A92147:279
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.
Symmons holdeth, that Birth is as good a title to the Crown, as1 any given of God. How this question can be cleared, I see not, except we dispute that, Whether or not Kingdoms be proper patrimonies derived from the father to the son? 2. I take, there is a large difference betwixt a thing transmittable by birth from the father to the son, and a thing not transmittable. 3. I conceive, as a person is chosen to be a King over a people, so a family or house may be chosen, and a Kingdom at first choosing a person to be their King, may also tie themselves to choose the first borne of his body: but as they transfer their power to the father, 1. for their own safety and peace, (not if he use the power they give him, to their destruction) the same way they tie themselves to his first borne, as to their King. 2. As they chose the father not as a man, but a man gifted with Royal grace, and a Princely faculty for government; so they can but tie themselves to his first borne, as to one graced with a faculty of governing: and if his first borne shall be borne an idiot and a fool, they are not obliged to make him King; for the obligation to the son can be no greater then the obligation to the father, which first obligation is the ground, measure and cause of all posterior obligations. If Tutors be appointed to govern such an one, the Tutors have the Royal power, not the Idiot; nor can he govern others, who cannot govern himself. That Kings go not as heritage from the father to the son, I prove; 1. God, Deut. 17. could not command them to choose such a one for the King, and such a one who sitting on his throne shall follow the direction of God speaking in his word, if birth were that which gave him Gods title and right to the Crown; for that were as much as such a man should be heir to his fathers inheritance, and the son not heir to his fathers crown, except he were such a man: But God in all the Law moral or judicial, never required that the heir should be thus and thus qualified, else he should not be heir: but he requireth that a man, and so that a family should be thus and thus qualified, else they should not be Kings: and I confirm it thus: The first King of divine institution must be the rule, pattern and measure of all the rest of the Kings, as Christ maketh the first Marriage, ⟨p. 69⟩Mat. 19. 8