A92147:396
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.
And the Reasons why private men are just Lords and proprietors of their own Goods, are, 1. Because by order of nature, division of Goods cometh nearer to natures law, and necessity, then any King or Magistrate in the world; for because it is agreeable to nature, that every man be warmed by his own fleece, nourished by his own meat; therefore to conserve every mans Goods to the just owner, and to preserve a community from the violence of rapine and theft, a Magistrate and King was devised. So it is clear, men are just owners of their own Goods, by all good order, both of nature and time, before there be any such thing as a King or Magistrate. Now if it be good that every man enjoy his own Goods, as just proprietor thereof for his own use, before there be a King, who can be proprietor of his Goods, and a King being given of God for a blessing, not for any mans hurt and loss; the King cometh in to preserve a mans Goods, but not to be lord and owner thereof himself, nor to take from any man Gods right to his own Goods.
And the Reasons why private men are just Lords and proprietors of their own Goods, are, 1. Because by order of nature, division of Goods cometh neerer to natures law, and necessity, then any King or Magistrate in the world; for because it is agreeable to nature, that every man be warmed by his own fleece, nourished by his own meat; therefore to conserve every mans Goods to the just owner, and to preserve a communitie from the violence of rapine and theft, a Magistrate and King was devised. So it is clear, men are just owners of their own Goods, by all good order, both of nature and time, before there be any such thing as a King or Magistrate. Now if it be good that every man enjoy his own Goods, as just proprietor thereof for his own use, before there be a King, who can be proprietor of his Goods, and a King being given of God for a blessing, not for any mans hurt and losse; the King cometh in to preserve a mans Goods, but not to be lord and owner thereof himself, nor to take from any man Gods right to his own Goods.
2. When God created man at the beginning, he made all the1 creatures for man▪ and made them by the law of nature, the proper