A92147:295
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.
Answ. We read in the Word of God, That the people made Solomon King, not that David, or any King can leave in his Testament, a Kingdom to his son. 2. He saith, The son hath not the right 1of reigning, as the patrimony of the people, but as a propriety, given by the Law of the Kingdom, by his parents: Now this is all one, as if he said, The son hath not the right of the Kingdom, as the patrimony of the people, but as the patrimony of the people, which is good non-sense; For the propriety of reigning, given from father to son, by the Law of the Kingdom, is nothing but a right to reign, given by the Law of the people, and the very gift and patrimony of the people, for Lex regni, This Law of the Kingdom is the Law of the people, tying the Crown to such a Royal Family; and this Law of the people is prior and ancienter then the King, or the right of reigning in the King, or which the King is supposed to have from his Royal father, because it made the first father, the first King of the Royal Line. For I demand, How doth the son succeed to his fathers Crown, and Throne? Not by any promise of a divine Covenant, that the Lord maketh to the father, as he promised, that Davids seed should sit on his throne, till the Messiah should come: this, as I conceive, is vanished with the Commonwealth of the Jews, nor can we now find any immediate divine constitution, tying the Crown now to such a race: nor can we say, this cometh from the will of the father King, making his son King: For 1. there is no Scripture can warrant us to say, The King maketh 2a King, but the Scripture holdeth forth, that the people made Saul, and David, Kings. 2. This may prove, That the father is some way a cause, why this son succeedeth King; but he is not the cause of the Royalty conferred upon the whole Line; because the question is, Who made the first father a King? Not himself; nor doth God now immediately by Prophets anoint men to be Kings, then need force, the people choose the first man, then must the peoples election of a King, be prior and more ancient then the birth-law to a Crown: And election must be a better right then birth. 2. The question is, Whence cometh it that not only the first father should be chosen King; but also whence is that, whereas it is in the peoples freewill to make the succession of Kings go by free election, as it is in Denmark and Pol;
Answ. We read in the Word of God, That the people made Solomon King, not that David, or any King can leave in his Testament, a Kingdom to his son. 2. He saith, The son hath not the right