A92147:1022
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.
and for Kings to fall to be Minors, Captives, Tyrannous. And I shall be of that opinion that Mr Symmons, who holdeth, That Royal birth is equivalent to divine unction, must also hold, that election is not equivalent to divine unction; for both election and birth cannot be of the same validity, the one being natural, the other a matter of free choice, which shall infer that Kings by election are less properly, and analogically only Kings; and so Saul was not properly a King, for he was King by election; but I conceive that rather Kings by birth must be less properly Kings, because the first King by Gods institution, being the mould of all the rest, was by election. Deut. 17. 18. 19. 20.
and for Kings to fall to be Minors, Captives, Tyrannous. And I shall be of that opinion that Mr Symmons, who holdeth, That Royall birth is equivalent to divine unction, must also hold, that election is not equivalent to divine unction; for both election and birth cannot be of the same validity, the one being naturall, the other a matter of free choise, which shall infer that Kings by election are lesse properly, and analogically onely Kings; and so Saul was not properly a King, for he was King by election; but I conceive that rather Kings by birth must be lesse properly Kings, because the first King by Gods institution, being the mould of all the rest, was by election. Deut. 17. 18. 19. 20.
5. If the estates create the King, and make this man King, not this1 man, as is clear Deut. 17. 18. and 2 Chron. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4. they give to him the power of the Sword, and the power of War, and the Militia, and I shall judge it strange and reasonless, that the power given to the King, by the Parliament or estates of a free Kingdom, (such as Scotland is acknowledged to be, by all) should create, regulate, limit, abridge, yea and annul that power that created it self, hath God ordained a Parliamentary power to create a Royal power of the sword and war to be placed in the King, the Parliaments creature, for the safety of Parliament and Kingdom, which yet is destructive of it self? D. Ferne saith that the King summoneth a Parliament, and giveth them power to be a Parliament, and to advise and counsel him; and in the mean time Scripture saith, Deut 17. 18, 19, 20.