A92147:1040
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.
Object. But in so doing private men may offer violence to the lawful 1magistrate, when he unjustly putteth an innocent man to death, and rescue him out of the hands of the magistrate, and this were to bring in anarchy and confusion, for if it be an act of charity to deliver the innocent out of the hand of the Magistrate, it is homicide to a private man not to do it, for our obedience to the law of nature tieth us absolutely, though the Magistrate forbid these acts, for it is known, that I must obey God rather then man.
Object. But in so doing private men may offer violence to the lawfull 1magistrate, when he unjustly putteth an innocent man to death, and rescue him out of the hands of the magistrate, and this were to bring in anarchy and confusion, for if it be an act of charity to deliver the innocent out of the hand of the Magistrate, it is homicide to a private man not to do it, for our obedience to the law of nature tyeth us absolutely, though the Magistrate forbid these acts, for it is known, that I must obey God rather then man.
- 1Acts of charity as helping our brethren against unjust oppressions, oblige us, whether the King command them or forbid them.
Answ. The law of nature tieth us to obedience in acts of charity, yet not to perform these acts after any way and manner, in a mere natural way, impetu naturae, but I am to perform acts of natural ⟨p. 381⟩charity in a rational and prudent way, and in looking to Gods law, else if my brother or father were justly condemned to die, I might violently deliver him out of the Magistrates hand, but by the contrary, my hand should be first on him, without natural compassion. As if my brother or my wife have been a blasphemer of God,