CASE OF THE POST-NATI OF SCOTLAND. 151 



knowledge justly and ingenuously a great difference 

 between that assertion and this, which is now 

 maintained : for it is one thing to make things 

 distinct, another thing to make them separable, 

 &quot; aliud est distinctio, aliud separatio ;&quot; and there 

 fore I assure myself, that those that now use and 

 urge that distinction, do as firmly hold, that the 

 subjection to the king s person and to the crown are 

 inseparable, though distinct, as I do. And it is 

 true that the poison of the opinion and assertion of 

 Spencer is like the poison of a scorpion, more in the 

 tail than in the body : for it is the inference that 

 they make, which is, that the king may be deposed 

 or removed, that is the treason and disloyalty of that 

 opinion. But by your leave, the body is never a 

 whit the more wholesome meat for having such a 

 tail belonging to it : therefore we see that is &quot; locus 

 lubricus,&quot; an opinion from which a man may easily 

 slide into an absurdity. But upon this act of parlia 

 ment I will only note one circumstance more, and so 

 leave it, which may add authority unto it in the 

 opinion of the wisest ; and that is, that these Spencers 

 were not ancient nobles or great patriots that were 

 charged and prosecuted by upstarts and favourites ; 

 for then it might be said, that it was but the action 

 of some flatterers, who used to extol the power of 

 monarchs to be infinite : but it was contrary ; a 

 prosecution of those persons being favourites by the 

 nobility ; so as the nobility themselves, which seldom 

 do subscribe to the opinion of an infinite power of 

 monarchs, yet even they could not endure, but their 



