Lex, Rex, and the Law and the Prince : A Dispute for the Just Prerogative of King and People

""He that resists the power ... resists the ordinance of God, and God's lawful constitution. But he who resists the man who is the king, commanding that which is against God and killing the innocent, resists no ordinance of God, but an ordinance of sin and Satan; for a man commanding unjustly and ruling tyrannically has in that no power from God." From Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex The Reformation in England and Scotland was in crisis. The English Civil War had just begun due to the attempts by Charles to impose popish rituals on the church and to assert his divine right as king to overrule parliament. Against these grandiose claims the Scottish pastor Samuel Rutherford wrote a book that changed the course of western civilization. In a very learned work, Rutherford shows from both Scripture, classical authors, and scholastic theologians that the king is not above the law and that when he violates it flagrantly the people are right to resist him, even to the point of war. The title Lex Rex is Latin for "Law is King." Divine right theorists had said that the King was the law, but Rutherford reverses this and shows that natural law is above the king, and thus there are times when citizens can and must obey God rather than man. This book changed western political philosophy forever and led to the thinking that ennabled the American revolution. "Rutherford was a practical and pastoral theologian who could soar to great heights of glorious consolation. Rutherford was the one who said that when he was in the cellar of affliction, he would look for Christ's choicest wines. He also said that "dry wells send us to the fountain," and "if contentment were here, heaven were not heaven," and "there are many heads lying in Christ's bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest . But Rutherford was also a bare-knuckle brawler who was clearly able to hold his own in the theological bar fight that was the sixteenth century. You are now holding in your hands the evidence of that." From Douglas Wilson's introduction"--… (more)