when the power of the one flows from the other; By which is likewise clear that the great principle laid down by Buchannan, viz. That the King is Singulis Major, universis Minor, greater than any one, but less than the collective Body of the Parliament taken together, is absolutely false; because he has a Negative Voice over that collective Body, and as they cannot Meet without him, so he can Dissolve them when he pleases, and I confess it seems to me unintelligible how they can be greater than the King, by virtue of a power which they Derive from the King. 4. The Parliament is called by the King's Council, as is clear from the Inscriptions of all our old Parliaments. Thus the Statutes of Alexander the 2. begin, Alexander By the Grace of God King of Scots did by the Common Council of his Earls Decree, etc. The Statutes of K. Robert bear to be by the Common Council of his Prelates, etc. The first Statute of King Robert 2. Bears that none who is Elected to be of the King's Council shall bring another to it who is not Elected. The 8, and 13. Parliaments of K. ja. 1. And the 2, 3, 4, and 7. of K. ja. 2. Bear for Inscriptions, The Parliament or general Council of such Kings. And the 1. Act of that 8. Parliament K. ja. 1. Bears Quo Die Dominus Rex deliberatione & consensu totius Concilij, etc. And it is against Sense to think that any man's Counsel can have Authority over him, for as we say Counsel is no Command. 5. The Parliament was but the King's Baron Court, as is very clear to any man who will read the old Registers of Parliament, in which he will see that the Parliament was Fenced, and the Suits were called, and Absents Unlawed as in other Baron Courts, whereof many public Records are extant, and I shall only set down that of the 8. Parliament ja. 1. The words of which Inscription are, In Parliamento octavo, vel Concilio generali Illustrissimi Principis, jacobi Dei gratia Regis Scotiaetento apud Perth & inchoato tificato & approbato, tanquam sufficienter & debite praemunito, per tres Regni Status, duodecimo die mensis Julij Anno Domini millesimo, quadringentesimo vicesimo, octavo, cum continuatione dierum & temporum, summoni●is & vocatis debito modo & more solito, Episcopis, Abbatibus, prioribus, Comitibus, Baronibus & omnibus libere tenentibus, qui tenent in capite, de dicto Domino nostro Rege & de quolibet burgo regni, certis burgensibus, comparentibus omnibus illis, qui debuerunt, voluerunt & potuerunt interest, quibusdam vero absentibus, quorum quidam fuerunt legitime excusati, aliis per contumaciam se absentantibus, quorum nomina patent in rotulis sectarum, quorum quilibet adjudicatus fuit in amerciamento decem librarum ob ejus contumaciam. And that the King was Judge what Barons should come to the Parliament, is most clear by the 75. Act Par. 14. ja. 2. whereby it is declared, no Freeholder under the sum of 20. pounds, shall come except he be specially called by the King, either by his Officer, or by Writ, and though afterwards the King allowed two Barons of every Shire to be sent to Represent all the Barons for saving Expenses, yet even after that Concession it is declared by the 78. Act Par. 6. ja. 4. That no Freeholder be compelled to come, but give our Sovereign Lord Writ specially for them.  
It being thus clear that the Parliament is the King's Baron Court, it seems a wonder to me how it could have entered into the heart of any sober man to think that any man's Baron Court, but much less the King's Baron Court, should have power and jurisdiction over him, and that it should be lawful to them, as Buchannan and these other Authors assert, to punish him or lay him aside, all which assertions are equally impious and illegal.  
6. When the King resolves to lessen any way his own Power, this is not done by the Authority of the three Estates, as certainly it would be, if they had the power to lessen his Authority, but the King does the same from his own proper Motive, as when the King binds up his own Hands from granting Remissions in cases of forethought Felony, ja. 4. Par. 6. Act 63. And when an Act was to be made, discharging the Lords of the Session to admit of private Writings from the King to stop the procedure of Justice, this is not Enacted by the three Estates but only by the King, and is founded upon the Kings own Promise, Act 92. Par. 6. ja. 6. And in all Acts of Parliament the King only Statutes as Legislator, and the Parliament only Advise and Consent, which shows that they are not Co-ordinat with the King, as is asserted by Buchannan and others, much less above him. And the Acts of Parliament in the late Rebellion having run thus, Our Sovereign Lord, and the three Estates contrare to the Tenor of all the Laws that ever were made in Scotland. The Parliament returning to their duty, ordained that Style to be altered, and to bear as formerly, Our Sovereign Lord, with Advice and Consent, etc.  
But lastly, what advantage can the people have by placing their security in the Parliament, since they are so liable to Passions, Errors, and Extravagancies, as well as Kings are, and have, if Buchannan be believed, betrayed the interest of the Kingdom, since K. Kenneth the seconds time, now above 700. years; and they are ordinarily led by some pragmatical Ringleaders, who have not that interest to preserve the Kingdom that Kings have: and since the King may make so many Noblemen and burgh's Royal at pleasure, by whose Votes he may still prevail. What security can we have by giving them a power above the King, or how can they have it?  
From all which it may clearly appear that we have had Kings long ere we had Parliaments, and that the Parliaments derive their power from the King; and that at first our King only called the Heads of Families, and his own Officers, as his Council, with whom he consulted, without any necessity to call any others than he pleased, there being no Law, Article, nor Capitulation obliging him from the beginning thereto: And our Kings were so far from having Parliaments associated with them in their Empire, that there is no mention at all of them, or of any condition relating to them in the first Institution of our King's above-related; nor were there any Parliaments in being at that time. But after the Feudal Law came to be in vigour, than our Kings looking upon the whole Kingdom as their own in property; King Malcolm Canmore did distribute all the Land of Scotland amongst his Subjects, as his Liegemen, which is clear by the first Chapter of his Laws; and according to the Feudal Law, all the Vassals of our Kings compeared in their Head-Court, and therein consulted what was fit for the Kingdom; but thereafter the way of making War, requiring Money and Property belonging to the Subject, as Government did to the King, it was necessary to have their consent for raising Money: And from this did arise the inserting the advice and consent of the three Estates in our Acts of Parliament.  
From this also it is very clear that their opinion is very unsolid and ill founded, who think that Kings can do nothing without a special Act of Parliament, even in matters of Government. As for instance, that, he cannot restrain the licence of the Press, or require his Subjects to take a Bond for securing the Peace; for these and the like being things which relate immediately to Government, the King has as much right to regulate these, as we have to regulate and dispose upon our Property, Government being the King's Property. 2. Though the Monarchy had been derived from the People, yet how soon our Kings got the Monarchy, they got every thing that was necessary for the Explication and Administration of it, which as it is common sense and reason, so it is founded upon that most wise and just Maxim in Law, Quando aliquid conceditur, omnia concessa videntur, sine quibus concessum explicari nequit. 3. I desire to know where there is yet a Law giving the King a Negative voice, a power of erecting Incorporations, or a power to grant Remissions, for Crimes, or Protections for Civil Debts, and yet the people is far more concerned in these; and the King's having power to do these, and a thousand other things, doth rather oblige and warrant me to lay down a general rule, that the Kings of Scotland can do every thing that relates to Government, and is necessary for the administration thereof, though there be no special Law or Act of Parliament for it, if the same be not contrary to the Law of God, Nature, or Nations.  
The second Conclusion that we draw from these former principles, is, that Princes cannot be punished by their own Subjects, as Buchannan and our Republicans do assert, which is most clear by the former Laws, wherein it is declared, that the King is a Sovereign and Absolute Prince, and deriving his power from God Almighty. That it is Treason to endeavour to depose, or suspend the King. Wherein our Law is founded on the nature of Monarchy; for if He be Supreme, He cannot be judged, for no man is judged but by his Superior, and that which is Supreme can have no Superior: and on the Principles of the Law of Nature and Nations, because saith the Law, no man can be both the person who Judgeth, and the person Judged; and it is still the King who Judgeth, since all other Judges do represent him, and derive their power from him, Ipse se prator cogere non potest, quia triplici officio fungi nequit suspectum dicentis, & coach, & cogentis L. Ille a●quo ff. ad Treble. It is a principle in all Law, that Jurisdiction and all other Mandates cease with the power that granted it, and therefore as they acknowledge that a King cannot be cited till he have forfeited His just Right, so how soon he has forfeited it, all the power of the ordinary Judges in the Nation falls, and becomes extinct, and no other Judge can Judge Him, because no other Judge can sit by virtue of any other Authority, till it be known that he has forfeited his, and that cannot be till the event of the Process; and if the People be Judges, yet they cannot assume the Government till the King has forfeited it: And why also should they be Judges, who have neither knowledge nor moderation, who are acted by humour, and delight in insolence? And how shall they meet? Or who shall call them? Nor can the Parliament judge them, because they derive their right from the King, as shall be proved: And though they were equal, yet no equal can judge another, par in parem non habet Imperium, nemo sibi Imperare potest. No man can command himself, l. si de re sua, ff. derecept. ●rbitr. Nemo sibi legem imponere potest, l. quid autem ff. de donat. inter virum & uxorem, and therefore the Civil Law, which is ours by Adoption, does positively assert, that Princeps legibus solutus est, the King is liable to no Law, l. princeps, ff. de legibus: For though He be liable to the Directive Force of the Law, that is to say, He ought to be Governed by it as His Director: Yet He is not liable to the Co-ercive Force of the Law, as all Lawyers that are indifferent do assert, H●rmenopol▪ l. 1. tit. 1. Sect. 48. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The King is not Subject to the Law, because offending against them, he is not punished, vid: Granswinkell. cap. 6. Arnis. cap. 4. Francisc. a victoria Relect. 3. numb 4. Ziegler. de jur. Majes. cap. 1. num. 12. with whom the Fathers also agree, Ambros. in Apol. David cap. 4. Liberi sunt Reges a vin●ulis delictorum neque enim ullis ad poenam vocantur legibus, tuti Imperij potestate Isiodorus 3. sent. cap. 31. populi peccantes judicem me●●u●t, Reges autem solo. Dei timore, metuque g●hennae coercentur: And in this Sense, they take these words, Psal. 51.— Against thee, thee only have I sinned; and I was glad to find in Bishop Ushers Power of Prince's, amongst many other Citations, that the Rabbis, and particularly Rabbi jeremiah own●d that no Creature may Judge the King, but the Holy and Blessed God alone, in which also Heathens agree with Jews and Christians, Ecphantas the Pythagorean makes it the Privilege of God, and then of the King, to be Judged by none, Stobeus Sermon. 46. and Dion in Marco Aurelio tells us, that it is certain, that free Monarches cannot be Judged, save by God alone, and if it were otherwise, we should see them very unsecure, for the ambition and avarice of insolent Subjects should never or seldom miss to form their Process, and why should Parties be Judges? But to demonstrate the Justice Kings and Princes are to expect from the Populace and Mobile, let us remember their Material Justice, in the usage of our Saviour, when they cried, Crucify him, Crucify him; their Sentence against King CHARLES the Martyr, when they were at the height of their pretensions to Piety, and public Spiritedness; their usage of the Wit, the Idolizer of them, and their Commonwealth: and if we want a true Idea of their Form of Process, we will find it in their usage of the Archbishop of St. Andrews and others, no L●bel, no Citation, no Defences, no Sentences, no time to prepare to die: and yet all this are the Dictates of pure and devout public Spiritedness. Buchannans Bloody Arguments for this position are, that Tyrants have been Murdered with applause, and Princes would become licentious, if they were not Restrained, by the just fear of being called to an account: That the Roman and Venetian Magistrates have been punished by the people, and that the ordinary Judges of the place have Judged them: and that some of our Kings, as well as these of other Nations, have been punished as Tyrants.  
To which I answer shortly, that Inconveniencies must not prevail with us to break our Oaths, and overturn our Laws, for nothing has so great inconveniency in it, as this has, these being but partial, and this is a total Inconveniency. And the English Lawyers agree, that a mischief is better than an inconvenience, and this should have been considered, before we swore to Monarchy: and if the people were Electors, as they never were; yet they should have reserved this power, or else they cannot now challenge it. But though our Law were not clear, as it is most uncontroverted upon this point: Yet right Reason should persuade us to have reserved no such power: For as Kings may err, so may the Judges who are to Try them: and it is more probable their Tryers will, because they may be acted by Revenge, Ambition, or Popularity; and there is nothing so liable to err as the populace.  
The Romans and Venetians might have punished their Magistrates, because these Magistrates were not Vested with a Supreme power; nor were they Sovereigns as our Monarches are. And those Judges who Tried them, derived not their power from those Magistrates who Tried them, as our Judges do; for the same consent, and compact by which they were made the Chief, the others were made also Magistrates, which cannot be said of absolute Monarches, who derive not their power from the people as these do, and the Instances of Kings who have been Murdered, are Crimes in them, who did commit them, and so should not be Rules to us. And generally the best of Kings have been worst used. But who can escape by innocence, when King CHARLES the Martyr fell by Malice: Such also as cry up the Murderers of Tyrants▪ who had no just Right, never meant to allow the Arraignment of lawful Monarches, who, when they err, have God only for their Judge; and if they fear not Him, and eternal Punishment, they will not probably fear mortal Men, and their own Subjects whom they can many ways escape. 2. There is no Creature so unreasonable, but he will use his own with discretion, though there be no Law obliging him to it, nor Punishment to be inflicted, if he do otherways: who burns his own House, or drowns his Lands, though he may do it? For the Law considers, that a King is either mad, and if so, he will respect no Law, and should not be punished, at least he will not stand in awe for fear of it, or else he is of a sound Judgement, and then he needs no Law; and therefore, Why should we apprehend that a King will destroy His own Kingdom. 3. A King is also obliged by His Fame, to do things worthy of His high Trust, and things able to abide that conspicuous height to which he is exposed. 4. Though His people ought not to Rebel, yet no thinking man can be sure that they will not. And therefore even the greatest Tyrants fear such accidents, though they know they are not bound by these Laws, that tie Subjects. And if all these fail, yet we must reverence God's Dispensations, and expect a redress of these unusual Emergents from his Divine Goodness, for whose sake we suffer them; Rather than expose all to ruin, by endeavouring a revenge, that may be so unjust, in the preparative, and dangerous in the event.  
The 3. Conclusion which I shall draw from the former principles, shall be, that as it is not lawful for Subjects to punish their Kings, so neither is it to rise in Arms against them upon what pretext soever, no not to defend their Liberty nor Religion. Which Conclusion also I shall endeavour to Establish on sure foundations of Positive Law. Reason, Experience, and Scripture. As to our Positive Law, it is clear, for by the 3. Act Par. 1. ja. 1. It is declared Rebellion to rise in Arms against the King's Person: And by the 14. Act 6. Par. K. ja. 2. It is Treason to Rebel against the King's Person or Authority: By the 25. Act Par. 6. ja. 2. It is Treason to rise in fear of War against the King's Person or his Majesty, or to lay hands upon his Person violently, whatever age they be of, or to help or supply these who commit Treason. By the 131 Act 8, Par. ja. 6. All the Subjects are discharged to Convocat for holding of Councils or other Assemblies without his Majesty's express Warrant; and by the 12. Act 10. Par. K. ja. 6. The entering into Leagues or Bonds without his Majesty's special Command is declared to be Sedition. All which Acts are prior to Buchannans time, and consequently he was very inexcusable in advancing this Rebellious Principle. And these Laws having excepted no case, exclude all cases and pretexts of rising in Arms against the lawful Monarch; but our unhappy Countrymen having by a long and open Rebellion opposed the most devout, and most just of all Kings upon the false pretexts of Liberty, and Religion, the Parliament of this Kingdom, from a full Conviction of the Villainies of these times, and to prevent such dangerous Cheats for the future, they did by the 5. Act, Par. 1. Char. 2. Declare it to be Treason for any number of his Majesty's Subjects to rise in Arms upon any pretext whatsoever, and to show that all such Glosses as were used by Buchannan were absurd, and did not evacuat the first Laws, though general, the Parliament did by the 4. Act of that 1. Parliament declare that any Explanation or Gloss, that during the late Troubles hath been put upon these Acts, as that they are not to be extended against any Leagues, Councils, Conventions, Assemblies, or Meetings, made, holden, or kept by the Subjects, for Preservation of the King's Majesty, the Religion, Laws, and Liberties of the Kingdom, or for the public Good either of Kirk or Kingdom, are false and Disloyal, and contrare to the true and genuine meaning of these Acts. Which Statute is a clear decision against Buchannan, finding that the Statutes that were prior to his time, and all other such general Statutes made in favours of the King, did formerly strike against his Principles and Distinctions. As also to preclude all avenues to Rebellion by teaching, defending, or encouraging others to Rebel upon these pretexts, as the former Act declared, that actual rising in Arms was Rebellion. So by the 2. Act Sess. 2. Par. 2. Charles 2. It is declared Treason for any Subject to maintain these positions, viz. That it is lawful for Subjects upon pretence of Reformation, or any other pretence whatsoever, to enter into Leagues, or Covenants, or to take up Arms against the King, or any Commissionated by him.  
2. All the Arguments formerly adduced against the power of the Subject to punish his Person, do fully prove likewise that they have no power to rise in Arms against him. For either the collective Body of the Subjects are Superior to him, and if so, they may not only rise up in Arms against him, but they may punish him; but if the King be Superior to them, as has been formerly proved, than it cannot be lawful for Subjects to rise up in Arms against him, no more than it is to punish his Person. Nor can I see how all such as declare for a Defensive War, are not to be concluded guilty of designing to Murder the King, for if the King come in Person to defend his own Right, as certainly he will, and must; can it be thought they will shoot at none, lest they kill him? and if they shoot, how can they secure his Sacred Person? and if they kill him in the Field, are they less guilty of his Murder, than these Russians who lately designed it? Or doth it lessen the guilt that these designed to kill him alone privately? whereas our moderate men will in face of the Sun, and with displayed Banners against God and him, kill with him all such, as being persuaded that they are obliged before God to assist him, expose their lives for their duty.  
3. That dangerous, though specious Principle of defensive Arms, is inconsistent with that order of Nature which God has established, and which is absolutely necessary amongst all other humane Relations; and by the same Analogy, by which we allow Subjects to rise against their Prince, we may much more allow Children to rise against their Parents, Servants, against their Masters, Soldiers against their Officers, and the Rabble against their Magistrates: for the King does eminently comprehend all these relations in his Sovereignty, as inferior Branches of that Paramount, and Monarchical power. And what a glorious state should mankind be left in, if Anarchy were thus Established, and every man should be invested with power to be his own Judge? Or dares any reasonable man assert, that this is fit to be allowed in the present condition of Mankind, for since the generality of men can scarce be contained in their Duty by the severest Laws that can be made, what can be expected from them, when they are loosed from all Law, and are encouraged to transgress against it?  
If the multitude could prove that they were infallible, and that no oppression could be expected from them, some thing might be said, why we might balance them with authority. But since both Reason and doleful experience, teach us, that generally the multitude consists of Knaves and Fools, who alter not to the better by Conspiring together, nor become juster, for being led by such ambitious, and discontented Spirits, as ordinarily lead on Rebellions. It is safer to obey those of the two fallible Governors, whom God hath set over us, and whom the Law ties us to obey, and to whom also we are bound by the Oath of Allegiance; especially, seeing thus we may probably expect, that they will be more careful of us, as being their own, than mere Strangers, who use us only for their own Ends. And at the worst in the King, we can have but an ill Master, whereas in allowing Subjects to usurp, we may fight to get ourselves hundreds of Tyrants, and these two fight against one another, so that we shall not even know which of these Devils to obey.  
The Arguments that can be adduced to justify this Principle of Defensive Arms, are almost answered in the former Article, viz. That there is a mutual Obligation betwixt King and people, so that when He breaks the one, they are free from the other, and that all Government is Established for the advantage of the People, and thus these few Arguments peculiar to this Point, remain now only to be here solved. 1. That self-defence is by the Law of Nature allowed to all, and even to Brutus'▪ why then should men who may lose more, who deserve better, and can use self-defense more innocently be debarred from it? 2. We see in Scripture, that the people deserted and opposed their Kings for Religion. 3. This has been allowed with us in the instance of King james the third, against whom his Subjects rose in Rebellion, for Mis-governing and oppressing His people, and this opposition, was first justified by God, in the success he gave to their Arms, and thereafter by a special and express Act in the ensuing Parliament, which stands yet unrepeal'd.  
To which I shortly answer, that as to the first of self-defense in Brutes, we must still remember, that God having designed Government to bridle the Extravagancies of restless Mankind, he has appointed Magistrates to be his Vicegerents and Representatives, and has entrusted them with his power, and so opposition to them is unlawful, because it is not lawful against him; and because if it were allowed, all would pretend to it, and so there should be no Order, nor Government. And that this may be the better observed, God has endowed man with Principles fitted for these ends of Order and Society, amongst which, one is, That the public Safety of the whole is to be preferred to the Safety of any one man, or of any number of private men, who are not to be considered as the public, because that is the public Interest, which is the Representative of the Nation, and that this Principle may be the better obeyed, he has commanded men to suffer injuries, rather than occasion Disorders, and has promised to reward Patience and Submission for his sake, with eternal Life, a Nobler Prize, than we here can contend for.  
This being then Premised, It is answered, that though Brutes may defend themselves, because Order and the common good of Societies are not there concerned; yet there is no reason to extend this to Men, whose self-defense against Authority occasions more mischief, than it can bring advantage: and if this Argument hold, it would prove, that every man who is unjustly Condemned, or at least thinks so, may kill the King, or His Judge; Servants might bind their Masters, and the people of any private Town might pull down their Judge from the Bench, when they thought he oppressed them. And as these must submit, because they expect Reparation from a higher Tribunal. So God has promised Reparation to those who suffer for his sake; and the greatness and sureness of this Reward, makes this no uncomfortable Doctrine, and this Submission is as necessary, and rather more, for men's preservation, than Resistance; and is a kind of self-defence, since opposition to Authority would bring a certain ruin, and confusion, in which more would perish, than opposition by private self defence would preserve. Upon which Christian Principles also, Ames. a Protestant and Calvinist Divine has resolved that, In bonis temporalibus tenetur quisque personam publicam si●i ipsi praeferre, bonum enim totius pluris faciendum est quam bonum alicujus partis Cas: conscient: l. 5. cap. 7. Thes·s 14. and Lex Rex confesses, p. 335. That a private man should rather suffer the King to kill him, than that he should kill the King, because he is not to prefer the Life of a private man, to the Life of a public man.  
And whereas it may be pretended, that though this opposition should not be trusted to any private man, yet Parliaments and the Collective Body should, and may be trusted with it. But to this I have answered formerly, that all Convocations without Authority from the King, and all rising against him are indefinitely declared unlawful, and justly, for whoever wants Authority, is but in a private capacity, none having a public capacity, save the Magistrates. And if they be allowed to rise, because their quarrel is just, it must be as just to allow a lesser number, if they have the same Justice in their pretexts, and we have frequently seen, that the same persons who magnified the multitude for their numbers, did shortly thereafter divide from them, pretending that they were the Sanior pars, or juster Party.  
4. This position is against the very Nature, not only of Monarchy, but of all Governmments; For who will obey when they may resist? And who can be Judges whether the pretences upon which Arms are taken, be lawful, or not? And therefore since it is unlawful for Subjects to take up even Defensive Arms, until it be found that the King against whom these defensive Arms are taken up be a Tyrant, and an Oppressor: It clearly follows, that these Subjects must first have a power to judge and find that the King has erred, which is to declare the People to be Judges of their King; and we may be soon convinced that this Principle is against the Nature of all Government, if we consider that if it were lawful for Subjects with us to rise against the King, it should be lawful for these in a Commonwealth, or Aristocracy, to rise against their Governors, since these may err as well as Kings do; and if this were allowed, all Nations should always have one Rebellion rising out of the Ashes of another, for only they who prevailed should be satisfied, and all the rest would certainly conclude that they might more justly oppose these Usurpers, one or moe, than the first did oppose their lawful Prince; and thus Government which is designed for the security of the State, should run in a Circle fixed upon no certain Basis, and determined by no sure Measures.  
5. This Principle is dangerous for the Subjects, as well as for the King and other Governors; for if Kings be persuaded that Subjects think this opposition lawful, than they will be still jealous of them, and will be necessitated on all occasions to secure against such oppositions, and so this Doctrine tends more to make our King a Tyrant, than to make us free. And if the difference betwixt King and People, should draw both to Arms, where can we find a Judge, to whom both Parties will submit? So that to allow this power in the People to debate, is to allow a difference that can never end; and so what innocent man shall be able to know whom he may securely follow? And the best issue that could be expected from these debates, would be, that the one half of the Nation should ruin the other: So comfortable and just is this rebellious Doctrine.  
6. If we consult either our own experience, or History, we will find that these pretexts of Liberty, and Religion, have always been used by those who loved neither, and that they have been ordinarily used against the best of Kings, and so prove to be mere Cheats upon their parts who use them, and absolute Villainies, if we consider against whom they are used; and it cannot be otherways, for the worst of men are always readiest to take Arms, and the best of Kings are most inclined to suffer insolence to grow up by degrees to Rebellion: And as few or none ever took up Arms against their King, in whom even the dullest did not see other motives than a love to liberty and Religion, so when they who did take up Arms upon these pretexts, did succeed in their attempts, they became themselves greater grievances to the people, than these lawful Powers against whom they pretended to protect them: and when others rose against them upon the same pretexts, they did in the severest manner declare that to be Rebellion in others, which they contended to be lawful in themselves.  
7. So dangerous is this Principle, that it has been always used as a Tool to promote contrary designs, and to serve the worst of men in all the opposite sides. And thus we see that the Bigot Papists have by it overturned Thrones, and disinherited and murdered Kings. In which the most impious of their Doctors have been admired and followed by the rigid fanatics, who did notwithstanding teach, that all Papists were to be extirpated, and unquiet Spirits in the established Republics of Rome, Venice, and Florence, have by this Principle endeavoured to overturn and disquiet as much their own Commonwealths, as our Republicans have impiously endeavoured to destroy Just Monarchy, thereby to settle an usurping Commonwealth.  
8. The only pretext that can justify the rising up in Arms, being, that it is lawful to all Creatures to defend themselves; the pretext must be dangerous, since its limits are uncertain: For how can Defensive Arms be distinguished from Offensive Arms? Or, whoever begun at the one, who did not proceed to the other? Or, what Subject did ever think himself secure after he had drawn his Sword against his King, without endeavouring to cut off by it that King against whom he had drawn it? The hope of Absolute Power is too sweet, and the fear of punishment too great, to be bounded, and marched by the best of Men: And how can we expect this moderation from these who at first wanted patience to bear the lawful Yoke of Government, but because examples convince as much as reason, let us remember how when this Nation was very happy in the Year, 1638. under the Government of a most Pious and Just Prince, born in our own Kingdom, we raised an Army, and with it Invaded His Kingdom of England, upon the pretext that He was governed by wicked Counsellors, and designed to introduce Popery; and this was justified as a Defensive War, by a long tract of General Assemblies, and Parliaments: and if this be a Defensive War that is justifiable, what King can be secure? Or, wherein shall we seek security against Civil Wars? Or what can be more ridiculous than to pretend the invading Kingdoms, Murdering such as are Commissionated by the King, after that Invasion, entering into Leagues and Covenants against him, both at home and abroad, the robbing him of his Navies and Militia, and denying him the power to choose his own Counsellors and Judges, are merely Defensive; but God Almighty, to teach us how dangerous these Defensive Arms are, and how impossible it is to regulat Lawless violence, how gentle and easy soever the first beginnings are, suffered our War, which was so much justified for being merely Defensive, to end in the absolute overthrow of the Monarchy, and the taking away the life of the best of Kings; and it is very remarkable, that such as have begun with the Doctrine of giving only Passive Obedience in all things, as in refusing to pay just Taxes, to concur in securing Rebels, etc. have from that stepped up to Defensive Arms, and from that to the Power of Reforming by the Sword, and from that to the Power of Dethroning and Murdering Kings by Parliaments, and Judicatures, and from that to the Murdering and Assassinating all who differed from them, without any other pretext or formality whatsoever, so hard a thing it is to stop when we begin once to fall from our duty: and so easy a thing it is to persuade such as have allowed themselves in the first degrees of guilt, to proceed to the highest extravagancies of Villainy.  
Oh! What a blindness there is in Error? And how palpably doth God desert them, who desert their duty; suffering them after they have done what they should have abhorred, to proceed to do what they first abhorred really? To these I must recommend the History of Hazael, who, when the Prophet foretold him, 2 King. 8.12, 13. That he should slay their young men with the sword, dash their children, and rip up their women with child, answered him, Am I a dog, that I should do such things; and yet he really did what he had so execrated.  
The moderation likeways of these modest pretenders to Self-defence, and Defensive Arms, will appear, by the bloody Doctrine of their great Rabbis, Buchannan not only allows but invites Subjects to Murder their King. And Lex Rex, Pag. 313. tells us, that it is a sin against God's Command to be Passively subject to an unjust Sentence, and that it is an Act of Grace and Virtue to resist the Magistrate violently, when he does him wrong: and after that horrid Civil War was ended, the Author of Naphtali doth justify it, pag. 16, and 17. in these words, Combinations for assistance in violent opposition of the Magistrates, when the ends of Government are perverted (which must be referred to the discretion of them who minds Insurrection) are necessary by the Law of Nature, of Charity, and in order to God's Glory, and for violation of this duty of delivering the oppressed from Magistrates, Judgement comes upon People. From which he proceeds, Pag. 18, and 19 to assert that, Not only the power of self-defence, but vindicative, and reforming power is in any part of the People, against the whole, and against all Magistrates, and if they use it not, Judgement comes on (supposing their capacity probable to bear them forth) and they shall be punished for their connivance, and not acting in way of vindication of Crimes, and reforming abuses.  
Before I enter upon these Arguments, which the Scripture furnishes us with against these rebellious Principles; I must crave leave to say, that Defensive Arms seem to me very clearly inconsistent with that Mortification, Submission, and Patience, which is recommended by our Blessed Saviour, in all the strain of the New Testament; and how will these people give their Coat to a Stranger, or hold up their other Cheek to him, when they will rise even in Rebellion against their Native Prince. 2. As the taking up of Arms is inconsistent with the temper required in a Christian; so it seems a very unsuitable mean for effectuating the end, for which it is designed, since Religion being a Conviction of what we owe to God, how can that be commanded, which should be persuaded? And how can Arms become Arguments? Or how can External Force influence immaterial Substances, such as are the Souls of Men. And we may as well think to awake a man's Conscience by Drums, or to persuade his Judgement by Muskets; and therefore the Apostle speaks only of Spiritual Arms, in this our Spiritual Warfare, The Sword of the Spirit, and the helmet of salvation, etc. But good God, how could the extravagancy of forcing the Magistrate by Arms, in Defense of Religion, enter into men's Heads? when it is unlawful even for the Magistrate himself, to force Religion by Arms. And as Subjects should not be by the King forced to Religion; so if they use Force against the King, the pretext of Religion, though specious, should not defend them. And therefore when the sons of Zebedee desired fire from heaven, upon these who opposed even our Saviour, he told them, that they knew not what spirit they were of.  
3. It seems very derogatory to the power of Almighty God, that He should need humane assistance, and it is a lessening of the great esteem that we ought to have for the energy, force and reasonableness of the Christian Religion, that it needs to be forced upon men by Arms, as if it were not able to force its own way. This Mahomet needed for his Cheats, but our blessed Saviour needs not for his Divine Precepts, and therefore when Peter offered to fight for him, our Saviour checked him, commanding him to put up his Sword, and to persuade him the more effectually, he assures him, that all these who take the Sword, shall perish by it, and that his Kingdom was not of this World, and so he needed no such worldly help, but if he pleased to call for legions of Angels, his Omnipotent Father would send them, and sure Angels are fitter and abler Instruments to carry on such a work of Reformation, than Rebellious Regiments of Horse and Dragoons. Which Divine Argument serves also to refute the Atheistical Doctrine of Buchannan, and Owen, who would persuade us, that our Saviour did only recommend to his Disciples to flee from one City to another, when they were persecuted, Because they then wanted power to resist. For though they did want, yet our Saviour could have, by legions of Angels, defeated all the Powers upon Earth: And Tertullian in his Apology for the Christians, insists on their patient suffering under Persecution, though their number were sufficient to have resisted.  
4. Our blessed Saviour foreseeing that Man's Corruption would in spite of Christianity, prompt him to resist; he therefore did command by the Apostle Paul, Rom. 13. v. 1, and 2. Let every Soul be Subject to the higher Power for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God, whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. In which Text, it is very remarkable that the Apostle urges this Christian duty of submission, as being a mark of man's immediate dependence upon God, and as that, which when contemned brings eternal damnation. And whereas it is pretended that this Text commands only submission to Magistrates, whilst they Act Piously, and Virtuously, because only in so far they are Gods Vicegerents, but discharges not resistance to their impious commands. It is answered that the Text has no such limitation, and we must have so much respect to the Scripture, as to think that if God Almighty had designed to allow such an opposition, he would have warranted it, in as clear Terms, as he commanded the submission, and the reason why this submission is commanded, is not because the power is rightly used, but because the power is ordained of God. And we see that St. Paul himself did think that the power should be reverenced, even when abused: for when the high Priest was Injuring him, he acknowledged that he was obliged not to speak evil of the Rulers of his People, Acts 23.2. And if this place of Scripture, and the submission therein commanded, were so to be limited, we behoved likewise so to limit the 5. Commandment, and not to honour our Parents, except when they are Pious, nor to obey them, if they vex or trouble us; and St. Paul having written this Epistle to those, who were then living under that monstruous Emperor Caius, did clearly design, that the Christian Religion was to be admired for commanding Subjects, not only to obey good Princes, but even submitting peaceably to Tyrants. And suitable to this Doctrine are these Texts, Heb. ch. 12. v, 9 We had Fathers of our flesh, who corrected, and chastened us, after their own pleasure, and we gave them reverence; and lest we might think that Text rather a Narration than a Command, it is told us Peter 2. v. 18. Servants be subject to your Masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward, for this is thanksworthy, if a man for conscience toward God do endure grief And v. 20. If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable to God, for even hereunto were ye called.  
Our blessed Saviour's practice, did likewise agree most admirably with his Precepts and Doctrine formerly insisted on, for though no man ever was, or can be so much injured as his blessed self, nor could ever any defensive Arms have been so just, as in his quarrel, yet he would not suffer a Sword to be drawn in it, and to discourage all Christians from using Arms, he told these who were offering to defend even himself with Arms, that whosoever should draw the Sword, should perish by it, and it seems that God Almighty permitted Peter to draw his Sword at that time merely, that we might upon that occasion be for ever deterred from defensive Arms, by this our Saviour's Divine example and reasoning.  
The last Argument I shall adduce, shall be from that most Christian Topick used by St. Paul, Rom. 3.8. We should not do ill that good may come of it.  
And therefore since disobedience to Magistrates, but much more to Rebel against them, is discharged both by the Laws of God and Men: This disobedience and opposition, cannot be justified by pretending that it is designed for Reforming the Nation. And if it be answered, that this opposition is not in itself ill, because the design justifies it. It is to this replied, that if this answer be sufficient, than the former excellent Rule is of no use: For when a Servant steals his Master's Money to give to the Poor; or a Son cuts his Father's Throat, ecause he is vicious; or when jacques Clement Stabed Henry the 3. and Ravilleck Henry the 4. they might have alleged the same in their own defence. Nor know we a surer proof that any thing is impious, or unlawful, then when the Laws of our Nation have discharged it as a great Crime, they being against and contrare too no positive Law of God; but rather suitable to the same; and owned as such by Christian Synods and Divines: and there being no necessity to enforce this going out of the Road. All which holds in this case, nor can it be imagined, how Reforming by Arms, can be thought necessary, since God both can without a Miracle, Turn the hearts of Kings, in whose hands they are, as Rivers of Waters. And can send devout Men to influence Kingdoms. And should not we rather suffer patiently as the Primitive Christians did, that his Divine Majesty may be by our patience prevailed upon, to Reform us now, as he did of old our Predecessors from Paganism; by our own Kings, in a Regular way than upon every notion of Bigot and Factious Ringleaders overturn all Government, and order, Rend all Unity, and involve our native Country in Blood and Confusion. And whilst we are fight for the Throne of Religion, lose the true efficacy of Piety, and Devotion, for what use can there be of Patience, Humility, Faith, and Hope. If we will presently repair ourselves, submit to no Magistracy that differs from us, and believe that Religion cannot subsist except by us.  
The Fathers also of the Primitive Church have inculcated so much this Doctrine every where, both by their Doctrine and Practice, and both these are so fully known, that I shall remit this point to these Learned Men who have fully handled it. Only I must remember that excellent passage of St. Ambrose, who being commanded to deliver up his Church to the Arians, says, Volens nunquam deferâm, coactus repugnare non novi; dolere potero, flere potero, gem●re potero; adversus arma milites Gothos, Lachrymae me●, mea arma sunt, talia enim sunt munimenta sacerdotis; aliter nec debeo nec possum resistere. Which Prayers and Tears are likewise called the only Arms of the Church by the great Nazianz: in his first Oration against julian, and by St. Bernard in his 221. Epistle. But more of this is to be found, Tom. 2. Concil. Galliae pag. 533. Where it is fully proved that all Subjects ought humbly and faithfully to obey the Regal Power, as being ordained by none but God, with whom the wise Heathens agree, for Marcellus (Tacit. lib. 4. hist.) prayed for good Princes, but obeyed bad ones; and Plinij in his Panegirick to Trojan, confesses that the gods had bestowed on the Emperor the sole disposal of all things leaving nothing to Subjects, save the honour of obedience▪ But because these of that persuasion will believe better Calvin than the Fathers, I have taken pains to consider in him these few passages, cap. 20. lib 4. Institut. §. 27. Assumptum in Regiam Maj●statem violare nefas est nunquam nobis seditiosae istae cogitationes in mentem veniant tractandum, esse pro meritis Regem, §. 29. Personam sustinent voluntale Domini, cui inviolabile in Majestatem ipso impressit, & insculpsit, §. 31. Privatis hominibus nullum aliud quam parendi, & patiendi datum est mandatum. And all this Chapter doth so learnedly and judicially impugn this Doctrine, that it is a wonder why Calvinists should differ from Calvin.  
The Examples adduced by our Republicans, of the revolt of Libra, 2 Chron. 1.21. And from jeroboam, because he had forsaken the Lord God of his Fathers, and of the Ten Tribes from Rehoboam, because of Rehoboam his oppression, 1 King. 12. prove not all the lawfulness of the Subjects defection from their Kings, because these defections are only narrated, but not allowed in Scripture, and are recorded rather as instances of God's vengeance upon the wickedness of these Princes, than as examples justified in these Revolters, and to be followed by such as read the Sacred History: In which, when Examples are proposed by the Spirit of God for our imitation, they are still honoured with the Divine approbation. And I hope my Readers will still remember, that I design not by this Treatise to encourage Princes to wickedness by Impunity, but only to discourage Subjects from daring to be the punishers.  
The great esteem which the great Bishop Usher has justly, even among Republicans, and fanatics, for Learning and Devotion, has prevailed with me, to set down two Objections used by him, with his pious Answers thereto. The first is, Suppose (say they) the King, or Civil Magistrate should command us to Worship the Devil, would you wish us here to lay down our Heads upon the Block, and not to repel the violence of such a Miscreant, to the outmost of our power: And if not, what would become of God's Church, and his Religion. To which the Holy Man Answers, That even when the Worship of the Devil was commanded by the cruel Edicts of persecuting Emperors, the Christians never took up Arms against them, but used fervent Prayers, as their only refuge: And St. Peter animats them to this patient suffering, 1 Pet. 4.12, 13. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busy body in other men's matters. By which last words, if I durst add to so great an Author as B. Usher, the Apostle seems expressly to me to have obviated the dreadful Doctrine of rising in Arms upon the pretext of Religion, and the killing such as differ from them; which if the Christians did allow, they behoved to pass for Murderers, and to discharge them to meddle in matters of Government upon this pretext; because than they behoved to suffer justly, as busy bodies. And here B. Usher does most appositely cite St. Augustine, in Psal. 149. The World raged, the Lion lifted himself up against the Lamb, but the Lamb was full stronger than the Lion: The Lion was overcome by showing cruelty, the Lamb did overcome by suffering. And St. Jerome, Epist. 62. By shedding of blood, and by suffering, rather than doing injuries, was the Church of Christ at first founded, it grew by Persecutions, and was crowned by Martyrdoms.  
The second Objection is, If men's hands be thus tied, no man's estate can be secure; nay, the whole frame of the Commonwealth would be in danger to be subverted, and utterly ruined. To which he answers, that the ground of this Objection is exceeding faulty, and inconsistent with the Rules of Humanity, and Divinity; of Humanity, because this would empower private persons to Judge, and so should confound all Order, and invite all men to oppose Authority, and make Subject's Accusers, Judges, and Executioners too; and that in their own Cause, against their own Sovereign, and against Divinity, because it is contrary to the Scriptures, and Fathers, who command Submission, Humility, and Patience. Rex est si nocentem punit, cede justitiae, si innocentem, cede fortunae, Seneca de jura. lib. 2. cap. 30. If the King punish thee, when thou art guilty, submit to Justice: If when thou art innocent, submit to Fortune. And if a Heathen could be induced by his virtue to submit to blind Fortune, how much more ought a Christian to be prevailed upon by Devotion to submit to the Allseeing Providence of the most wise God, who maketh all things to work jointly for good to them that love him. And as St. Augustine piously adviseth, Princes are to be suffered by their People, that in the exercise of their patience, temporal things may be born, and external hoped for.  
The instance of King james the Third being punished by his Subjects, is so far from being an Argument able to justify Subjects rising in Arms against their King, that this part of our History should for ever convince all honest men of the dangers that attend Defensive Arms: For this excellent Prince was so far from being one of these Tyrants, against whom Defensive Arms are only confessed to be just, that few Princes were more meek and careful of his Subjects. But because he employed such as himself had raised, finding that the Nobility had too often been insolent Servants to their Prince, and severe Taskmasters to the People; the Nobility thinking more upon this imaginary neglect, than their own duty, did from Combinations proceed to Arms, and rejecting all conditions of peace, they were at last cursed with a Victory, in which this Gentle Prince was murdered, whilst he sought to save his Sacred life in a deserted Miln. By which we may see that these Defensive Arms so much hallowed in our late Debates, are but the Militia of Pride, Vanity, and Ambition, and that if they be allowed, the best of Princes will ever fall by them.  
And as to the Act 14. Par. 4. ja. 4. Whereby it is pretended that the opposing, and even the kill K. ja. the 3. in Battle is justified, and which Act was never repelled. It is answered, First, That this Statute was made by the same Rebels who had opposed their lawful Prince, and so was rather a continuing of their Rebellion, than a justification of it. 2. That abominable Statute proceeds on the Precept of K. ja. the 3. calling in the English, and designing to enslave the Kingdom to Foreigners, which was not proved as it ought to have been, though the pretext had been legal, as it was neither legal nor true in the least circumstance, and the Noblemen and Barons are Condemned, without being Cited or heard; though the Act be not a Statute but a Verdict, so unjust are all Rebels, who are forced to maintain one Crime by another. 3. In the new Collection of our Statutes made by K Ken. and Authorised in many subsequent Parliaments. The Dreadful and Treasonable Act is not insert, which was the best way to Rescind it, because it was, though a reproach to the Nation to have any formal Law made to Rescind the Statute, which behoved to preserve its memory in annulling its Authority. 4. Many Statutes since that time are made, declaring the rising in Arms against the King and his Authority, upon any pretext whatsoever to be Treason; and expressly Rescinding all Acts and Statutes to the contrary, as Rebellious and Treasonable, and there needed no more Positive Statutes to Rescind that Rebellious and Treasonable Combination rather than Law.  
As to the 44. Act 6. Par. ja. 2. From which its urged, that because that Act declares it Treason to Assault Castles, and Places where the King's Person shall happen to be, without the Consent of the three Estates: And that it is therefore lawful to Assault the same with the Consent of the three Estates, and consequently to rise in Arms with the Consent of the three Estates is no Treason. It is answered, that it being but too ordinary in the Minority of our Kings to have great Factions amongst the Nobility (which shows also the danger of placing the Supreme Power in the Proceres Regni) one of the Factions ordinarily either having made the young King Prisoner, or using to Assault the Castle where he was really preserved. It was therefore most wisely declared by this Statute, That to lay hands upon the King's Person violently, what age the Ring be of, young or old▪ or to Assailzy Castles, or Places where the King's person shall happen to be, without the Consent of the three Estates, shall be punished as Treason. That is to say, that so great respect was to be had to his sacred Person, that no violence was to be offered to the Place where he was, until the same was allowed by the three Estates. But in all the former Laws, as well as those made in our age, it is still declared Treason to Rebel against the King's Person, or to refuse to assist him without adding, except the same be done by the three Estates, which shows that there's nothing designed in this Act in favours of their Authority; and that this King was Minor the time of this Act; and that he had great Troubles in his Youth, is very clear from the short characters given of our Kings, by Skeen, in the end of our Acts of Parliament.  
It will (I hope) easily appear by the balance of these Arguments, that at least the Municipal Laws of our Nation, which punish defensive Arms as Treason, should be obeyed by our Countrymen, since, as I have oft inculcated the Laws of any Nation should still be obeyed, except where they are inconsistent with the Word of God, and the most that the most violent Republicans alive can say upon this Subject, is, that the case may be debated by probable Arguments, and that neither of the Positions want their inconveniencies, so that in this, as in all other Debates, the Law of each Nation is the best Judge to decide such Controversies, and therefore such as maintain these Principles, after so many positive and reiterated Laws, are obliged for preserving the Peace of humane Society, and the Order which God has established, to remove from places where they cannot obey, for they will always find some place where the Government will please them, and better they be disquieted, than the Government of the whole World should be disturbed, but if they will stay, and oppose the Government, it must be excused, to Execute those who would destroy it.  
Having thus glanced only at Answers to these Objections, because I think the Objections rather shining than strong, I shall sum up this Debate with these Reflections, First, Buchannan, and our Republican Authors, Debate all these Grounds, as if we were yet to Form the Government, under which we were to live, whereas we live under, and are sworn to a Monarchy, fixed by Law and Consent, time out of mind, and the Levellers may as well urge that no Nobleman should be Dignified, nor no Gentleman Enriched above, a man of good sense; and Tenants may argue that it is not reasonable, that they bearing God's Image as well as the Master, should toil to feed their Lusts▪ thus Reason may be distorted, and we call that Reason and Providence, which pleases us best.  
2. Most of their Citations and Authorities, are the Sentiments of these Greeks, and Romans, who lived under Commonwealths, and so magnified their Country in opposition to Usurpers, whereas our King is the Father of our Country, and whatever they said of their Country, we should say of him, and therefore these Citations concerns us no more than the Law of England binds Scotsmen, they praise their own Children and Servants, for their Faithfulness and Obedience to them, and yet they rail at us for being Faithful to our great Master, and chief Parent under God.  
3. Most of the Authors cited and admired by them, are Heathens, particularly Stoics, who equalled themselves not only to Kings, but to their own Gods, and against whose selfishness and pride, all Christians have justly exclaimed, and so they are not competent Judges, nor sure Guides to Christians, in the exercise of those purely Christian Virtues of Humility, Submission, Self-denial, Patience, Faith, and Reliance upon God.  
4. They balance not all the Conveniencies and Inconveniencies of either Government, but magnify the one and conceal the other; and thus it is true that Kings may be Tyrants, but so may, and usually are the Leaders of the Rabble: Cromwell was such, and Shaftsbury had been such, he was such in his Nature, and had been such in his Government; and the Distractions of a Civil War, which ordinarily attend Competitions amongst Republicans, Destroy more than the Lusts of any one Tyrrant can do, which made Lucan conclude, after a sad review of the continued Civil Wars, betwixt Scylla and Marcus, Caesar and Pompeij, without considering what followed under the Trium viri.  
Faelices Arabes, Medique Eoaque tellus,  
Qui sub perpetuis tenuerunt Regna Tyrannii.  
5. These who debate against Magistracy, gratify their own Vanity and Insolence; but such devout men as Ambrose, Augustine, Usher and others, Debate against the Dictates of Interest, as well as Passion; which two, nothing save Grace can overcome, and there can be no surer mark of Conviction than to reside against these.  
Lastly, even Buchannan repented this horrid Doctrine, Cambden, 10. year of Queen Elizabeth's Reign, in 1567.  
But forasmuch as Buchannan being transported with partial affection, and with Murrays bounty, wrote in such sort that his said Books have been condemned of falsehood, by the Estates of the Realm of Scotland, to whose Credit more is to be attributed, and he himself sighing and sorrowing, sundry times blamed himself (as I have heard) before the King, to whom he was Schoolmaster, for that he had employed so virulent a Pen against that well deserving Queen, and upon his Deathbed wished that he might live so long, till by recalling the truth, he might even with his Blood, wipe away these Aspersions, which he had by his bad Tongue falsely laid upon her, but that (as he said) it would now be in vain; when he might seem to dote for Age, etc.  
Idem, Anno 1582.  
And not content with all this (speaking of their surprising the King) they Compelled the King against his Will, to approve of this intercepting of him by his Letters to the Queen of England, and to Decree an Assembly of the Estates, Summoned by them to be just, yet could they not induce Buchannan to approve of this their Fact, either by writing, or persuasion by Message, who now sorrowfully lamented, that he had already undertaken the Cause of Factious people against their Princes, and soon after Died, etc.   

THAT THE Lawful Successor Cannot be DEBARRED From Succeeding to the CROWN: Maintained against Dolman, Buchannan, and others.  
BY Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE His Majesty's Advocate.  
EDINBURGH, Printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson, Printer to His most Sacred Majesty, Anno DOM. 1684.   

King James In His Advice to Prince Henry.  Page 173. IF God give you not Succession, Defraud never the nearest by Right, whatsoever conceit ye have of the Person; for Kingdoms are ever at God's Disposition, and in that Case we are but Liferenters, it lying no more in the Kings, than in the People's Hands to Dispossess the Righteous Heir. Page 209. Ibid. FOr at the very moment of the Expyring of the King Reigning, the nearest and Lawful Heir entereth in his place; and so to refuse him, or intrude another, is not to hold out the Successor from coming in, but to expel and put out their Righteous King: and I trust at this time whole France acknowledgeth the Rebellion of the Leaguers, who upon pretence of Heresy by force of Arms, held so long out, to the great Desolation of their whole Country, their Native and Righteous King from possessing his own Crown and natural Kingdom.  

ERRATA.  
Page 5. delet at his Majority. Page 33. for Richard 3d. Read 2d.   

The Right of the Succession Defended.  
THe fourth Conclusion to be cleared was, that neither the People, nor Parliaments of this Kingdom, could seclude the lineal Successor, or could raise to the throne any other of the same Royal line.  
For clearing whereof, I shall according to my former method, first clear what is our positive Law in this case; Secondly I shall show that this our Law is founded upon excellent reason, and lastly, I shall answer the objections.  
As to the first. It is by the second Act of our last Parliament acknowledged, That the Kings of this realm deriving their Royal power from God Almighty alone, do lineally succeed thereto, according to the known degrees of proximity in blood, which cannot be interrupted, suspended or diverted by any Act or Statut whatsoever, and that none can attempt to alter or divert the said Succession, without involving the subjects of this Kingdom in Perjury and Rebellion, and without exposing them to all the fatal and dreadful consequences of a civil war, DO THEREFORE from a hearty and sincere sense of their duty Recognize, acknowledge and declare that the right to the Imperial Crown of this realm, is by the inherent right and the nature of Monarchy, as well as by the fundamental and unalterable laws of this realm, transmitted and devolved by a lineal Succession, according to the proximity of blood. And that upon the death of the King or Queen, who actually reigns, the Subjects of this Kingdom are bound by Law, duty and alledgance to obey the nixt immediate and Lawful Heir either male or female, upon whom the right and administration of the Government is immediately devolved. And that no difference in Religion, nor no Law nor Act of Parliament made, or to be made, can alter or divert the right of Succession and lineal descent of the Crown to the nearest and Lawful Heirs, according to the degrees foresaids: nor can stop or hinder them in the full, free and actual administration of the Government according to the Laws of the Kingdom. LIKE AS OUR SOVEREIGN LORD, with advice and consent of the said's Estates of Parliament, Do declare it is high treason in any of the Subjects of this Kingdom, by writing, speaking, or any other manner of way to endeavour the alteration, suspension or diversion of the said right of Succession, or the debarring the next Lawful Successor from the immediate, actual, full and free administration of the Government, conform to the Laws of the Kingdom. And that all such attempts or designs shall infer against them the pain of treason.  
This being not only ane Act of Parliament, declaring all such as shall endeavour to alter the Succession, to be punishable, as Traitors; but containing in it a Decision of this Point by the Parliament, as the Supreme Judges of the nation, and ane acknowledgement by them, as the representatives of the people, and nation. There can be no place for questioning a point, which they have placed beyond all controversy: especially seeing it past so unanimously that there was not only no vote given but even no argument proponed against it. And the only doubt moved about it was, whither any Act of Parliament, or acknowledgement, was necessary, in a point which was in itself so uncontraverted. And which all who were not desperate fanatics, did conclude to be so in this nation, even after they had heard all the arguments that were used, and the Pamphlets that were written against it, in our neighbour-Kingdom.  
But because so much noise has been made about this question, and that blind bigotry leads some, and humorous faction draws others out of the common road. I conceive it will be fit to remember my reader of these following reasons, which will I hope clear that as this is our present positive Law, so it is established upon the fundamental constitution of our Government, upon our old Laws, upon the Laws of God, of Nature, of Nations, and particularly of the Civil Law.  
As to the fundamental constitution of our Government, I did formerly remark, that our Historians tell us, that the Scots did swear alledgeance to FERGUS, who was the first of our Kings, and to his Heirs. And that they should never obey any other, but his Royal Race. Which Oath does in Law, and reason, bind them to obey the lineal Successor, according to the proximity of Blood. For ane indefinite obligation to obey the blood Royal, must be interpreted according to the proximity in Blood, except the swearers had reserved to themselves a power to choose any of the Royal Family, whom they pleased, which is so true, that in Law, ane obligation granted to any man, does in the construction of Law accresce to his Heirs, though they be not expressed. Qui sibi providet, & haeredibus providet. And Boethius tells us that after King FERGUS' death, the Scots finding their new Kingdom infested with wars, under the powerful influence of Picts, Romans, and Britan's, they refused notwithstanding to prefer the next of the Royal Race, who was of perfect age, and a man of great merit, to the Son of King FERGUS, though ane infant; which certainly in reason they would have done, if they had not been tied to the lineal Successor. But lest the Kingdom should be prejudged during the minority, they enacted, that for the future, the next of the Blood Royal should always in the minority of our Kings administrat as Kings, till the true Heir were of perfect age. But this does not prove, as Buchannan pretends, that the people had power to advance to the Throne, any of the Royal Race: whom they judged most fit, for common sense may tell us, that was not to choose a King, but a Viceroy, or a Regent. For, though to give him the more authority, and so to enable him the more to curb factions, and oppose enemies, he was called King, yet he was but Rex fidei Commissarius, being obliged to restore it to the true Heir at his majority: and so Governed only in his Vice, and consequently was only his Viceroy.  
But because the Uncles, and next Heirs being once admitted to this fidei Commissary tittle, were unwilling to restore the Crown to their Nephews, and sometimes murdered them: and oftentimes raised factions against them. Therefore the People abhorring these impieties, and weary of the distractions, and divisions, which they occasioned, begged from King KENNETH the second, that these following Laws might be made.  
1. That upon the King's death the next Heir of whatsoever age should succeed.  
2. The Grandchild either by Son or Daughter should be preferred.  
3. That till the King arrived at 14 years of age, some Wiseman should be choosed to Govern, after which, the King should enter to the free administration, and according to this constitution, some fit Person has still been choosed Regent in the King's minority, without respect to the proximity of Blood, and our Kings have been oftentimes Crowned in the Cradle.  
In conformity also to these principles, all the acknowledgements made to our Kings, run still in favours of the King, and his Heirs. As in the first Act Parl. 18. JAMES VI and the TWO, III, IV. Acts Parl. 1. CHARLES' II. And by our Oath of Alledgeance, we are bound to bear faithful and true alledgeance to his Majesty, his Heirs and Lawful Successors; which word LAWFUL, is insert, to cut off the pretexts of such as should not succeed by Law, and the insolent arbitrarieness of such, as being but subjects themselves, think they may choose their King. viz. Act 1. Parl. 21. JAMES 6.  
That this right of Succession according to the proximity of blood, is founded on the Law of God, is clear by Num. Chap. 27. v. 9 and 10. If a man hath no Son or Daughter, his inheritance shall descend upon his Brother, by Num. 36. Where, God himself decides in favours of the Daughters of Zelophehad, telling us, it was a just thing, they should have the inheritance of their father. And ordains, that if there were no Daughters, the estate should go to the Brothers. Saint Paul likeways concludes Rom. 8. If Sons, than Heirs, looking upon that, as a necessary consequence; which if it do not necessarily hold, or can be any way disappointed, all his divine reasoning in that Chapter falls to nothing. And thus Ahaziah 2 Chron. 22. v. 1. was made King (though the youngest) in his Father's stead; because says the text,, ,the Arabians had slain all the eldest: which clearly shows that by the Law of God, he could not have succeeded, if the eldest had been alive. We hear likeways in Scripture,, ,God oft telling, By me King's reign. And when he gives a Kingdom to any as to Abraham, David, etc. He gives it to them and their posterity.  
That this right of Succession flows from the Law of nature, is clear; because, that is accounted to flow from the Law of nature, which every man finds grafted in his own heart, and which is obeyed without any other Law, and for which men neither seek nor can give another distinct reason; all which hold in this case: for who doubts when he hears of ane hereditary Monarchy, but that, the next in blood must Succeed; and for which we need no positive Law, nor does any man inquire for a further reason, being satisfied therein by the principles of his own heart. And from this ground it is, that though a remoter Kinsman did possess as Heir, he could by no length of time prescribe a valide right; since no man, as Lawyers conclude, can prescribe a right against the Law of nature: and that this principle is founded thereupon is confessed l: cum ratio naturalis ff. de bonis damnat: cum ratio naturalis, quasi lex quaedam tacita, liberis parentum haereditatem adjecerit, veluti ad debitam successionem eos vocando: propter quod suorum haeredum nomen eis indultum est; adeo ut ne a parentibus quidem, ab eâ successione amoveri possint. Et §. emancipati Institut: de haered: quae ab intest. Praetor naturalem aequitatem secutus, iis etiám bonorum possessionem contra 12 tabularum leges, & contra jus civil permittit. Which text shows likeways, that this right of nature was stronger than the Laws of the 12 Tables, though these were the most ancient and chief Statutes of Rome. Which principle is very clear likeways from the Parable, Math. 21. Where the Husbandmen who can be presumed to understand nothing but the Law of nature, are brought in saying, this is the Heir, let us kill him and seize on his inheritance. Nor does this hold only in the Succession of Children or the direct line, but in the collateral Succession of Brothers and others L. hac parte ff. unde cognati. Hac parte proconsul Naturali aequitate motus, omnibus cognatis permittit bonorum possessionem quos sanguinis ratio Vocat ad haereditatem. Vid. l. 1. ff. de grad. & l. 1. §. hoc autem ff. de bonor. possess. And these who are now Brothers to the present King, have been Sons to the former: and therefore whatever has been said for Sons, is also verified in Brothers. As for instance, though his Royal Highness be only Brother to King CHARLES the II., yet he is Son to King CHARLES I. and therefore, as Saint Paul says, if a Son, then ane Heir, except he be secluded by the existence and Succession of ane elder Brother.  
That this gradual Succession is founded on the Law of nations, is as clear by the Laws of the 12 Tables, and the Praetorian Law of Rome. And if we consider the Monarchy either old or new, we will find, that wherever the Monarchy was not elective, the degrees of succession were there exactly observed. And Bodinus de Republ. lib. 6 Cap. 5. asserts, that, Ordo non tantum naturae & divinae sed etiam omnium ubique gentium hoc postulat. From all which, Pope Innocent in c. grand. de supplend. neglig. praelati concludes, In regnis haereditariis caveri non potest ne filius aut frater succedat. And since it is expressly determined, that the right of blood can be taken away by no positive Law or Statute L. jura Sanguinis ff. de Reg. jur. & L. 4. ff. de suis legitim. and that the power of making a Testament, can be taken away by no Law L. ita legatum ff. de conditionibus. I cannot see how the right of Succession can be taken away by a Statute: for that is the same with the right of Blood, and is more strongly founded upon the Law of nature, than the power of making Testaments.  
Since then this right is founded upon the Law of God, of nature and of nations, it does clearly follow, that no Parliament can alter the same by their municipal Statutes, as our Act of Parliament has justly observed.  
For clearing whereof, it is fit to consider, that in all powers and jurisdictions which are subordinat to one another, the Inferior should obey, but not alter the power to which it is subordinat; and what it does contrary thereto, is null and void. And thus, if the judges of England should publish edicts contrare to Acts of Parliament, or if a Justice of Peace should ranverse a decree of the judges of West-minster, these their endeavours would be void and ineffectual. But so it is, that by the same principle, but in ane infinitely more transcendent way, all Kings and Parliaments are subordinat to the Laws of God, the Laws of Nature, and the Laws of Nations: And therefore no Act of Parliament can be binding, to overturn what these have established.  
This, as to the Law of God, is clear, not only from the general dictates of Religion, but 28 Hen. 8. cap. 7. the Parliament uses these words, For no man can dispense with God's Laws; which we also affirm and think. And as to the Laws of nature, they must be acknowledged to be immutable, from the principles of reason. And the Law itself confesses that naturalia quaedam jura quae apud omnes gentes peraequè observantur, divina quadam providentia constituta semper firma, atque immutabilia permanent § sed naturalia Institut. de jur. Natural. & §. singulorum de rer. divis: And when the Law declares, that a Supreme Prince is free from the obligation of Laws, Solutus legibus, which is the highest power that a Parliament can pretend to, or arrive at; Yet Lawyers still acknowledge that this does not exeem these Supreme powers from being liable to the Laws of God, nature and nations, Accurs: in l. Princeps ff. de Leg. Clementina pasturalis de rejudicatâ Bart. in l. ut vim de justitiâ & jure Voet. de Statutis Sect. 5. Cap. 1. nor can the Law of nations be overturned by private Statutes, or any Supreme power. And thus all Statutes to the prejudice of Ambassadors, who are secured by the Law of nations, are confessed by all to be null, and the highest power whatsoever cannot take off the necessity of denuncing watr before a war can be Lawful. And Lawyers observe very well, that these who would oppose the common dictates of mankind, should be looked upon as enemies to all mankind.  
My second argument shall be, that the King & Parliament can have no more power in Parliament than any absolute Monarch has in his own Kingdom: for, they are when joined, but in place of the Supreme power, sitting in judgement; and therefore they cannot in Law do what any other Supreme and absolute Monarch cannot do. For all the power of Parliaments consists only in their consent, but we must not think, that our Parliaments have ane unlimited power de jure, so, as that they may forfeit or kill without a cause or decern against the Subjects without citing or hearing them; or, that they can alienat any part of the Kingdom; or Subject the whole Kingdom to France or any other Foreign Prince: all which deeds would be null in themselves, and would not hinder the party injured from a due redress. For if our Parliaments had such power, we would be the greatest slaves, and live under the most arbitrary Government imaginable. But so it is, that no Monarch whosoever can take from any man what is due to him, by the Law of God, nature, and nations. For being himself inferior to these he cannot overturn their statutes. Thus a Prince cannot even ex plenitudine potestatis legitimat a Bastard in prejudice of former children though they have only but a hope of Succession l. 4. & sequen de natal. restituend. and for the same reason, it is declared in the same Law, that he cannot restore a freed man (restituere libertum natalibus) in prejudice of his Patron, who was to succeed, though that succession was but by a municipal Law. For clearing which question, It is fit to know that the solid lawyers who treat jus publicum, as ARNISAEUS and others, do distinguish betwixt such Kingdoms, as were at first conferred by the People, and wherein the Kings succeed by contract, and in these, the Laws made by King and People can exclude, or bind the Successor. And yet even here, they confess, that this proceeds not, because the Predecessor can bind the Successor, but because the People renew the paction with the succeeding King. But where the Successor is to succeed ex jure regni, in hereditary Monarchies, there they assert positively that the Predecessor cannot prejudge the Successors right of Succession. Which they prove by two arguments. First, that the Predecessor has no more power, nor right, than the Successor: for the same right, that the present King has to the possession, the next in Blood has to the Succession. And all our Laws run in favours of the King, and his Heirs, and no man can tie his equal, or give him the Law, par in parem non habet dominium. The second is, that it were unjust and unequitable that the Predecessor should rob his Successor nulla ergo (says Arnisaeus Cap. 7. Num. 5.) clausula Successori jus auferri potest, modò succedat ille ex jure regni. And Hottoman: lib. 2. de Regno Galliae asserts, that in France which is a very absolute Monarchy, Ea quae jure Regio primogenito competunt, ne Testamento quidem patris adimi possunt. And thus when the King of France designed to break the Salic Law of Succession, as in the Reign of CHARLES the V. It was found impracticable by the three Estates, and when Pyrrhus was to prefer his youngest Son to the Crown, the Epirots following the Law of Nations, and their own, refused him, Paus. lib. 1. In the year 1649. Also Amurat the grand Signior, having left the Turkish Empire to Han the Tartarian, passing by his Brother Ibrahim, the whole Officers of that State, did unanimously Cancel that Testament, and restore Ibrahim, the true Heir though a silly fool.  
Which shows the opinion not only of Lawyers but of whole nations and Parliaments; Tho vander Graaff, an Hollander confesses, that it is not Lawful to choose any of his Sons to succeed him, in which, the general quiet of the Kingdom is much concerned. And therefore, though the next Heir were wiser, braver, and more generally beloved; Yet the more immediate must be received, as choosed by God, whither good or bad, and as honoured with his Character. And if Kings could have inverted their Succession, and choosed their own Successor Saint Lewis had preferred his own third Son to Lewis his eldest, and Alfonsus King of Leon in Spain, had preferred his Daughters to Ferdinand his eldest Son. And Edward the VI of England had preferred, and did actually prefer the Lady jean Grace to his Sisters Mary, and Elizabeth. And if Successions especially of such great importance, had not been fixed by immutable Laws of God, and nature, the various and unconstant inclinations of the present Governors, especially when shaken by the importunity of Stepmother's and Mother's, or clouded by the jealousy of flatterers, or favourits, had made the Nations whom they Governed, very unhappy: and therefore, God did very justly, and wisely settle this Succession, that both King and People might know, that it is by him that King's Reign, and Kingdoms are secured in Peace against faction▪ and it were strange, that this should not hold in Kings, since even amongst subjects the Honour and Nobility that is bestowed upon a Man and his Heirs, does so necessarily descend upon those Heirs, that the Father, or Predicessor cannot seclude the next Successor, or deerogate from his right, either by renuncing, resigning, following base or mean Trades, or any other: For say those Lawyers, since he derives this right from his old Progenitors, and owes it not to his Father, his Father's deed should not prejudge him therein. Fab. Cod. 9 Tit. 28. Def. 1. Warnee; Consil. 20. Num. 7. And as yet the Estates of Parliament in both Nations have no legislative power, otherways than by assenting to what the King does; so that if the King cannot himself make a Successor, neither can they by consenting: and all that their consent could imply would only be that, they and their Successors should not oppose his nomination, because of their consent. But that can never amount to a power of transferring the Monarchy from one branch to another, which would require, that the Transferrers, or bestowers had the Supreme power Originally in themselves, nemo enim plus juris in alium transferre potest quam ipse in se habet. And if the States of Parliament had this power▪ Originally in themselves to bestow, why might they not reserve it to themselves? And so perpetuate the Government in their own hands: And this moved judge jenkin's in his treatise concerning the liberty and freedom of the subject, pag. 25. To say, that no King can be Named, or in any time made in this Kingdom, by the People. A Parliament never made a King, for there were Kings before there were Parliaments, and Parliaments are summoned by the King's writs.  
Fourthly, A King cannot in Law alienat his Crown, as is undeniable in the opinion of all Lawyers, and if he do, that deed is void and null, nor could he in Law consent to an Act of Parliament declaring that he should be the last King. And if such consents and Acts had been sufficient to bind Successors, many silly Kings in several parts of Europe had long since been prevailed upon, to alter their Monarchy from hereditary to Elective; or to turn it in a Commonwealth; and therefore by the same reason, they cannot consent to exclude the true Successor: For if they may exclude one they may exclude all.  
5. In all Societies and Governments, but especially where there is any association of powers, as in our Parliaments, there are certain fundamentals, which like the Noble parts in the Body are absolutely necessary for its preservation; for without these, there would be no Balance, or certainty. And thus with us, if the King and each of the Estates of Parliament had not distinct and known limits (set by the gracious concessions of our Monarches) each of them would be ready to invade one another's Privileges. And thus I conceive that if the Parliament should consent to alienate the half of the Kingdom, or to subject the whole to a Stranger, as in King john's case in England, and the Balliol's in Scotland, it has been found by the respective Parliaments of both Kingdoms, that, that Statute would not oblige the Successor. Or if the House of commons in England, or the Burrowes of Scotland should consent to any Act excluding their Estate and respresentatives from the Parliament, doubtless that Statute excluding them would not prejudge their Successors; because that Act was contrare to one of the fundamental Laws of the Nation. And the late Acts of Parliaments excluding Bishops, were reprobated by the ensuing Parliaments, as such; and therefore by the same rule, any Statute made excluding the legal Successor, would be null and void, as contrare to one of the great Fundamental Rights of the Nation. And what can be called more a Fundamental Right than the Succession of our Monarchy? Since our Monarchy in this Isle, has ever been acknowledged to be hereditary. And that this acknowledgement is the great Basis whereupon most of all the positions of our Law run, and are established: such as, that the King never dies, since the very moment in which the last King dies, the next Successor in Blood is Legally King, and that without any express recognizance from the People, and all that oppose him are Rebels, His Commissions are valide, He may call Parliaments, dispose the Lands pertaining to the Crown, all men are liable to do him homage; and hold their Rights of him and his Heirs. And generally this principle runs through all the veins of our Law. It is that, which gives life and Authority to our Statutes, but receives none from them; which are the undeniable marks and Characters of a Fundamental Right in all Nations. But that this right of lineal Succession is one of the Fundamental, and unalterable Laws of the Kingdom of Scotland, is clear, by the Commission granted by the Parliament for the union in Anno 1604. In which these words are, his Majesty vouchsafeing, to assure them of his sincere disposition and clear meaning, no way by the foresaid Union to prejudge or hurt the Fundamental Laws, ancient Privileges, Offices and Liberties of this Kingdom; whereby not only the Princely Authority of his most Royal descent hath been these many ages maintained, but also his People's securities of their Lands and Livings, Rights, Liberties, Offices and dignities preserved: Whilks if they should be innovated, such confusion should ensue; as it could no more be a free Monarchy.  
6. There would many great inconveniencies arise, both to King and People, by the Parliaments having this power: For weak Kings might by their own simplicity, and Gentle Kings by the rebellion of their Subjects be induced to consent to such Acts, in which their Subjects would be tempted to cheat in the one case, and rebel in the other. Many Kings likewise might be wrought upon, by the importunity of their Wives, or Concubines, or by the misrepresentations of Favourits, to disinherit the true Successor; and he likewise to prevent this arbitrarienesse, would be obliged to enter in a faction for his own support, from his very infancy. This would likewise animate all of the Blood Royal, to compete for the Throne, and in order thereto, they would be easily induced to make factions in the Parliament, and to hate one another; whereas the true Successor would be engaged to hate them all, and to endeavour the ruin of such as he thought more popular than himself. Nor would the people be in better case, since they behoved to expect upon all these accounts, constant civil wars and animosities, and by being unsure whom to follow, might be in great hazard by following him who had no Right. And their rights bearing to hold of the King and his Heirs, it would be dubious to the vassals, who should be their superior, as well, as who should be their King. It is also in reason to be expected, that Scotland will ever own the legal descent: and thus we should under different Kings of the same Race, be involved in new and constant civil wars; France shall have a constant door opened, by allyances with Scotland, to disquiet the peace of the whole Isle; and England shab lose all the endeavours it used to unite this Isle within itself. Another great absurdity and inconveniency which would follow upon the exclusion of the lineal Successor would be, that if he had a Son, that Son behooved certainly to succeed; and therefore after the next Lawful Heir were brought from abroad to Reign, he behoved to return upon the Birth of this Son; and if he died he would be again called home, and would be sent back by the Birth of another Son: which would occasion such affronts, uncertainties, divisions, factions, temptations, that I am sure, no good nor wise man could admit of such a project.  
I find also, that as the debarring the Righteous Heir, is in reason, the fruitful seed of all civil war and misery, (for who can Imagine that the Righteous Heir will depart from his Right, or that wise men will endanger their lives and fortunes in opposition to it?) so experience has demonstrated, how dangerous, and bloody this injustice has proved. Let us remember amongst many Domestic examples, the miseries that ensued upon the exclusion of Mordredus the Son of Lothus; the destruction of the Picts for having secluded Alpinus the Righteous Heir; the wars during the reign of William the Conqueror; these betwixt King Stevin and Henry the TWO, betwixt the Houses of Lancaster and York; betwixt the Bruce and the Balliol; the murder of Arthur Duke of Britanny, true Heir of the Crown of England, with many other foreign Histories, which tell us of the dreadful michiefs arising from Pelops preferring his youngest Son to the Kingdom of Micene; from Aedipus commanding that Polynices his youngest Son should reign alternatly with the eldest; from Parisatis the Queen of Persia's preferring her youngest Son Cyrus, to her eldest Artaxerxes, from Aristodemus admitting his two Sons Proclus, and Euristhenes to an Equal share in the Lacedaemonian Throne. The like observations are to be made in the Succession of Ptolemaeus Lagus and Ptolemaeus Phisco, In the Sons of Severus, in the Succession of Sinesandus who killed his Brother Suintilla Righteours Heir of Spain, And that of Francis and Fortia Duke of Milan with thousands of others: In all which, either the usurpers or the Kingdom that obeyed them, perished utterly. To prevent which differences and mischiefs, the Hungarians would not admit Almus the younger Brother, in exclusion of the elder Colomanus, though a silly deformed creature, albeit Almus was preferred by Ladislaus (the King's elder Brother) to both. Nor would France acquiesce in St. Lewis his preferring CHARLES his 3 Son, to Lewis the eldest. And the English refused to obey Lady jean Grace, in prejudice of Queen Marie, though a Papist and persecuter. Tali & constanti veneratione nos Angli legitimos Reges prosequimur etc. says an English Historian.  
7. If Parliaments had such powers as this, than our Monarchy would not be hereditary, but elective; the very essence of ane hereditary Monarchy consisting in the right of Succession, according to the contingency of blood. Whereas if the Parliament can prefer the next, save one, they may prefer the last of all the line: for the next save one, is no more next than the last is next. And the same reason by which they can choose a Successor (which can only be that they have a power above him) should likeways in my opinion justify their deposing of Kings. And since the Successor has as good Right to succeed, as the present King has to Govern (for that Right of blood which makes him first, makes the other next, and all these Statutes which acknowledge the present Kings Prerogatives, acknowledge that they belong to him and his Heirs.) It follows clearly, that if the Parliament can preclude the one, they may exclude the other. And we saw even in the last age, that such reasons as are now urged to incapacitat the children of our last Monarch, from the hope of Succession. viz. Popery, and arbitrary Government, did embolden men to Dethrone, and Murder the Father himself who was actual King.  
8. That such Acts of Parliament, altering the Succession are ineffectual, and null, Is clear from this, that though such an Act of Parliament were made, it could not debar the true Successor: because by the Laws of all Nations, and particularly of these Kingdoms, the Right of Succession purges all defects, and removes all impediments, which can prejudge him who is to Succeed. And as Craig one of our learned lawyers has very well expressed it, Tanta est Regii sanguinis praerogativa, & dignitas, ut vitium non admittat, nec se contaminari patiatur. And thus though he who were to succeed, had committed murder, or were declared a traitor formerly to the Crown for open Rebellion against the King, and Kingdom; yet he needed not be restored by Act of Parliament upon his coming to the Crown: But his very Right of blood would purge all these imperfections. Of which there are two reasons given by Lawyers, one is, that no man can be a Rebel against himself, nor can the King have a Superior. And consequently, there can be none whom he can offend. And it were absurd that he who can restore all other men, should need to be restored himself. The second reason is, because the punishment of crimes, such as confiscations, etc. Are to be inflicted by the King's Authority, or to fall to the King's Thesaury; and it were most absurd, that a man should exact from himself a punishment. Likeas, upon this account it is, that though in the Canon Law, Bastards cannot be promoved to sacred orders without dispensation, nor can alibi nati, that is to say, people born out of England be admitted to succeed in England, by express Act of Parliament there; Yet Agapaetus, Theodorus, Gelasius and many others, have been admitted to be Popes without any formal dispensation, their election clearing that imperfection. And the Statute of alibi nati, has been oft found not to extend to the Royal line.  
That the Succession to the Crown purges all defects, is clear, by many instances, both at home and abroad. The instances at home are, in England Henry the VI Being disabled and attainted of high treason by Act of Parliament, it was found by the Judges, notwithstanding that from the moment he assumed the Crown, he had Right to succeed without being restored. And the like was resolved by the Judges in the case of Henry the VII, As Bacon observes in his History of Henry the VII. fol. 13. And in the case of Queen Elizabeth, who was declared Bastard by Act of Parliament, as is clear by Cambden anno 2. Elizabeth. And though in Scotland there be no express instances of this, because though some Rebellious Ringleaders in Scotland, have often in a private capacity been very injurious to their King; Yet their Parliaments have been ever very tender of attainting the blood Royal, or presumptive Heirs. But Alexander Duke of Albany, and his Succession being declared traitors, by his Brother King james the IV. his Son john was notwithstanding called home from France upon his Uncle's death, and declared Tutor and Governor, without any remission, or being restored: that employment being found to be due to him by the right of blood: therefore he had been much more declared the true Successor of the Crown if his Cousin King james the V. had died.  
These being sufficient to establish our design, I shall mention only some foreign stories.  
CHARLES' the VII. of France who though banished by Sentence of the Parliament of Paris, did thereafter succeed to the Crown. And though Lewis the XII. was forfeited for taking up arms against CHARLES the VIII. Yet he succeeded to him without restitution. And Lewis the II. his Son being declared a Rebel, whom his Father desiring to disinherit, and to substitut in his place Charles Duke of Normandy, that Son had succeeded if he had not been hindered by the Nobility, who plainly told him it was impossible to exclude his Sun from the Succession.  
My next task shall be to satisfy the arguments brought for maintaining this opinion, whereof the first is.  
That God himself has authorised the inverting the Right of Succession, by the examples of Esau, Solomon, and others.  
To which I answer, that these instances which are warranted by express commands from God, are no more to be drawn into example, than the robbing of the Egyptians earrings. And it's needing an express command, and the expressing of that command, does evince, that otherways jacob, nor Solomon could not have succeeded against the privilege of birthright and possession.  
The next objection, is that it is naturally employed in all Monarchies, that the people shall obey whilst the Prince Governs justly, As in the paction betwixt David, and the people 2 Sam. 5. Which is most suitable to the principles of justice, and Government: Since relations cannot stand by one side; so that when the King leaves off to be King, and becomes a Tyrant, the people may consult their own security in laying him aside, as Tutors may be removed when they are suspect. And that this is most just when Kings are Idolaters since God is rather to be obeyed then men.  
To all which it is answered, that God who loves order, and knows the extravagant levity, and insolence of men, especially when baited by hope of prey, or promotion, did wisely think fit to ordain under the pain of eternal damnation, that all men should be subject to Superior powers for conscience sake. 1 Pet. 2.13. and that whoever resists the power, resists God, Rom. 13.2. reserving the punishment of Kings to himself, as being only their Superior. And thus David, Asa, and others, committed crimes, but were not deposed, nor debarred by the people. Nor were even the Idolatrous Kings such as Achab, Manasse, etc. judged by their subjects, nor did the Prophets exhort the people to rise against them, though they were opposing Gods express, and immediate will, And overturning the uncontraverted fundamentals of Religion. Nor did the Fathers of the primitive Church, excite the Christians to oppose the Heathen, and Idolatrous Princes, under which they lived: and Paul commands them to pray for these Heathen Emperors. Nor was the Emperor Basilicus deposed for abrogating the Council of Chalcedon, as is pretended by some Republicans, but was turned out by the just Successor Zeno, whom he had formerly dethroned. Nor were Zeno or Anastasius degraded for their errors in Religion, or their vices by the ancient Christians: but were oppressed by private faction. And sure they must think God unable to redress himself, who without warrant, and against his express warrant, will usurp so high a power. And we in this rebellious principle, own the greatest extravagancy with which We can charge the Pope and Jesuits, and disowne not only our own Confession of faith which Article 1. Chap. 22. acknowledges, that infidelity, or difference in Religion doth not make void the Magistrates just▪ or legal authority, nor free the People from their due obedience to him, but contradict the best Protestant divines, as Musculus, Melancthon and others vid. libel. de vitand. superstit. Anno 1150. & Consil. Biden. Dec. 1. Consil. 10. & Decad. 10. Consil. 5. nor can the subterfuge used by Buchanan, and others satisfy, whereby they contend that the former Texts of Scripture prove only that the Office, but not the People of Kings are Sacred: so that Parliaments or People may lay aside the Persons, though not the Office, seeing the Sacred Text secures oftener the Person, than the Office as I have formerly more fully prov'de. And if this principle prevailed as to the differences in the Theory of Religion, it would in the next step be urged as to the practice of Religion; and we would change our Kings, because we thought them not pious, as well as Protestant. And did not our Sectarians refine so far, as to think dominion founded on grace? and this opinion seems to myself more solid than the other, for certainly an impious Protestant, is a worse Governor, and less God's Vicegerent, and image, than a devout Papist. And amongst Protestants, every Sect will reject a King, because he is not of their opinion. And thus our Covenanters, by the Act of the West-kirk Anno 1650. declared, they would disown our present Monarch, if he did not own the Covenant. And though a King were Protestant, yet still this pretext that he designed to introduce Popery, would raise his People against him, if differences in Religion could Lawfully Arm subjects against their King, or did empower them to debar his Successor. And when this cheat prevailed against devout King Charles the I, the Martyr of that Orthodox Faith to which he was said to be enemy, what a madness is it to allow this fatal error, which was able to ruin us in the last age, and went so near to destroy us in this? This is indeed, to allow that arbitrariness against our Kings, which we would not allow in them to us.  
The second Objection is, that in England the Parliament has frequently devolved the Crown and Government upon such as were not otherways to have succeeded, as in the instances of Edward the II. and Richard the III, the first of whom was most unjustly deposed, for making use of Gavestoun, and the Spencers; which shows how extravagant the People are in their humours, rather than how just their power is: for besides, that we do not read, that these Counsellors were unsufferable, there is no good Christian that can say, that a King can be deposed for using ill Counsellors. And as to Richard the III. his case is so fully examined, and all the Articles brought both against him, and Edward the II. so fully answered by the learned Arnisaeus a Protestant Lawyer, (and who had no other interest in that debate than a love to Truth and Law) in that treatise, Quod nullâ ex causâ subditis fas sit contra legitimum principem arma sumere, that we Protestants should be ashamed to bring again to the field such instances, upon which Arnisaeus, in answer to the 14. Article against Richard the TWO, viz. that he refused to allow the Laws made in Parliament, does very well remark, that this was in effect to consent to their being King, and to transfer upon them the Royal power, and this will be the event of all such undertake.  
The instances of Henry the IV. and Henry the VII., are of no more weight than the other two, since these were likeways only Kings de facto, till King Henry the VII. by his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth, eldest Daughter to King Edward the IV., did by her transmit a just title to his Successor: & therefore it was not strange, that either of these should allow the Parliament to interpose, when they behoved to owe to them the possession of the Throne. But yet Henry the VII. himself (as the Lord Bacon relates in his History) shunned to have the Parliament declare his title to be just, being content with these ambiguous words, viz. that the inheritance of the Crown should rest, remain and abide in the King, etc. And upon this account it was, that the same King caused make a Law, that such as should serve the King for the time, being in his wars, could not be attainted or impeached in their persons or Estates.  
As to Henry the VIII. his procuring an Act, whereby the Parliament declares that in case he had no issue by the Lady jean Seymour, he might dispose of the Crown to whatsoever person he should in his own discretion think fit.  
It is answered, that by a former Statute in the 25 year of his Reign, he by Act of Parliament settles the Crown upon the Heirs male of his own body, and for lack of such issue, to Lady Elizabeth, and for lack of such issue also, to the next Heirs of the King, who should for ever succeed according to the right of Succession of the Crown of England; which shows that the Succession to the Crown of England is established by the Law of Nature, and the Fundamental Laws of England, upon the Heirs of Blood, according to the proximity of degrees; so that though that King did afterwards prevail with the Parliament to declare this Elizabeth a Bastard, as he did also his Daughter Mary, by another Act, and resolve to settle the Crown, upon Henry Fitz Roy, Duke of Richmond, yet these Acts teach us how dangerous it is to leave Parliaments to the impression of Kings in the case of naming a Successor, as it is to expose Kings to the arbitrariness of Parliaments. But such care had God of his own Laws, that Mary succeeded notwithstanding She was Papist, and Elizabeth succeeded her, though she was declared Bastard; the Rights of Blood prevailing over the formalities of divorce, and the dispensations of Popes: as the strength of Nature does often prevail over poisons. And God removed the Duke of Richmond by death, to prevent the unjust competition, and so little notice was taken of this; and the subsequent Act Anno 1535, that the Heirs of Blood succeeded without repealing of that Act, as ane Act in itself invalide from the beginning: for only such Acts are passed by, without being repealed. And Blackwood pag. 45. observes very well, that so conscious were the Makers of these Acts, of the illegality thereof, and of their being contrary to the immutable Laws of God, Nature and Nations, that none durst produce that King's Testament wherein he did nominat a Successor, conform to the power granted by these Acts, that how soon they were freed by his death from the violent oppressions that had forced them to alter a Successor three several times, and at last to swear implicitly to whomever he should nominat, (a preparative which this age would not well bear though they cite it) they proclaimed first Queen Mary their Queen though a Papist, and thereafter Queen Elizabeth, whom themselves had formerly declared a Bastard. And as in all these Acts there is nothing declaring the Parliaments to have power to name a Successor, but only giving a power to the King, for preventing mischiefs, that might arise upon the dubiousness of the Succession, to nominat a Successor; two of the legal Successors having been declared Bastards upon some niceties, not of nature, but of the Pope's Bulls for divorcing their Mothers: so, this instance can only prove, that the King may nominat a Successor, and that the Parliament may consent, not to quarrel it, (which is all that they do) but does not at all prove, that where the Right of Nature is clear, the Parliament may invert the same. And strangers who considered more the dictates of Law than of Passion, did in that age conclude, that no Statute could be valide when made contrare to the fundamental Law of the Kingdom, Arnisaeus Cap. 7. Num. 11. Henricus VIII. Angliae Rex Eduardum filium primò, deinde Mariam, denique Elizabetham suos haeredes fecerat, verùm non aliter ea omnia valent quam si cum jure Regni conveniant, Vid. Curt. Tract. Feud. Par. 4. Num. 129.  
There seems greater difficulty to arise from the 13 Elizabeth c. 2. by which it is enacted, that if any person shall affirm, that the Parliament of England has not full power to bind and Govern the Crown in point of Succession and descent, that such a person, during the Queen's life, shall be guilty of high treason.  
But to this Act it is answered, that this Act does not debar the next legal and natural Successor. And these words, That the Parliament has power to bind and Govern the Succession, must be, as all other general expressions in Statutes, interpreted and restricted by other uncontraverted Laws; and so the sense must be, that the Parliament are Judge where there are differences betwixt Competitors in nice and contravertable points which cannot be otherwise decided: and both this and the former Acts made in Henry the VI time, are not general Laws but temporary Acts and personal Privileges; and so cannot overturn the known current of Law. Quod verò contrà rationem juris receptum est, non est producendum ad consequentias. And in all these instances it is remarkable, that the restriction was made upon the desire of the Sovereign, and not of the Subject. And if we look upon this Act as made to secure against Mary Queen of Scotland, and to let her know, that it was to no purpose for her to design any thing against the Right, or Person of Queen Elizabeth, as being declared a Bastard, by Act of Parliament in England; since her other right as next undoubted Heir by Blood to the Crown, might be altered, or Governed: we must acknowledge it to be only one of these Statutes, which the Law says, are made ad terrorem & ex terrore only. Nor was there ever use made of it by Queen Elizabeth, nor her Parliaments; so fully were they convinced, that this pretended power was so unjust, as that it could not be justified by an Act of Parliament, being contrair to the Laws of God, of Nature, of Nations, and of the Fundamental Laws of both Kingdoms. But this Law being made to exclude Queen Mary, and the Scotish line, as is clear by that clause, wherein it is declared that every Person or People of what degree or Nation soever they be, shall during the Queen's life declare or publish, that they have Right to the Crown of England during the Queen's life, shall be disenabled to enjoy the Crown in Succession, inheritance, or otherways, after the Queen's death; It therefore follows, that it was never valide: For if it had, King james might have thereby been excluded by that person who should have succeeded next to the Scotish race. For it's undeniable, that Queen Marie did, during Queen Elizabeth's life, pretend▪ Right to the Crown, upon the account that Queen Elizabeth was declared Bastard. And therefore the calling in of King james after this Act, and the acknowledging his title, does clearly evince, that the Parliament of England knew, that they had no power to make any such Act. The words of which acknowledgement of King James' Right, I have thought fit to set down, as it is in the statute itself, 1. ja. Cap. 1. That the Crown of England did descend upon King james by inherent Birthright, as being lineally, justly, and Lawfully next, and sole Heir of the Blood Royal. And to this recognition they do submit themselves, and posterities for ever, until the last drop of their Blood be spilt. And further doth beseech his Majesty to accept of the same recognition, as the first Fruits of their Loyalty, and Faith to his Majesty, and to his Royal progeny, and posterity for ever.  
It may be also objected, that by the 8, Act. Parl. 1. ja. 6. It is provided in Scotland, that all Kings and Princes that shall happen to reign and bear Rule over that Kingdom, shall at the time of their Coronation, make their faithful promise by Oath in presence of eternal God, that they shall maintain the true Religion of jesus Christ, the preaching of the Holy Word, and due and Right Administration of the Sacraments now received and preached within this Kingdom; from which two conclusions may be inferred, 1. That by that Act the Successor to the Crown may be restricted. 2. That the Successor to the Crown must be a Protestant, that being the Religion which was Professed and established the time of this Act.  
To which it is answered, that this Act relates only to the Crowning of the King, and not to the Succession. Nor is a coronation absolutely necessary, Coronatio enim magis est ad ostentationem, quam ad necessitatem. Nec ideo Rex est quia coronatur, sed coronatur quia Rex est. Oldard: consil. 90. num. 7. Balbus lib. de coronat. pag 40. Nor do we read that any Kings were Crowned in Scripture except joas. And Clovis King of France was the first, who was Crowned in Europe. Nor are any Kings of Spain Crowned till this day. Neither is ane Coronation Oath requisite; Sisenandus being the first who in the 4. Tolletan Council gave such an Oath amongst the Christians, as Trajan was the first amongst the heathen Emperors. And we having had no Coronation Oath till the Reign of King Gregory, which was in Anno 879, he having found the Kingdom free from all Restrictions, could not have limited his Successor, or at least could not have debarred him by an Oath. Nullam enim poterat legem dictare posteris, cum par in parem non habeat imperium, as our Blackwood observes. pag. 13. (2.) There is no clause irritant in this Act debarring the Successor, or declaring the Succession null in case his Successor gave not this Oath. 3. The Lawful Successor though he were of a different Religion from his People (as God forbid he should be) may easily swear, that he shall maintain the Laws presently standing. And any Parliament may legally secure the Successor from overturning their Religion or Laws, though they cannot debar him. And though the Successor did not swear to maintain the Laws, Yet are they in little danger by his Succession; since all Acts of Parliament stand in force, till they be repealed by subsequent Parliaments▪ And the King cannot repeal an Act without the consent of Parliament. But to put this beyond all debate, the 2. Act of this current Parliament is opponed, whereby it is declared, that the Right and administration of the Government is immediately devolved upon the nixt Lawful Heir after the death of the King or Queen, and that no difference in Religion, nor no Law nor Act of Parliament can stop or hinder them in the free and actual administration; which is an abrogation of the foresaid Act concerning the Coronation as to this point▪ for how can the administration be devolved immediately upon the Successor, if he cannot administrat till he be Crowned, and have sworn this Oath.  
The next objection is, that since the King and Parl. may by Act of Parl. alter the Successions of private families though transmitted by the Right of blood, why may they not alter the Succession in the Royal family?  
To which it is answered, that the reason of the difference lies in this, that the Heirs of the Crown owe not their Succession to Parliaments: for they succeed by the Laws of God, nature, and the Fundamental Laws of the nation; whereas private Families are Subject to Parliaments, and inferior to them, and owe their private Rights to a municipal Law, and so may and aught in point of Right to be regulated by them. And yet I am very clear, that a Parliament cannot arbitrarly debarr the eldest Son of a private Family, and devolve the Succession upon the younger: and if they did so, their Acts would be null. But if this argument were good, we might as well conclude by it, that no person born out of England, or attainted of treason could succeed to the Crown; Because he could not succeed to a private Estate. All which and many more instances do clearly demonstrat that the Successor to the Crown cannot be debarred, not the Succession to the Crown diverted by Act of Parliament.  
The last objection is, that Robert the III. King of Scotland, was by ane Act of Parliament preferred to David and Walter, who were (as he pretends) were truly the eldest lawful Sons of Robert the 2 d. because Euphan Daughter to the Earl of Ross was first lawful Wife to King Robert the 2 d, and she bore him David Earl of Strathern, and Walter Earl of Athol, Alexander Earl of Buchan, and Euphan who was married to James Earl of Dowglass, after whose deceass he married Elizabeth Muir, Daughter to Sir Adam Muir; not so much (as Buchanan observes) from any design to marry a second Wife, as from the great love he carried to Elizabeth Muir, whom because of her extraordinary Beauty he had loved very passionately in his youth, and before he married the Earl of Rosses Daughter, and from the love which he bore to the Sons whom Elizabeth had born before that first Marriage, who were John Earl of Carrick (who thereafter succeeded to the Crown by the Title of Robert the 3 d,) and Robert Earl of Fife and Monteith, he prevailed with the Parliament to prefer John elder Son by Elizabeth Muir, to the two Sons which he had by the Earl of Rosses Daughter, who was (as they pretend) his first lawful Wife.  
In which though I might debate many nice points of Law relating to this Subject, yet I choose only to insist on these few convincing Answers.  
1. That in a Case of so great moment Historians should be little credited, except they could have produced very infallible Documents; and as in general one Historian may make all who succeed him err, so in this Case Boetius (who was the first) lived and wrote 200 years after the Marriage of King Robert the 2 d, and wrote his History at Aberdeen, very remote from the Registers and Records by which he should have instructed himself; nor did he know the importance of this point, having touched it only transiently, though it has been designly pressed by Buchanan, to evince that the Parliaments of Scotland might prefer any of the Royal Line they pleased; and it is indeed probable that King Robert the 2 d. did for some time make no great noise of his first Marriage with Elizabeth Muir, lest the meaness of the Match should have weakened his Interest upon his first coming to the Crown, he being himself the first of the Race of the Stewarts, and having so strong Competitors as the Earl of Dowglass, who claimed Right to the Crown in the Right of the Balliol and the Cummings, as Boetius himself observes.  
2. King Robert the 3 d. having succeeded as the eldest lawful Son, and having been received as such by that Parliament, and his Posterity by all succeeding Parliaments, the Possession of the King and the Acquiescence of the People is the most infallible proof that can be adduced for proving that Robert was the eldest lawful Son, nor have most Kings in Europe, or the Heads of most private Families any other proof of their being the eldest and lawful Sons, save that they succeeded and were acknowledged as such.  
3. To balance the authority of these Historians, I shall produce the Testimony of the Learned Sir Lewis Stewart, one of the most famous Lawyers we ever had, and who ought much more to be believed than Buchanan, not only because he was more disinterested, but because he found'st upon Acts of Parliament and old Charters which he himself had seen in the Registers, in which Elizabeth Muir is acknowledged to have been the first Wife. Buchananus lib. 9 in vitam Roberti 2. affirmat Euphaniam Comitis Rossenssis filiam primam Regis Roberti 2. uxorem fuisse & eâ mortuâ, Regem superinduxisse Elizabetham Moram ex qua prius Liberos ternos mares suscepisset, & eam uxorem duxisse, ejusque liberos regno destinasse, ut postea eorum natu maximus suc●essit quod quam falsum sit, apparet ex archivis in carcere Edinburgensi reconditis, ubi exstant separata acta duorum Parliamentorum, subscripta manibus Ecclesiasticorum praesulum, nobilium, baronum, & aliorum statuum Parliamenti, & eorum sigillis roborata, quibus Elizabetha Mora agnoscitur prima uxor, & Euphania Rosse secunda, & liberis ex Elizabetha Mora tanquam justis haeredibus Regni, successive regnum d●cernitur, & post eos liberis Euphaniae Rosse nec non ibidem cartae extant plurimae, factae per Davidem secundum, eorum patruum magnum ex diversis terris, joanni filio primogenito, nepotis ejus Roberti, dum Euphania Rosse viverit nec non Davidi filio natu maximo Euphaniae Rosse quem solum filium indigitat Roberti nepotis, quod non fecisset si Elizabetha Mora non prius fuisset nupta Roberto ejus nepoti, nam primogenitus nunquam attribuitur notho imo ego plures quam viginti cartas in archivis inveni, ubi etiam eas reliqui, ex quibus sole clarius elucessit, Elizabetham Moram primam fuisse uxorem, & Euphaniam Rosse secundam, nam extra contraversiam, liberi Elizabethae Morae etate grandiores erant liberis Euphaniae Rosse: which Paper I did get from the Lord Pitmeden, who has himself written some learned Observations upon this point.  
4. I have myself seen an Act of Parliament (found out by the industry of Sir George Mackenzie of Tarbet, now Lord Register) having the entire Seals of the Members of Parliament appended thereto, by which the Parliament do swear Allegiance to Robert the 2 d. the first King of the Race of the Stewarts; and after him Roberto Comiti de Carrict, filio suo natu maximo (his eldest Son) in Anno 1371, which was the first year of his Reign; and if the pretended defect be true, it was a very palpable, and a very undeniable one, and could not but have been unanswerably known to the whole Nation. And how can we imagine, that the whole Parliament would have unanimously drawn upon themselves so dreadful a Perjury, by excluding the lawful Heir, against their National Oath in the Reign of K▪ Kenneth the 3 d, whereby they swore to own always the immediate Heir, or that they would have entailed upon themselves a Civil War, by preferring even a questionable Heir, after the Miseries which they had lately then felt, in the competition betwixt the Bruce and the Baliol. Amongst which Seals, the Seal of james Earl of Dowglass is one, and how ridiculous is it to think, that he would sit and declare a Bastard preferable to the Brother of his own Lady, and to his own Lady who would have succeeded if her Brothers had died without Succession: Which Act of Parliament does also clearly prove, that Buchanan did not at all understand matters of Fact in this part of the History, for he asserts, that after the death of Euphan Ross, the King married Elizabeth Muir, and did by Act of Parliament obtain the Crown to be settled upon Robert the 3 d, Son to the said Elizabeth Muir, upon whom he also bestowed the Title of Carrick; all which is most false, for this Act of Parliament is dated in Anno 1371, and King Robert the 2 d. succeeded to the Crown that year, nor did Euphan Ross die till the 3 d. year after he succeeded to the Crown, and so not till the Year 1374, and yet in Anno 1371 this Act is past, designing him Heir to the Crown, and Earl of Carrick, and consequently he was so designed before the death of Euphan Ross.  
5. I have seen a Charter granted by King Robert the 2 d, when he was only Steward of Scotland, granted in anno 1165, and so long before he was King. In which Charter likewise, john, thereafter King, by the name of Robert the 3 d, is a conjunct Disponer with him, under the express designation of the eldest Son and Heir. Robertus Senescallus Scotiae, Comes de Strathern, & joannes Senescallus primogenitus & haeres ipsius Dominus Baroniae de Kyle, etc. which Charter confirms to the Abbacy of Pasley several Lands disponed to them, by Reginaldus More, Father to Sir William More of Abercorn. And I find that David Duke of Rothsay, was always in the Charters granted by his Father King Robert the first, called Primogenitus, and he was no Bastard, nor can this designation be given to a Bastard, as is clear by Covaruvias de Matrim. part. 2. cap. 8. §. 2. num 4. But how can it be imagined that the Monks of Pasley would have taken a Right from a person as Heir to the Crown, who was not: for this would have inferred Treason against them, beside the annulling their Right, or who could understand better the lawfulness of a Marriage, than a body of Churchmen, living in the time, and very near to the Residence of the married Persons, and in whose Conventual-Church the said King Robert and Elizabeth Muir lie buried together.  
Item, I have seen in the Registers another Charter granted by King Robert the 2. in the first year of his Reign, with the consent of john Earl of Carrick, primogenitus & haeres, Allano de Lavidia terrarum de Whitslet; And an other granted by the said King, 1. june, anno primo regni, confirming to Paulo Mctire a Charter granted by the Earl of Ross, Father to Euphan, wherein the said john primogenitus & haeres, is a Witness: And to show that the said Euphan Ross was then living when he was so designed Heir, there is a Charter to her by the King upon the very same day of the Lands of Lochleaven. As also, there is a Charter granted by King Robert the 2 d, the first year of his Reign, to Alexander his Son, and another to john Kennedy of the Barony of Dalrymple, in both which the said john Earl of Carrick is called primogenitus, and is Witness with the Earl of Dowglass; so that he has been designed eldest Son and Heir, openly, uncontravertedly, and in all Papers, and with the consent of the second Wife and her Relations.  
6. In the Parliament 1372, the said john Earl of Carrick is designed to be Lieutenant of the Kingdom, and all the Estates of Parliament swear to own him in his Government, and which Statute is printed amongst the Satutes of King Robert the 2 d, Father to the said john, and which must be during the Marriage with Euphan Ross, for she lived three years after her Husband was King, and he succeeded to the Crown anno 1371: And this also confutes Buchanan, who asserts, that he was created Earl of Carrick after the death of Euphan Ross, and it is against all sense and reason to think that he could have been acknowledged during her life, if he had not been the true Apparent Heir of the Crown and a lawful Son.  
7. Walter (who they pretend should have succeeded to the Crown,) having killed his Nephew King james the first, Son to King Robert the 3 d; He was not only not owned after the death of the said King james, as certainly he had been if his Title had been good, and his Right so recent and demonstrable, having so many great and powerful Relations, that his Father was induced upon their account to marry his Mother; but yet the said Walter was by all the Parliament unanimously condemned as a Traitor, for having conspired the death of his lawful Prince. Nor does Boetius justify Walter's Title in the least, but on the contrary, magnifies the Parliament for their just Sentence. As did likewise Aeneas Silvius the Pope's learned Legate, who exhorted the Parliament to condemn him.  
8. How is it imaginable, that King Robert who had so lately, and after a strong competition come to the Crown, would have adventured to make his Title yet more disputable, by preferring a Bastard to the true Heir, who had so many Friends by his Mother, and who being an Infant had never disobliged him.  
9 If we will consider the opinion of the Civilians, whom we and almost all Nations follow in the Cases of Succession, we will find, that the said King Robert the 3 d was the eldest and lawful Son of King Robert the 2 d. filius legitimus, & non legitimatus. For, 1. They conclude, that a Son is proved to be a lawful Son by the Assertion of the Father, Alciat tract praesumpt. Reg. 2▪ praesumpt. 2. num. 6. and certainly the Father is the best Judge in such Cases; but so it is we have the Father owning the said Robert the 3 d. to be his eldest Son and Heir, both in Charters and Acts of Parliamnets, which are the most solemn of all Deeds. 2. Quando pater instituit aliquem tanquam filium suum, which holds in this Case, where the Father institutes and leaves him Heir, and the Parliament swears Allegiance to him as the Heir, Mascard. de prob. vol, 2. conclus. 799. And in dubious Cases, the Father's naming such a man as a Son, presumes him to be a lawful Son, nominatio parentis inducit filiationem in dubio, l. ex facto §. si quis Rogatus ff. ad treble. 3. Even Fame, and the common opinion of the People, do in favours of these that are in Possession, and in ancient Cases, prove & filiationem, & legitimationem, Mascard. conclus. 792. but much more, where the Fame and common Opinion is adminiculated by other Arguments, fulgos consil. 128. Panorm. in cap. transmiss. qui filii sunt ligittimi. 4. When Writs are produced, calling a man a Son, the Law concludes him to be a lawful Son. Mascard. vol. 2. conclus. 800. num 15. all which can be easily subsumed in our Case. In which Robert the 3 d. is named not only Son, but Heir, and Allegiance sworn to him, even in the life-time of the second Wife and her Relations sitting in Parliament, and all this acquiesced in for many hundreds of years, and the Competitors punished as Traitors by the unanimous consent of all the Parliament.  
I know that Buchanan does most bitterly inveigh against those Laws made by King Kenneth the 3 d, as Laws whereby the ancient Right of Succession was innovated, and whereby the Government was settled upon Children who were neither able to consult with the People, nor to defend them, and whereby those had the Government of the Nation conferred upon them who were not capable to govern themselves.  
To which my answer is, That in this Buchanan's Malice contradicts his History, for his own History tells us, that the Scots swore Allegiance to Fergus and his Posterity; and consequently Fergus' Son ought by Law to have succeeded, and not his Brother, for his Brother was none of his Posterity, and therefore those Laws made by K. Kenneth did but renew the old Law, and the innovation introduced in favours of the Uncles, was a subversion of the fundamental Law to which they had sworn. 2. That the old Law was not abrogated, but was in Being by virtue of the first Oath, appears very clear by Buchanan himself, who confesses, that upon the death of Durstus, a wicked Prince, it was debated whether his Son should not succeed juxta sacramentum Fergusio prestitum veteremque esse morem servandum, which acknowledgeth that the Succession was even in these days established by Law, by Oath, and by Custom; and after the death of Fergus the 2 d, his Son Eugenius (though a Minor) was crowned, and his Uncle Graemus allowed to be his Tutor. And Buchanan also brings in Bishop Kennedy, lib. 12. praising this Law as made by Kenneth, a most wise and glorious Prince, with advice of all his Estates of Parliament; and which rather confirms (as he says) the old Law than introduces a new one, so far did Buchanan's rage against Queen Mary prevail with him, to praise and rail at the same individual Law; and it is observable, that it is very dangerous to recede once from fundamental Laws, for Buchanan makes not only the Succession Elective, but he makes no difference betwixt lawful Children and Bastards, and excludes not only Minors during the Uncle's life, but Women for ever. 3. In all Nations where the Monarchy is Hereditary, Minors succeed, and so this innovation of causing the next Male succeed for all his Life, was contrary to the nature of the Monarchy and to the Customs of all Nations, and God in Scripture gives us many instances of it: joas succeeded when he was seven years of Age, josiah when he was eight, Manasseh in twelve, and Azariah in sixteen; and yet in those days, God is said to have chosen the King, for it is said in Deut. Thou shalt set over thee, the King whom I have chosen, and consequently the choice of Minors cannot be ill, since God Almighty used to make such a choice. I know that Eccles. 10.16. says, Woe unto the land when thy King is a child, but the Critics interpret this of a King that is childish, puer intellectu & moribus, or because Factions arise by the opposition to his Regent's, and this inconveniency did more necessarily attend the allowing a Regent King during Life, for both the Subjects and the true Heir raised 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 Nonage ceasing with his Majority, it was unreasonable that the Remedy should have lasted beyond the Disease, and the worst effect that could have been occasioned by the Infant King's Minority was, that the Kingdom should have been during that time governed 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 3 d, we had 79. 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 King Kenneth the 3 d, to King CHARLES' the 2 d. inclusiuè, we have had 31. Kings, 26. of whom have succeeded by a due lineal Right, and have proved virtuous Princes, greater by their Merit than their Birth, as if God had designed to let us see, that though most of them succeeded whilst they were very young, yet that he can choose a fitter Successor than Parliaments can do; whereas the other 5. Kings who came to the Crown against that Law of Kenneth the 3 d▪ viz. Constantine the bald, Grimus, Mackbeath, Donal Bain, and Duncan the 2 d, 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 governed without it: And it is very strange, that the fanatics, who think that every throw of the Dice is influenced 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.  
FINIS.   

What follows is immediately to be subjonyed to the Testimony of Calvin, Page 90.  
I Know that to this it may be answered, That the same Calvin does qualify his own words, which I have cited with this following Caution. Si qui sunt (saith he) populares Magistratus, ad moderandam Regum libidinem constituti (quales olim erant qui Lacedemoniis regibus oppositi erant ephori; & quâ etiam fortè potestate (ut nunc res habent) fuguntur in singulis regnis, tres ordines; quum primarios conventus peragunt) adeo illos ferocienti Regum licentiae, pro officio intercedere non veto; ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus, & humili plebeculae insultantibus conniveant, eorum dissimulationem nefariâ perfidiâ non carere affirmam; quia populi libertatem, cujus se tutores Dei ordinatione positos nôrunt, fraudulenter produnt.  
To which my reply is, That these words must be so constructed, as that they may not be incosistent with his former clear and Orthodox Doctrine, of not resisting Supreme Powers, the former being his positive Doctrine, and this but a supervenient Caution, and they do very well consist; for though Calvin be very clear, that Kings cannot be resisted, yet he thinks that this is only to be meant of those Kings who have no Superiors to check them by Law, as the Kings of the Lacedæmonians had, who by the fundamental Constitution of their Monarchy, might have been called to an account by the Ephori, and so in effect were only Titular Kings: Or of such Monarches as had only a coordinate Power with the States of their own Kingdom; and even in these Cases, he does not positively assert, that these Monarches may be resisted, but does only doubt whether if there be any such Superior or coordinate Magistrate representing the People, they may not restrain the Rage and Licentiousness of their Kings: But that Caution does not at all concern the Ius Regni apud Scotos, because this cannot be said of the Kings of Great Britain, since the States of Parliament are only called by the King, and derive their Authority from him, and the Legislative Power is solely in the King, the States of Parliament being only Consenters, he and not they can only make Peace and War, and grant Remissions, and against him and not them Treason only is committed, and the Law Books of both Nations do affirm, that the King is Supreme, and consequently even according to Calvin's Doctrine, neither his People, nor any of their Representatives, can justly oppose, and much less punish him.  
I know that Grotius is by the Republicans, and the fanatics, ofttimes cited to defend this their Doctrine, of opposing Princes; but though his Testimony might be justly rejected, as being himself born under a Commonwealth, yet he is most impudently cited, for he lib. 1. cap. 4. does positively lay down as a general and undoubted Rule, that Summum imperium tenentibus, resisti non potest, Those who have the Supreme Power cannot lawfully be resisted; whilch Rule he found'st upon the Principles of Reason, the Authority of Scripture, and the Practice of the Primitive Church; and though he limits the same thereafter by some exceptions, yet it will easily appear, that these exceptions extend not at all to our Case.  
For the first relates only to such Kings, as have received their Power with express condition, that they may be tried by other Magistrates.  
The second to such as have voluntarily resigned their Empire, as Charles the 5 th'. did; and so the one may be opposed, because they were only Titular Kings: and the other, because they left off to be Kings, and consequently we are concerned in neither of these Cases.  
The third limitation is only in the Case where he who was truly a King, has alienated his Kingdom to Strangers; In which Case, Grotius does contend, that Subjects may refuse to obey, because he ceaseth to be their King. But as this is not our Case, so even in that Case Grotius is very clear, that if this alienation be made by an Hereditary Monarch, the alienation is null, as being done in prejudice of the lawful Successor, but he does not at all assert that the Monarch may be thereupon deposed by his People.  
The fourth relates only to such Kings, as from a hatred to their Country, design its Destruction and utter Ruin; but as he confesseth himself, Id vix accidere potest in Rege mentis compote; and consequently can take only place in a mad Man, in which Case all Laws allow the Kingdom to be ruled by Governors, and Administrators in the King's Name, if the Madness be Natural, and a total depravation of Sense. But if by Madness be meant a moral Madness, and design to ruin the Kingdom and the Subjects, as was, and is most impiously pretended against King CHARLES the first, and King CHARLES' the 2 d, the best and most reasonable of Kings; then Opposition in such Cases is not at all warranted by Grotius, who speaks only of a Physical and Natural Madness; for else, every thing that displeaseth the People should be called Madness; and so the exception should not limit but overturn the general rule, and should arm all Subjects to rebel against their Princes, and make them the Sovereign Judges in all Cases. Which is inconsistent with Grotius' own Doctrine, and is excellently refuted by his own Reasons.  
The fifth relates only to Kings, who by the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom are tied to such and such Conditions, so as that if they fall in them, they may be opposed.  
The sixth relates only to Kingdoms where the Power is equally divided betwixt the King and the Senate.  
The seventh is incase the King was at first invested by the People, with express reservation to them to resist in such and such Cases, and so is almost the same with the fifth, and all these three differ little from the first. And with Grotius good leave, they err also in this, that they are not properly exceptions from his own rule, for the rule being only, that Supreme Powers cannot be resisted, these Powers are not Supreme, and they needed not be cautioned by an exception, since they did not fall under the rule. But neither of these Cases extend to us, since our King is by the Acts of Parliament fomerly cited, declared to be Supreme over all Persons and in all Causes, nor made our Predecessors any such express reservations at the first erection of the Monarchy, and consequently by Grotius own positive Doctrine cannot be resisted. And so far is Grotius an enemy to such Fanatical Resistance, upon the pretence of Liberty and Religion, that num. 6. he calls the Authors of these Opinions, Time Servers only. And Gronovius a violent Republican and Fanatic, taxes him extremely for it, in his Observations upon that fourth Chapter, whose Arguments adduced against Grotius I shall answer amongst the other Objections.  
Gronovius' first Argument why it should be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate in defence of Religion, is, because if it be not lawful for Subjects to Arm themselves for Religion against their Prince, it should not be lawful for their Prince by the same rule to defend himself against Turks and Infidels, who would endeavour to force him to comply with their Impieties. But to this it is answered, That Resistance to Superiors is expressly discharged by the Laws of God and Nature, as said is, but this cannot be extended to Cases where there is no Subjection nor Allegiance; and it may be as well argued, that because one private man may beat another who offers to strike him, that therefore a Child may beat his Parent, or a Servant his Master, or that because I may violently resist a private man who offers to take away my Goods unjustly, that therefore I may oppose the Sentence of the Magistrate, because I forsooth do not think the same just.  
His second shift is, That our Saviour commanded only absolute submission without resistance in the Infancy of the Church when he himself was miraculosly to assist his own Servants, but this Submission was to end with the Miracles, to which it related. As to which, my answer is, 1. That all the Commands in Scripture may be so eluded, nor is there any Duty more frequently and fully inculcated than this is, and that too in the same Chapters amongst other Duties, which are to last for ever, such as submission to Parents, and Masters, and this is founded upon plain reason and conveniency, and not upon Miracles. 2. This was received and acknowledged by the Pagans, as has been fully proved, though it cannot be pretended that they relied upon any such miraculous assistance. 3. It cannot be denied but the Fathers of the Primitive Church did recommend and justify themselves in their Apologies to the Heathen Emperors for bearing patiently, when they were able not only to have resisted, but to have overthrown their Persecuters, as is clear by the Citations out of Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Augustine, and others, to be seen in Grotius, De jure Belli, lib. 1. cap. 4. num. 7. And it had been great impudence as well as sin in them, to have boasted of a recent matter of Fact, which was not true; nor could there be a greater injury done to the Primitive Christians, as Grotius observes, than to ascribe that to their Weakness, which they considered as an effect of Duty; and why should the Heathen Emperors have suffered those to multiply, who obeyed only because Disobedience was not safe, for they might have certainly concluded, that by the same Principle that they obeyed only because they were weak, they would disobey how soon they were able. 4. If the first Christians in general had obeyed only because they were not able to resist, than any private Christian had resisted when he was able, or would have fled or concealed himself, whereas it it acknowledged in the other Answer pressed by Gronovius himself, that they sought for Martyrdom, and so these two Answers are inconsistent; and the Thebean Lègion, and others, did submit themselves voluntarly to Martyrdom with their Arms in their hands, and when they were able to have overthrown the Emperor. And lastly, If this Doctrine were allowed, no Society could subsist, for when Dissenters grew strong, the lawful Magistrate behoved to perish; whereas Jesus Christ did contrive the Christian Religion; so as that all Governors should reasonably wish their Subjects to be Christians; and so as no Christian should attempt to overthrow the order and establishment of Civil Government, and that they should not be drawn away from the practice of Christian Devotion by the carnal desires of being great and strong in the World, nor have any hopes in the Arm of Flesh to the lessening of their immediate dependence upon him.  
His third shift is, That his Doctrine of Submission and of dying for the Christian Religion without making Resistance, was only the Practice, but not the Command of the Primitive Church, and proceeded from their immoderate affectation of the Crown of Martyrdom, as Milntoun also pretends. But since the express Command of Scripture is founded upon such clear Reason, and since (as Grotius well observes) the Practice of the Primitive Christians, who lived so near the Age wherein these Scriptures were penned, is the best Interpreter of the Scripture, it is horrid Impiety to make those blessed Martyrs pass for vain Hypocrites, and distracted Self-murderers; and it becomes us with holy reverence to imitate those whom the Christian Church has ever admired.  
The fourth shift is, That the Protestant Churches have been reformed by such Insurrections as these, contrary to the Royal Authority. But this is fully answered by the learned Henry More in his Divine Dialogues, and by Du Moulin in his Philanax Anglicus; where likewise are to be found the many Testimonies of Protestant Churches, and Protestant Divines, condemning positively the taking up of Arms against the Sovereign Power, even for the defence of Religion; and the very Presbyterian Confession of Faith at Westminster, is so positive as to this point, that the Presbyterians themselves can never answer it. The sum of which answer is, That the King of Spain coming by Marriage in place of the Duke of Burgundy, the said King of Spain could pretend to no more power than they had, nor could the House of Burgundy pretend to any more power by marrying the Heirs of the Counts of the several Provinces, than these Counts had over their Provinces; and therefore since none of these were Sovereigns over their Provinces, the Provinces might have resisted the King of Spain when he oppressed them; and consequently that Resistance cannot defend such as resist Supreme Powers upon pretence of Religion, Grotius de Antiq. Reipub. Ba●av. cap. 7.  
The opposition made by the Protestants in France, was not occasioned by Religion, but upon a Quarrel betwixt the Princes of the Blood and the House of Guise in the Minority of Francis the 2 d, and is defended most excellently by King james himself, not to have been Rebellion, in his Defence of the Right of Kings, pag. 14.  
The Opposition made by the Princes of Germany to the Emperor, was founded upon the inherent Right in the Princes, by the golden Charter of the Empire. And Luther himself declared, that Magistratui non erat resistendum, and has written a Book to that purpose; nor would he engage in the Confederacy for Defensive Arms at Smalcald, until the Lawyers declared that that Resistance was lawful by the Laws of the Empire, Vide Slydan Hist. lib. 8. anno 1531.  
The War that arose in Switzerland, was not occasioned by Religion; for the Reformation was once established with the con-consent of the Magistrate. And the Eruption that was made by other Cantons upon the Reformed Cantons eleven years after that Establishment, Vide Slydan, anno 1522. Nor was it Calvin who banished the Prince and Bishop of Geneva, for he fled eight Months before upon the detecting of a Conspiracy, by which that Bishop was to deliver over the Liberties of that City to the Duke of Savoy, and for which his Secretary was hanged, Vide Turretin▪ Annal. Reformationis, anno 1529. And albeit those who Reformed in Scotland, in the Reign of Queen Mary, pretended Authority from the King, yet they were certainly Rebels, and are condemned by Rivet, a famous Protestant Divine, who also inveighs bitterly against this Principle, Castiga Not. in Epist. ad Balsac. cap. 13. num. 14. sub finem.  
From all which, I observe, First, That all the Protestant Divines by making apologies for such of their Profession as have risen in Arms against Supreme Powers, must be thereby concluded to be ashamed of the Principle. 2. Immediately upon the quieting those Rebellions, all the Protetestant Churches have in their Confessions of Faith, declared their abhorrence of that Principle; which being the product of Conviction and Experience, joined with Duty, must be the most judicious and sincere Testimony of all others. 3. All these Rebellions have been occasioned by a mistake in point of Law, and not in point of Religion; for the Divines, as I have related, have been abused by the Lawyers: And therefore, since in the Isle of Britain, the Laws of both Kingdoms have declared the Rising in Arms against the King, to be Treason, albeit for the defence of Religion; it necessarily follows, that this must be unlawful in point of Conscience in this Kingdom. 4. Though good things may be occasioned by a Rebellion, yet that does not justify a Rebellion; for though jeroboam was allowed by God to rise against Rehoboam, yet God Almighty himself calls his revolt Rebellion, 1 Kings 12.19. and 2 Chron. 10.19. and it is observable, that after this Revolt, there was but one good King amongst all the rebellious Kings of Israel; whereas amongst the Kings of judah, who were lawful Kings, there was but one or two who were any ways impious; so far does God bless a lawful Succession.  
Some also use as a shift against this Orthodox Doctrine, that the reason why the Primitive Christians did not oppose their Emperors in the defence of the Christian Religion, was, because they had not been secured at that time in the Exercise of their Religion by the Laws of the Empire; and therefore the practice of those Christians can be no Argument why we may not now rise to defend the Orthodox Religion▪ since it is now established by Law. But this Objection is fully answered by that great great Antiquary Samuel Petit. Diatriba de jur. Principum edictis Ecclesiae quaesito, where he clearly proves, that they were actually secured by the Edicts of the Emperors in the days of the Emperor Tiberius, and downward, and yet they would not rise in Arms though they were persecuted under these same Emperors, because the Word of God and the Christian Religion did command Obedience under Persecution, and discharged Resistance and taking up of Arms.   

Add to Page 73.  
I have also seen in fordoes History, lib. 14. pag. 73. a Charter granted by King David to the Bishops, with the consent of Robert his Nephew, and his Sons giving power to the Bishops to dispone in Testament upon their own Movables, which before that time did by a corrupt custom fall to the King, in which Charter, the Witnesses are, Robertus Senescallus Comes de Strathern, Nepos noster Ioannes Senescallus Comes de Carrict, filius suus primogenitus & haeres, Thomas Comes de Mar, Georgius de Dunbar, Comes de March, & Gulielmus Comes de Dowglass; so that here is not only the attestation of the Father before he was King, naming john Earl of Carrick, thereafter King Robert the 2 d. his eldest Son and Heir, but the attestation of the Grand-Uncle King David, who could be no ways biased in the Affair; and here he is ranked before the three eldest Earls in the Nation, who were then the three first Subjects therein; and it is against all Sense, to think that the whole Bishops would have sought the consent of the said john as Apparent Heir of the Crown, if he had not been Apparent Heir. I find also, that Fordon calls him when he is crowned King, Primogenitus Roberti secundi; nor was there the least opposition made to his Coronation, nor to the Coronation of Annabella Drummond his Queen (a Daughter of the House of Stob hall, now Pearth,) though both the Sons of the second Marriage were then alive. I find also, that Boetius himself acknowledges, that the Earl of Marches Son George, being pursued for having married clandestinly one of the Daughters of Elizabeth Muir, his defence was, that he married her when she was the Daughter of a private Subject, and before King Robert was King, whereas if she had been only a Bastard-Daughter, it could have been no Crime to have married her.