A92147:214
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. All the acts real and imaginable, which are necessary for the making of Kings, are ascribed to God: Take the first King as a ruling case, 1 Sam. 12. 13. Behold the King whom you have chosen and desired, and behold the Lord hath set a King over you. This election of the people can be no other but their admittance or acceptance of the King whom God hath chosen and constituted, as the words, whom ye have chosen, imply, 1 Sam. 9. 17. 1 Sam. 10. 1. You have Sauls election and constitution, where Samuel as Priest and Prophet anointeth him, doing reverence and obeisance to him, and ascribing to God, that he did appoint him supreme and Sovereign over his inheritance. And the same expression is, 1 Sam. 12. 13. The Lord hath set a King over you: which is Psal. 2. 6. I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. Neither man nor Angel hath any share in any act of constituting Christ King, Deut. 17. The Lord vindicateth as proper and peculiar to himself, the designation of the person. It was not arbitrary to the people to admit or reject Saul so designed; it pleased God to consummate the work by the acceptation, consent and approbation of the people▪ ut suaviore modo, that by a smoother way he might encourage Saul to undergo the hard charge, and make his people the more heartily, without grumbling and scruple, reverence and obey him. The peoples admittance possibly added something to the solemnity, to the pomp, but nothing to the essential and real constitution or necessity; it only puts the subjects in mala fide, if they should contravene, as the intimation of a Law, the coronation of an hereditary King, the enthronization of a Bishop. And, 1 King. 3. 7. Thou hast made thy servant King, 1 Sam. 16. 1. I have provided me a King,