A92147:194
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.
P. Prelate. Kings are of God, they are Gods, children of the most 1High, his servants, public Ministers, their sword and judgement Gods. This he hath said of their royalty in abstracto, and in concreto; their power, person, charge, are all of divine extract, and so their authority and person are both sacred and inviolable. Answ. So are all the congregation of the Judges, Psal. 82. v. 1. 6. all of them Gods: for he speaketh not there of a congregation of Kings. So are Apostles,2 their office and persons of God; and so the Prelates (they think) the successors of the Apostles▪ are Gods servants, their ministry, word, rod of discipline not theirs, but of God: the judgement of Judges, inferior to the King, is the Lords judgement, not mens, Deut. 1. 17. 2. Chro. 19. 6. Hence by the Prelates Logic, the persons of Prelates, Majors, Bailiffs, Constables, Pastors, are sacred and inviolable above all laws, as are Kings. Is this an extolling of Kings? 2. But where are Kings persons, as men, said to be of God, as the Royalty in abstract• i•? The Prelate seeth beside his book, Psal. 82. 7. But ye shall die as men.
P. Prelate. Kings are of God, they are Gods, children of the most 1High, his servants, publike Ministers, their sword and judgement Gods. This he hath said of their royaltie in abstracto, and in concreto; their power, person, charge, are all of divine extract, and so their authoritie and person are both sacred and inviolable. Answ. So are all the congregation of the Iudges, Psal. 82. v. 1. 6. all of them Gods: for he speaketh not there of a congregation of Kings. So are Apostles,