A92147:239
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.
Moses was not a King when he went to Pharaoh, for he had not as yet a people; Pharaoh was the King, and because Pharaoh was a King, the Divines of Oxford must say, His Majesty must not, in words of rebuke, be resisted, more then by deeds. 11. Moses his face did shine as a Prophet receiving the Law from God, not as a King: and is this Sunshine of Heaven upon the face of Nero, and Julian? It must be, if it be a beam of Royal Majesty, if this prattler say right, but 2 Cor. 3. 7. this was a majesty typical, which did adumbrate the glory of the Law of God, and is far from being a royalty due to all Heathen Kings. 12. I would our King would evidence such a Majesty in breaking the Images and Idols of his Queen, and of Papists about him. 13. The fear of Noah, and the regenerated, who are in Covenant with the Beasts of the field, Job. 5. 23. is upon the Beasts of the earth, not by any approbation only, as the people maketh Kings, by the Prelates way; nor yet by free consent, as the people freely transfer their power to him, who is King. The creatures inferior to man, have by no act of freewill, chosen man to be their Ruler, and transferred their power to him, because they are by nature inferior to man, and God by nature hath subjected1 the creatures to man, Gen. 1. 28. and so this proveth not, that the King by nature is above the people, I mean the man who is King; and therefore though God had planted in the hearts of all subjects, a fear and reverence toward the King; upon supposal, that they have made him King: It followeth not, That this authority and majesty, is immediately given by God to the man who is King, without the intervening consent of the people; for there ⟨p. 47⟩is a native fear in the Scholar to stand in awe of his Teacher, and yet the Scholar may willingly give himself to be a disciple to his Teacher, and so give his Teacher power over him. Citizens naturally fear their supreme Governor of the City, yet they give to the man who is their supreme Governor, that power and Authority which is the ground of awe and reverence. A Servant naturally feareth his Master, yet often he giveth his liberty, and resigneth it up voluntarily to his Master, and this was not unordinary amongst the Jews, where the servant did entirely love the Master, and is most ordinary now when servants do for hire, tie themselves to such a Master;