A92147:260
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.
I answer: If the Prelate were not a Jesuit himself, he would not bid his brethren take the mote out of their eye: but there is nothing1 here said but which Barclaius said better before this Plagarius. To which I answer, We teach that any private man may kill a a Tyrant void of all title: and a great Royalist Barclaius saith so also. And if he have not the consent of the people, he is an usurper, for we know no external lawful calling that Kings have now, or their family to the Crown, but only the call of the people; all other calls to us are now invisible and unknown, and God would not command us to obey Kings, and leave us in the dark, that we shall not know who is the King: the Prelate placeth his lawful calling to the Crown in such an immediate, invisible, and subtle act of omnipotency, as that whereby God conferreth remission of sins by sprinkling with water in baptism, and that whereby God directed Samuel to anoint Saul and David, not Eliab, nor any other brother. It is the Devil in the P. P. not any of us, who teach that any private man may kill a lawful King, though tyrannous in his government. For the subject of Royal power, we affirm, the first, and ultimate,2 and native subject of all power is the Community, as reasonable men naturally inclining to a society: but the ethical and political subject, or the legal and positive receptacle of this power is various, according to the various constitutions of the policy. In Scotland and England, it is the three Estates of Parliament, in other Nations some other Judges or Peers of the Land. The Prelate had no more common sense for him to object a confusion of opinions to us, ⟨p. 59⟩for this, then to all the Common-wealths on earth, because all have not Parliaments, as Scotland hath; all have not Constables, and Officials, and Churchmen, Barons, Lords of Council, Parliaments, &c. as England had. But the truth is, the Community orderly convened, as it includeth all the Estates civill, have hand, and are to act in choosing their Rulers: I see not what privilege Nobles have above Commons in a Court of Parliament, by Gods law; but as they are Judges, all are equally Judges, and all make up one congregation of Gods.
I answer: If the Prelate were not a Iesuite himselfe, he would not bid his brethren take the mote out of their eye: but there is nothing