A92147:407
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 Pupil when he cometh to age, may call his Tutor to an account for his administration; I do not acknowledge that as a truth, which Arnisaeus saith, De authoritate. prin. c. 3. n. 5. The Common-wealth is always minor, and under Tutorage, because it alway hath need of a curator and governor, and can never put away its governor, but the pupil may grow to age and wisdom, so as he may be without all Tu•ors, and can guide himself, and so may call in question ⟨p. 125⟩his Tutor, and the pupil cannot be his Judge; but must stand to the sentence of a superior Judge, and so the people cannot judge or punish their Prince, God must be Judge betwixt them both.
2. The Pupill when he commeth to age, may call his Tutor to an accompt for his administration; I doe not acknowledge that as a truth, which Arnisaeus saith, De authoritate. prin. c. 3. n. 5. The Common-wealth is alwaies minor, and under Tutory, because it alway hath need of a curator and governour, and can never put away its governour, but the pupill may grow to age and wisedome, so as he may be without all Tu•ors, and can guide himselfe, and so may call in question ⟨p. 125⟩his Tutor, and the pupill cannot be his Iudge; but must stand to the sentence of a superiour Iudge, and so the people cannot judge or punish their Prince, God must be Iudge betwixt them both.
But this is 1. a begging of the question, every comparison halteth, no community but it is Major in this, that it can appoint its own1 Tutors, and though it cannot be without all Rulers, yet it may well be without this or that Prince and Ruler, and therefore may resume its power, which it gave conditionally to the Ruler for its own safety and good, and in so far as this condition is violated, and power turned to the destruction of the Common-wealth, it is to be esteemed as not given; and though the people be not a politic Judge in their own cause, yet in case of manifest oppression, nature can teach them to oppose defensive violence against offensive: a community in its politic body is also above any Ruler, and may judge what is manifestly destructive to it self.