A92147:355
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.
2. The people and Davids acknowledgement of Saul to be the1 Lords anointed, and a King, after he had committed such acts of Tyranny as seem destructive of the Royal Covenant, and inconsistent therewith, cannot prove that Saul was not made King by the Lord, and the people, conditionally, and that for the peoples good and safety, and not for their destruction; and it doth well prove that those acts of blood and tyranny committed by Saul, were not done by him as King, or from the principle of Royal power ⟨p. 105⟩given to him by God and the people. 2. That in these acts they were not to acknowledge him as King. 3. That these acts of blood were contrary to the covenant that Saul did swear at his inauguration, and contrary to the conditions that Saul in the covenant took on him to perform at the making of the Royal covenant. 4. They prove not but the States who made Saul King, might lawfully dethrone him, and anoint David their King. But David had reason to hold him for his Prince, and the Lords Anointed, so long as the people recalled not their grant of Royal dignity, as David or any man is obliged to honour him as King whom the people maketh King, though he were a bloodier and more tyrannous man then Saul. Any Tyrant standeth in titulo, so long as the People and Estates who made him King, have not recalled their grant; so as neither David, nor any single man, though six hundred with him, may unking him, or detract obedience from him as King; So, many acts of disloyalty, and breaches of laws in the Subjects, though they be contrary to this Covenant that the States make with their Prince, doth not make them to be no Subjects: and the Covenant mutual standeth thus.
2. The people and Davids acknowledgment of Saul to be the1 Lords annoynted, and a King, after he had committed such acts of Tyranny as seeme destructive of the Royall Covenant, and inconsistent therewith, cannot prove that Saul was not made King by the Lord, and the people, conditionally, and that for the peoples good and safety, and not for their destruction; and it doth well prove that those acts of blood and tyranny committed by Saul, were not done by him as King, or from the principle of Royall power ⟨p. 105⟩