A92147:187
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.
Consider first that the excommunicated Prelate saith, cap. 2. p. 19. Kings are not immediately from God, as by any special Ordinance sent from Heaven by the ministry of Angels and Prophets, there were but some few such; as Moses, Saul, David, &c. yet something may immediately proceed from God, and be his special work without a revelation or manifestation extraordinary from Heaven, so the designation to a sacred function is from the Church, and from man; yet the power of Word, Sacraments binding and loosing, is immediately from Jesus Christ. The Apostle Matthias was from Christs immediate constitution, and yet he was designed by men, Act. 1. The soul is by creation and infusion, without any special ordinance from Heaven, though nature begeteth the body, and disposeth the matter, and prepareth it as fit to be conjoined with the soul, so as the father is said to beget the son. Ans. 1. The unchurched Prelate striveth to make us hateful by the title of the Chapter, That God is (by his title) the immediate Author of Sovereignty; and who denieth that? Not those, who teach that the person who is King, is created King by the people, no more then those who deny that men are now called to be Pastors, and Deacons immediately, and by a voice from Heaven, or by the ministry of Angels 1and Prophets, because the Office of Pastors and Deacons is immediately from God. 2. When he hath proved that God is the immediate Author of Sovereignty. What then? shall it follow that the sovereign in concreto may not be resisted? and that he is above all Law; and that there is no armour against his violence but prayers and ⟨p. 17⟩tears. So God is the immediate Author of the Pastors, of the Apostles Office, ergo, it is unlawful to resist a Pastor, though he turn robber? ergo, the Pastor is above all the Kings Laws? this is the Jesuit and all made, ergo, there is no Armour against the robbing Prelate but prayer and tears. 2. He saith in his Title, that the King is no Creature of the peoples making. If he mean the King in abstracto, that is, the royal dignity, whom speaketh he against? Not against us, but against his own father Bellarmine, who saith athat Sovereignty hath no warrant by any divine Law. If he mean that the man who is King is not created and elected King by the people, he contradicteth himself and all the Court Doctors. 3.