A92147:371
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.
But I assert, that though the Word warrant us to esteem Kings 1fathers, Esa. 49. 23. Jud. 5. 7. Gen. 20. v. 2. yet are not they essentially and formally fathers by generation, Num. c. 11. v. 12. Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them? and yet are they but fathers metaphorically; 1. By office, because they should care for them as fathers do for children, and so come under the name of fathers in the fifth Commandment; and therefore rigorous and cruel Rulers are Leopards and Lyons, and Wolves, Ezech. 22. 27. Zeph. 3. 3. If then tyrannous Judges be not essentially and formally Leopards and Lyons, but only metaphorically, neither can Kings be formally fathers. 2. Not only Kings, but all Judges are fathers in defending ⟨p. 112⟩their subjects from violence and the sword, and fighting the Lords battles for them, and counselling them. If therefore Royalists argue rightly, A King is essentially a father, and, fatherly power and royal power are of the same essence and nature; As therefore he who is once a father, is ever a father, and his children cannot take up arms against him to resist him, for that is unnatural, & repugnant to the 5. Commandment: So he who is once a King, is evermore a King, and it is repugnant to the fifth Commandment to resist him with arms. It is answered, that the Argument presupposeth that Royal power, and Fatherly power is one and the same in nature, whereas they differ in nature, and are only one by analogy and proportion: for so Pastors of the Word are called fathers, 1 Cor. 4. 15. it will not follow, that once a Pastor, evermore a Pastor; and that if therefore Pastors turn wolves, and by heretical doctrine corrupt the flock, they cannot be cast out of the Church. 3. A father, as a father, hath2