A92147:352
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.
if then the people make a King as a King conditionally for their safety, and not for their destruction (for as a King he saveth, as a man he destroyeth, and not as a King and Father) and if God by the peoples free election make a King, God maketh him a King conditionally, and so by covenant; and therefore when God promiseth 2 Sam. 7. 12. 1 Chron. 28. 7, 8, 9. to Davids seed, and to Solomon a Throne, he promiseth not a Throne to them immediately, as he raised up Prophets and Apostles, without any mediate action and consent of the people, but he promiseth a Throne to them by the mediate consent, election, and covenant of the people; which condition and covenant he expresseth in the very words of the people, covenant1 with the King, so they walk as Kings in the Law of the Lord, and take heed to Gods Commandments and Statutes to do them▪ Obj. But then Solomon falling in love with many outlandish women, and so not walking according to Gods Law, loseth all royal dignity and Kingly power, and the people is not to acknowledge him as King, since the Kingly power was conferred upon him, rather then Adonijah, upon such a condition, which condition not being performed by him, it is presumed that neither God, nor the people under God, as Gods instruments in making King, conferred any royal power on him. Ans. It doth not follow, that Solomon falling in love with strange women doth lose Royal dignity, either in the Court of Heaven, or before men; because the conditions of the covenant upon which God by the people made him King must be exponed by the Law, Deut. 17. now that cannot bear, that any one act contrary to the Royal Office, yea that any one or two acts of Tyranny doth denude a man of the Royal dignity that God and the people gave him, for so David committing two acts of tyranny, one of taking his own faithful subjects ⟨p. 104⟩wife from him, and another in killing himself, should denude himself of all the Kingly power that he had, and that therefore the people after his Adultery and Murder were not to reknowledge David as their King, which is most absurd;