This was a live issue during the days of the Westminster Assembly in the 1640’s as the English Parliament, which called the Assembly, took up arms against the tyrrany of King Charles I. Parliament won, and cut of the King’s head. As Samuel Rutherford championed, the King is not the Law, but God’s Law is King.
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Short Works
Henderson, Alexander – Instructions for Defensive Arms (1639) in Andrew Stevenson, The History of the Church & State of Scotland… (Edinburgh, 1754), vol. 2, ch. 4, pp. 686-95
Henderson was one of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.
Burroughs, Jeremiah – A Brief Answer to Dr. Ferne’s Book Tending to Resolve Conscience about the Subjects taking up of Arms (1643) 12 pp.
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Letter
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Short Books
Bridge, William – Works (d. 1670), vol. 5
The Wounded Conscience Cured 56 pp.
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Sermons
Burroughs, Jeremiah – The Glorious Name of God, ‘The Lord of Hosts’, Opened in Two Sermons, vindicating the Commission from this Lord of Hosts, to subjects (in some case) to take up arms, with a Postscript, briefly answering a late treatise by Henry Ferne (1643) 142 pp.
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Full Length Book
Rutherford, Samuel – Lex, Rex: The Law & the Prince: a dispute for the just prerogative of king and people, containing the reasons and causes of the most necessary defensive wars of the kingdom of Scotland and of their expedition for the aid and help of their dear brethren of England: in which their innocency is asserted and a full answer is given to a seditious pamphlet entitled Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas, or, The sacred and royal prerogative of Christian Kings, under the name of J. A. but penned by Jo. Maxwell the excommunicate P. Prelate: with a scriptural confutation of the ruinous grounds of W. Barclay, H. Grotius, H. Arnisœus, Ant. de Domi P. Bishop of Spalata, and of other late anti-magistratical royalists, as the author of Ossorianum, D. Fern, E. Symmons, the doctors of Aberdeen, etc., in 44 questions Buy (1644)
See especially Questions 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 22, 23, 25, 29, 30, 40. See Questions 20 & 36 for the Doctrine of Interposition. See Questions 28, 31, 32, & 33 regarding the Doctrine of the Lawfulness of Armed Resistance Against Tyrants.
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Related Pages
Historic Treatises on Resistance to Tyrrany
Historic Quotes on Resistance to Tyrrany
All of the Writings of the Westminster Divines Online
All of the Writings of the Westminster Divines Online by Topic