A92147:1020
A treatise of civil policy
A treatise of civil policy: being a resolution of forty three questions concerning prerogative, right and privilege, in reference to the supreme prince and the people. / By Samuel Rutherford professor of divinity of St Andrews in Scotland.A treatise of civil policy: being a resolution of forty three questions concerning prerogative, right and priviledge, in reference to the supream prince and the people. / By Samuel Rutherford professor of divintiy of St Andrews in Scotland.
London, : Printed and are to be sold by Simon Miller at the Star in St Pauls Church-yard near the West end., 1657 i.e. 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Assert. 2. That the King only hath the power of war, and raising Armies must be but a positive civill Law. For, 1. by divine right, if the inferior Judges have the sword given to them of God, then have they also power of War, and raising Armies. 2. All power of war that the King hath is cumulative, not privative, and not destructive, but given for the safety of the Kingdom, as therefore the King cannot take from one particular man the power of the sword for natural self-preservation, because it is the birth-right of life; neither can the King take from a community and Kingdom a power of rising in Arms for their own defence: If an Army of Turks shall suddenly invade the Land, and the Kings consent express cannot be had (for it is essentially involved in the office of the King as King, that all the power of the sword that he hath, be for their safety) or if the King should as a man refuse his consent, and interdict and discharge the Land to rise in Arms, yet they have his Royal consent, though they want his personal consent, in respect that his office obligeth him to command them to rise in Arms. 2. Because no King, no Civill power can take away Natures birthright 1of self-defence from any man, or a community of men. 2. Because if a King should sell his Kingdom, and invite a bloody Conqueror to come in with an Army of men to destroy his people, impose upon their conscience an Idolatrous Religion, they may lawfully rise against that Army, without the Kings consent, for though Royalists say, they need not come in asinine patience, and offer their throats to cut-throats but may flee, yet two things hindereth a flight. 1. They are obliged by virtue of the first Commandment to re-man, and with their sword defend the Cities of the ⟨p. 374⟩Lord, and the King. 2 Sam. 10. 12. 1 Chron. 19. 13. for if to defend our Country and children, and the Church of God from unjust invaders and cut-throats by the sword, be an act of charity, that God and the Law of Nature requireth of a people, as is evident, Prov. 24. 11. and if the fifth Commandment oblige the Land to defend their aged Parents and young children from these invaders, and if the sixth Commandment lay on us the like bond, all the Land are to act works of mercy and charity, though the King unjustly command the contrary;