A92147:363
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.
5. Arg. If a King because a King were privileged from all covenant obligation to his subjects, then could no Law of men lawfully reach him for any contract violated by him, then he could not be a debtor to his subjects, if he borrowed money from them, and it were utterly unlawful either to crave him money, or to sue him at Law for debts, yet our Civill Laws of Scotland tieth the ⟨p. 93⟩King to pay his debts, as any other man; yea and King Solomons trafficking, and buying and selling betwixt him and his own subjects would seem unlawful; for how can a King buy and sell with his subjects if he be under no covenant obligation to men, but to God only. Yea then a King could not marry a wife, for he could not come under a covenant to keep his body to her only, nor if he committed adultery, could he sin against his wife, because being immediate unto God, and above all obligation to men, he could sin against no covenant made with men, but only against God.
5. Arg. If a King because a King were priviledged from all covenant obligation to his subjects, then could no Law of men lawfully reach him for any contract violated by him, then he could not be a debtor to his subjects, if he borrowed mony from them, and it were utterly unlawfull either to crave him mony, or to sue him at Law for debts, yet our Civill Lawes of Scotland tyeth the ⟨p. 93⟩King to pay his debts, as any other man; yea and King Solomons traffiquing, and buying and selling betwixt him and his owne subjects would seeme unlawfull; for how can a King buy and sell with his subjects if he be under no covenant obligation to men, but to God only. Yea then a King could not marry a wife, for he could not come under a covenant to keepe his body to her only, nor if he committed adultery, could he sin against his wife, because being immediate unto God, and above all obligation to men, he could sin against no covenant made with men, but only against God.
6. If that was a lawful covenant made by Asa, and the States of