Affirm. 6. — There are some laws promulgated in favor of the king as king to pay tribute. The king, as king, must be above this law. This is true, but when a nobleman is elected king by a great rent, I do not know if he can be free to pay tribute to himself as king, since this is not allowed to the king by a divine law (Romans 13:6,) as a reward for his work; and Christ explicitly makes tribute a thing due to the emperor as king. (Matthew 22:21.) There are some celebrations of the law from which the king can be released; Prickman (D. c. 3, n. 78) says what they are; These are not laws, but certain circumstances that belong to the laws, and it responds to many passages claimed by lawyers to prove that the king is above the law. Malderus (in 12.
Art. 4, 5, 9, 96,) shall have the Prince under this Act, which affects the whole of the Commonwealth equally with regard to the matter, and this according to the law of nature; But he will not subject him to these laws, which concern the subjects as subjects, as a tribute. He quotes, Francis. a Vict. Covarruvias and Turrecremata. He will also have the prince under positive laws, such as not carrying supplies; not because the law binds him as a law, but because making the law binds him, tanquam conditio sine qua non, also “as he who teaches another that he must not steal, he must not steal himself” (Rom 2) But the truth is that it is only a branch of natural law, that I should not commit adultery, and theft and sacrilege and sins that nature condemns when I condemn them in others, and do not prove that the king is under the co-active power of civil law. Ulpianus (L 31. F. de regibus) says: “The prince is free from the laws.” Bodine (de Repub. l. 7, c. 8).
— “Nemo imperat sibi”, no one orders. Tholosanus says, (from Rep. l. 7, c. 20,) “Ipsius is dare, non accipere leges”, the prince gives laws, but receives none. Donellus (Lib. 1, Commentary, c. 17) distinguishes between a law and a royal law specific to the king. Trentierus (vol.
I. 79, 80) says: “The prince is free from the laws” and that he obeys the laws, honestly, not necessarily, on honesty, not out of necessity. Thomas P. (Q. 1, 96, art. 6, and with him Soto Gregorius de Valentia and other schoolchildren submit the king to the authority of the law and free him from the co-active power of the law. If the first example does anything good, neither the high priest, as Aaron was, nor the prelate P., who claims to be descended from the house of Aaron, should have any share in the Reformation; for Aaron was wrong. And arguing from the sins of the people to deny their power is no better than proving that Ahab, Jeroboam, and many kings in Israel and Judah committed idolatry, so they had no royal power. In the rest of the chapter, he sings his matins in a circle for an entire page and gives us the same arguments we have heard before; You have these three comments: — 4. If the king refuses to do his duty, where is it written that the people should also fail in their duty and love to have it in this way because the rulers corrupt their ways? (Jer 5:31.) Renewing a covenant with God is a point of service due to God, to which the people are committed, whether the king commands it or not. What happens if the king does not command his people to serve God? What if he forbids Daniel to pray to God? In this case, should the people serve the king of kings, only on the nod and royal order of an earthly king? Clarify this from the scriptures. For centuries, the Magna Carta has upheld the principle that no man is above the law, not even a king.
Although King John`s Magna Carta did not explicitly articulate this idea, it created controls to restrict the king if he did not comply with the terms of the Charter. Chapter 61 of King John`s Magna Carta states that twenty-five barons must be chosen to ensure that the king complies with all the provisions of the Charter. If the king violates this, the barons have the power to confiscate the king`s property by military force – or to “seize” it – until he submits. Arg. 4. “Consent will be included in addition,” says Ferd. Vasquez, l. i. c. 41,) the obligation is all the more stringent.
Thus, double words (says the law, l. 1, § 13, n. 13) oblige more strictly. And all the laws of kings, who are rational fathers and guide us through laws as well as by rational means towards peace and external happiness, are treaties of the king and the people. Omnis lex sponsio et contractus Reip. § 1, Inst. de ver. relig.
Now, in his coronation covenant with the people, the king gives a very intense approval, an oath to be a guardian and guardian of all good laws: and therefore he can hardly be freed from the strictest obligation that the law can impose. And when he holds laws by function, he is a means of preserving laws; and no remedy can be superior and above the end, but inferior. Affirm. 2. It is not disputed by anyone, but the king is subject to the power of the law, although many release the king from the co-active power of a civil right. But I do not see what direction a civil law can give to the king if he is above all obedience or disobedience to a law, since all legal instructions are in ordine ad obedieniam to obey, except to the extent that the light that is in civil law is a moral or natural leader to guide a king in his march; but it is the morality of the law that enlightens and informs, not an obligation that honors the king; and so the king is under God and the law of nature. It is not for that purpose. 3. He is so bad to all the established judges, as if they were not powers sent by God, and to all the governors who are not kings, and therefore bearers of prelates and of himself, as he imagines, that by his reasoning he will have any liberation only from kings, the only legal means in ordinary providence; thus, aristocracy and democracy, except in the extraordinary providence of God and through divine dispensation, must be extraordinary and ordinarily illegal. Arg 6.
— This is how the prince remains, even if he is a prince, a social being, a man and a king; The one who has to buy, sell. promise, tolerate, dispose: it is therefore not regularised, but the rule of law; for it is impossible for the king to live in a political manner as a member of a society and to do and perform political acts and perform them in the manner that he can buy and not pay through his office; To promise, and to swear, and to swear to man, and not to do, nor to be obliged to account for his oath, and to kill and destroy, and yet to be free in the Curia politicae societatis, at the court of human politics: and that he can give inheritances as a just reward of virtue and benevolence and remove them again. Yes, when we see that these sins, which cannot be punished before men, are not sins before men, if all the sins and oppressions of a prince are so above the punishment that men can impose, then they are not sins before men; In this way, the king is freed from all guilt of sins against the second table: for the ratio formalis, the formal reason why the judge condemns the guilty man by mandate of God in the judgment of men, is that he has sinned against human society by the scandal of blasphemy, or speaks of another heinous sin, that he defiled the country. Now this happens to both the king and another sinful man. 6. Nor can I think that God`s law or its vicar, the judges, must accept the people of the great because they are great; (Deuteronomy 1:17; 2. Chronicles 19:6–7 😉 And we say we can`t distinguish where the law doesn`t make a difference. The Lord speaks to the judges (Lev. 19:15) “Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, thou shalt not honor the person of the mighty” or the prince, for we know what these names lwOdgF and b@frF mean.
I admit that it is not the meaning of God that the king draws the sword against himself, but it does not follow that when we speak of the merit of blood, God`s law accepts all judges, great or small; and if the domains are above the king, as I imagine, then they are, although it is a human political constitution, that the king is free from any participation in the law, because it serves the peace of the Commonwealth; but when we ask a question of conscience, I see no exception on my part for God to do so; when people do, I want to be told, de facto ad jus non sequitur; and I easily yield that in any case the domains can force the king if we make it a case of conscience. And for the place, (Ps. 51:4,) “Against you, only you, I have sinned,” yti)+fxf K1d@:bal; K1l; Flatterers claim that this is a place that proves that the king is above all earthly courts and laws, and that there was no one on earth to punish King David; and so they quote Clemens Alexandrin. (Electricity. l. 4.) Arnobi., Psal. 1., Dydimus, Hieronim.; but Calvin at this point, gives the meaning that most fathers give: Domine, etiam si me totus mundus absolvat, mihi tamen plusquum satis est, quod te solum judicem sentio. That`s right, Beda, Euthymius, Ambrose, (Apol. David, c. 4 and c.
10,) all recognize from the place, de facto, that there was no one on David to judge him, and so say Augustine, Basil Theodoret and Chrysostom and Cyrillus and Hieronimus (Epist 22). Ambrose (Sermon 16, in Psal. 118.) Gregory and Augustine (Joan 8) say that he thinks that no man dared to judge or punish him, but only God. Lorinus, the Jesuit, observes eleven interpretations of the fathers, all in this sense: “Since (says Lyra) he sinned only against God, because God could only forgive him; ” Hugo Cardinalis, “Because God could only wash him away”, which he asks for in the text.