A92147:329
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.
3 Assert. Every man by nature is a freeman borne, that is, by nature1 no man cometh out of the womb under any civill subjection to King, Prince, or Judge, to master, captain, conqueror, teacher, &c. 1. Because freedom is natural to all, except freedom from subjection to Parents: And subjection politic is merely accidental, coming from some positive laws of men, as they are in a politic society; whereas they might have been borne with all concomitants of n•ure, though borne in a single family, the only natural ⟨p. 92⟩and first society in the world. 2. Man is borne by nature free2 from all subjection, except of that which is most kindly and natural, and that is fatherly or filial subjection, or matrimonial subjection of the wife to the husband, and especially he is free of subjection to a Prince by nature; Because to be under jurisdiction to a Judge or King, hath a sort of jurisdiction. Argument. L. Si quis sit fugitivus F. de edil. edict. in S. penult. vel fin. especially to be under penal laws now in the state of sin. The learned Senator Ferdinandus Vasquez saith, l. 2. c. 82. n. 15. Every subject is to lay down his life for the Prince: now no man is borne under subjection to penal laws or dying for his Prince. 3. Man by nature is borne free, and as free as3 beasts; but by nature no beast, no Lyon is born King of Lyons; no Horse, no Bullock, no Eagle, King of Horses, Bullocks, Eagles; nor is there any subjection here, except that the young Lyon is subject to the old, every soul to its dam, and by that same law of nature no man is borne King of men, nor any man subject to man in a civill subjection by nature, (I speak not of natural subjection of children to parents) and therefore Ferdi. Vasquez. illustr. quest. l. 2. c. 82. n. 6. said that Kingdoms and Empires were brought in, not by Natures law, but by the law of Nations: he expoundeth himself elsewhere to speak of the law of nature secondary, otherwise the primary law of Nations is indeed the law of Nature, as appropriated to man. If any reply, that the freedom natural of beasts and birds who never sinned, cannot be one with the natural freedom of man who are now under sin, and so under bondage for sin: