A92147:1282
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.
1. It is a wonder that inferior Judges should be formally Judges, in so far as they act conform to the will of a mortal King, and not in so far as they act conform to the will of the King of Kings, seeing the judgement they execute is the King of Kings, and not the Judgement of a mortal King, 2 Chro. 19. 6.
1. It is a wonder that inferiour Judges should be formally Iudges, in so far as they act conforme to the will of a mortall King, and not in so far as they act conforme to the will of the King of Kings, seeing the judgement they execute is the King of Kings, and not the Iudgement of a mortall King, 2 Chro. 19. 6.
2. Royalists cannot endure the former distinction as it is applied to the King, but they receive it with both hands, as it is applied to inferior Judges; and yet certain it is, that it is as ordinary for a King being a sinful man, to act sometimes as the Lieutenant of God, and sometimes as an erring and misinformed man, no less then the inferior Judge acteth sometimes according to the Kings will and Law, and sometimes according to his own private way; and if we are to obey the inferior Judge as the Deputy of the King, what shall become of his Person, when Cavaliers may kill him at some Edge-hill? for so they mock this distinction, as applied to the King in regard of his Person, and of his Royal Office; and for this point our Confession citeth in the Margin. Rom. 13. 7. 1 Pet. 2. 17. Psal. 82. 1. which places do clearly prove: 1. That inferior Magistrates are: 1. Gods ordinances. 2. Gods on earth, Psal. 82. 3. Such as bear the Lords sword. 4. That they are not only (as the Confession saith) appointed for Civill