A92147:1164
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.
Ans. It is a Calumny, that we teach that the power of the King is from God mediately, by mere approbation; indeed a fellow of his, a Papist writing against the Kings Supremacy, Anthony Capell Cont. 1. c. 5. saith, Saul was made King, and others also by Gods 1permission, and Deo invito & irato, God being angry, that is not our Doctrine; but with what real efficiency God hath made men, and communities, rational and social men, with the same hath he made them by instinct of nature, by the mediation of reason, to create a King; and Bellarmine and Suarez say, Not God maketh Kings by approbation only.
Ans. It is a Calumnie, that we teach that the power of the King is from God mediatly, by meere approbation; indeed a fellow of his, a Papist writing against the Kings Supremacy, Anthony Capell Cont. 1. c. 5. saith, Saul was made King, and others also by Gods 1permission, and Deo invito & irato, God being angry, that is not our Doctrine; but with what reall efficiencie God hath made men, and communities, rationall and sociall men, with the same hath he made them by instinct of nature, by the mediation of reason, to create a King; and Bellarmine and Suarez say, Not God maketh Kings by approbation only.
- 1Tract. contra primatum Regis Angliae.
P. Prelate. The people may change Monarchy into Aristocracy or Democracy, or Aristocracy into Monarchy; for ought I know, they differ not in this neither.
Ans. The P. Prelate knoweth not all things, the two Jesuits, Bellarmine and Suarez are produced only, as if they were all Jesuits; and Suarez saith, De prim. po. l. 3. n. 4. Donationem absolutam semel valid factam revocari non posse, neque in totum, neque ex parce, maxime quando onerosa fuit. If the people once give their power to the King, they cannot resume it without cause, and laying down