A92147:283
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.
4. Things transferable and communicable by birth from father1 to son, are only, in Law, those which Heathen call bona fortunae, riches, as lands, houses, monies and heritages; and so saith the Law also. These things which essentially include gifts of the mind, and honour properly so called, I mean honour founded on virtue, as Aristotle with good reason maketh honour praeminum virtu•is, cannot be communicated by birth from the father to the son; for royal dignity includeth these three constituent parts essentially, of which none can be communicable by birth. 1. The royal faculty of governing, which is a special gift of God, above nature, is from God. Solomon asked it from God, and had it not by generation from his father David. 2. The royal honour to be set above the people because of this royal virtue, is not from the womb, for then Gods spirit would not have said, Blessed art thou O Land, when thy King is the son of Nobles, Eccles. 10. 17. this honour springing from virtue, is not borne with any man, no• is any man borne with either the gift, or honour to be a Judge; God maketh high and low, not birth. Nobles are borne to great estates, if judging be heritage to any, it is a municipal positive law. I now speak in point of conscience. 3. The external lawful title, before men come to a Crown must be Gods Will, revealed by such an external sign, as by Gods appointment and warrant is to regulate our will, but ⟨p. 72⟩according to Scripture nothing regulateth our will, and leadeth the people now that they cannot err, following Gods rule in making a King, but the free suffrages of the States choosing a man whom they conceive God hath endued with these royal gifts required in the King whom God holdeth forth to them in his Word, Deut. 17. now there be but these to regulate the people, or to be a rule to any man to ascend lawfully (in foro Dei) in Gods Court to the Throne; 1. Gods immediate designation of a man by Prophetical and Divinely2 inspired unction, as Samuel anointed Saul, and David; this we are not to expect now, nor can Royalists say it. 2.