A92147:398
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.
3. What is a Character, and note of a Tyrant, and an oppressing1 King as a Tyrant, is not the just due of a King as a King: But to take the proper Goods of Subjects, and use them as his own, is a proper Character, and note of a Tyrant, and an oppressor. Ergo, the proposition is evident. A King and a Tyrant are by way of contradiction contrary one to another: the assumption is proved thus, Ezek. 45. 9. Thus saith the Lord, Let it suffice you, O Princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgement and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord, Vers. 10. Ye shall have just balances, and a just Ephah, and a just bath. If all be the Kings, he is not capable of extortion and rapine, Micah 3. 2. God complaineth of the violence of Kings: Is it not for you to know judgement? Vers. 3. Who eat the flesh of my people, and flea their skins from off them, and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the chaldron, Isai. 3.2 14. Zeph. 3. 3. and was it not an act of tyranny in King Ahab, to take the vineyard of Naboth, and in King Saul? 1 Sam. 8. 14. to take the people of Gods fields and vineyards, and olive-yards, and give them to their servants? Was it a just fault that Hybreas objected to Antonius, exacting two tributes in one year, that he said, If thou must have two tributes in one year, then make for us two Summers and two Harvests, in one year? This cannot be just; if all be the Kings, the King taketh but his own.
3. What is a Character, and note of a Tyrant, and an oppressing1 King as a Tyrant, is not the just due of a King as a King: But to take the proper Goods of Subjects, and use them as his own, is a proper Character, and note of a Tyrant, and an oppressour. Ergo, the proposition is evident. A King and a Tyrant are by way of contradiction contrary one to another: the assumption is proved thus,