A92147:1287
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.
The Saxonic Confession, exhibited to the Council of Trent, An. M. D. LI. art. 23▪ maketh the Magistrates office essentially to consist in keeping of the two Tables of Gods Law: and so what can follow hence, but in so far as he defendeth Murderers: or if he be a King, and shall with the sword, or Armies, impede inferior Magistrates (for the Confession speaketh of all) to defend Gods law, and true Religion, against Papists, Murderers, and bloody Cavaliers; and hinder them to execute the judgement of the Lord against evil doers: He is not, in that, a Magistrate; and the denying of obedience active or passive to him, in that, is no resistance to the Ordinance of God: but by the contrary, the King himself must resist the ordinance of God.
The Saxonick Confession, exhibited to the Councell of Trent, An. M. D. LI. art. 23▪ maketh the Magistrates office essentially to consist in keeping of the two Tables of Gods Law: and so what can follow hence, but in so far as he defendeth Murtherers: or if he be a King, and shall with the sword, or Armies, impede inferior Magistrates (for the Confession speaketh of all) to defend Gods law, and true Religion, against Papists, Murtherers, and bloody Cavaliers; and hinder them to execute the judgement of the Lord against evill doers: He is not, in that, a Magistrate; and the denying of obedience active or passive to him, in that, is no resistance to the Ordinance of God: but by the contrary, the King himselfe must resist the ordinance of God.
The Confession of Bohemia is clear, art. 16. Qui publico munere magistratuque funguntur, quemcunque gradū teneant, se non suum, sed Dei ⟨p. 446⟩opus agere sciant. Hence all inferior, or the supreme Magistrate, what ever be their place, they do not their own work, nor the work of the King, but the work of God, in the use of the sword, Ergo, they are to use the sword against bloody Cavaliers, as doing Gods work: suppose the King should forbid them to do Gods work. And it saith of all Magistrates: Sunt autem Magistratuum partes ac munus, omnibus ex aequo jus dicere, in communem omnium usum, sine personarum acceptation, pacem ac tranquilitatem publicam tueri ac procurare de malis ac facinorosis, hanc inter turbantibus poenas sumere, aliosque omnes ab eorum vi & injuria vindicare. Now this Confession was the faith of the Barons and Nobles of Bohemia, who were Magistrates, and exhibited to the Emperor, An. 1535. in the cause not unlike unto ours now: and the Emperor was their Sovereign: yet they profess they are obliged in conscience to defend all under them from all violence and injuries, that the Emperor, or any other could bring on them; and that this is their office before God, which they are obliged to perform as a work of God: and the Christian Magistrate is not to do that work, which is not his own, but Gods, upon condition that the King shall not inhibit him. What if the King shall inhibit Parliaments, Princes and Rulers, to relieve the oppressed, to defend the Orphan, the Widow, the Stranger, from unjust violence? Shall they obey man rather than God?