A92147:1095
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.
For if the King have a divine law to kill an innocent Jonathan, so as it be unlawful to resist him, he may by that same law turn bloodier then either Nero, Julian, or any that ever sucked the paps of a Lioness, or of any of whom it may be said, Quaeque dedit nutrix ubera, Tigris erat. and he shall be given as a plague of God, ex conditione doni, to the people, and the people, inasmuch as they are gifted of God with a King, to feed them in a peaceable and godly life, must be made slaves; now it wanteth reason that God will have a permissive Law of murdering the Church of Christ, a Law so contrary to the public good and intrinsical intention of a King, and to the immutable and eternal law of Nature, that one man because of his power, may by Gods permissive Law murder millions of innocents: Some may say, It is against the duty of love, that by Nature and Gods Law the husband owes to the wife, Ephes. 5. 25. that the husband should put away his wife; for God hateth putting away, and yet God made a Law, that a husband might give his wife a bill of divorce, and so put her away; and by the same reason, God may make a Law, though against nature, that a King should kill and murder, without all resistance.
For if the King have a divine law to kill an innocent Ionathan, so as it be unlawfull to resist him, he may by that same law turne bloodier then either Nero, Iulian, or any that ever sucked the paps of a Liones, or of any of whom it may be said, Quaeque dedit nutrix ubera, Tigris erat. and he shall be given as a plague of God, ex conditione doni, to the people, and the people, inasmuch as they are gifted of God with a King, to feed them in a peaceable and godly life, must be made slaves; now it wanteth reason that God will have a permissive Law of murthering the Church of Christ, a Law so contrary to the publique good and intrinsecall intention of a King, and to the immutable and eternall law of Nature, that one man because of his power, may by Gods permissive Law murther millions of innocents: Some may say, It is against the duty of love, that by Nature and Gods Law the husband owes to the wife, Ephes. 5. 25. that the husband should put away his wife; for God hateth putting away, and yet God made a Law, that a husband might give his wife a bill of divorce, and so put her away; and by the same reason, God may make a Law, though against nature, that a King should kill and murther, without all resistance.