A92147:326
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.
hold, though man had never sinned, there should have been a sort1 of dominion of the more gifted, and wiser, above the less wise and weaker, not antecedent from nature, properly, but consequent, for the utility and good of the weaker, in so far, as it is good for the weaker to be guided by the stronger, which cannot be denied to have some ground in nature: but there is no ground for Kings by nature here. 1. Because, even these who plead, that the mothers2 womb must be the best title for a Crown, and make it equivalent to Royal unction, are to be corrected in memory, thus; That it is merely accidental, and not natural, for such a son to be born a King, because the free consent of the people making choice of the first father of that Line to be their King, and in him making choice of the first born of the family, is merely accidental to father and son, and so cannot be natural. 2. Because Royal gifts to reign are not holden by either us or our adversaries, to be the specifice essence of a King; for if the people Crown a person their King, say we, if the womb bring him forth to be a King; say the opponents, he is essentially a King, and to be obeyed as the Lords anointed, though nature be very Parca, sparing, and a niggard in bestowing Royal gifts: Yea, though he be an idiot, say some, if he be the first born of a King, he is by just title a King, but must have Curators and Tutors to guide him, in the exercise of that Royal right that he hath from the womb. But Buchanan ⟨p. 91⟩saith well▪ He who cannot govern himself, shall never govern 3others.
hold, though man had never sinned, there should have been a sort1 of dominion of the more gifted, and wiser, above the lesse wise and weaker, not antecedent from nature, properly, but consequent, for the utilitie and good of the weaker, in so far, as it is good for the weaker to be guided by the stronger, which cannot be denyed to have some ground in nature: but there is no ground for Kings by nature here. 1. Because, even these who plead, that the mothers