A92147:349
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 Assert. The obligation of the King in the covenant, floweth1 from the peculiar obligation national betwixt the King and the Estates, and it bindeth the King, as King, and not simply as he is a man. 1. Because it is a covenant betwixt the people and David, not as he is the son of Jesse, for then it should oblige Eliab, or any other of Davids brethren; yea, it should oblige any man, if it oblige David as a man: but it obligeth David as a King, or as he is to be their King, because it is the specifice act of a King, that he is obliged unto, to wit, to govern the people in Righteousness and Religion with his Royal power. And so it is false that Arnisaeus saith, that the King, as a man, is obliged to God by this covenant, not as a King. 2. He saith, by covenant the King is bound to God as a Man, not as a King. But so the man will have the King, as King, under no law of God, and so he must either be above God, as King, or coequal with God; which are manifest blasphemies: for I thought ever, the Royalists had not denied, but the King, as King, had been obliged to keep his oath to his subjects, in relation to God, and in regard of natural obligation; so as he •mneth before God, if he break his covenant with his people: though they deny that he is obliged to2 keep his covenant in relation to his Subjects, and in regard of politic or civill obligation to men. Sure I am, this the Royalists constantly teach. 3. He would have this covenant so made with men, as it obligeth not the King to men, but to God. But the contrary is true. Beside the King and the Peoples covenant with the Lord, ⟨p. 102⟩King Joash made another covenant with the People, and Jehoiada the Priest was only a witness, or one who in Gods name performed the rite of anointing, otherwise he was a subject on the peoples side, obliged to keep allegiance to Joash, as to his Sovereign and Master. But certainly, who ever maketh a covenant with the people, promising to govern them according to Gods word, and upon that condition and these terms receiveth a throne and crown from the people, he is obliged to what he promiseth to the people, Omnis promittens facit alteri, cui promissio facta est, jus in promittent•m; Who ever maketh a promise to another, giveth to that other a sort of right or jurisdiction to challenge the promise.