A92147:211
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.
But hear the Prelates reasons to prove that the King is from the people by approbation only.
But heare the Prelates reasons to prove that the King is from the people by approbation only.
P. Prelate. The people, Deut. 17. is said to set a King over them 1only, as 1 Cor. 6. The Saints are said to judge the world, that is, by consenting to Christs Judgement. So the people do not make a King by transferring on him sovereignty, but by accepting, acknowledging, reverencing him as King, whom God hath both constituted and designed King. Answ. This is said, but not a word proved: for the Queen of Sheba, and Hiram acknowledged, reverenced and obeyed2 Solomon as King, and yet they made him not King, as the Princes of Israel did. 2. Reverence and obedience of the people is relative to the Kings laws, but the peoples making of a King is not relative to the laws of a King; for then he should be a King giving laws, and commanding the people, as King, before the people make him King. 3. If the peoples approving and consenting that an elected King be their King, presupposeth that he is a King designed, and constituted by God, before the people approve him as King; Let the P. Prelate give us an act of God now designing a man King: for there are no immediate voices from heaven, saying to a people, This is your King, before the people elect one of six to be their King. And this infallibly proveth that God designeth one of six to be a King, to a people who had no King before, by no other act but by determining the hearts of the States to elect and design this man King, and pass any of the other five. 4. When God, Deut. 17. forbiddeth them to choose a stranger, he presupposeth they may choose a stranger: for Gods law now given to man in the state of sin, presupposeth he hath corruption of nature to do contrary to Gods law: Now if God did hold forth, that their setting a King over them, was but the peoples approving the man whom God shall both constitute and design to be King, then he should presuppose that God was to design a stranger to be the lawful King of Israel; and the people should be interdicted to approve and consent, that the man should be King whom God should choose: for it was unpossible that the people should make a stranger King, (God is the only immediate King-creator) the people should only approve and consent that a stranger should be King; yet upon supposal that God first constituted and designed the stranger King, it was not in the peoples power that the King should be a Brother rather then a stranger;