A92147:422
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.
This place, 1 Sam. 8, 9. and v. 11. The law or manner of the King 1is alleged to prove both the absolute power of Kings, and 2. the unlawfulness of resistance: therefore I crave leave here to vindicate the place, and to make it evident to all, that the place speaketh for no such matter. 1. aHug. Grotius argueth thus: that by this place, the people oppressed with injuries of a Tyrannous King, have nothing left them but prayers and cries to God; and therefore there is no ground for violent resisting. bBarclay will have us to distinguish inter officium Regis, & potestatem, between the Kings office, and the Kings power: And he will have the Lord here speaking, not of the Kings office, what he ought to do before God, but what power a King hath beside and above the power of Judges, to tyrannize over the people, so as the people hath no power to resist it. He will have the Office of the King spoken of Deut. 17. and the Power of the King, 1 Sam. 8▪ and that power which the People was to obey and submit unto, without resisting. But I answer, 1. It is a vain thing to distinguish betwixt the office and the power; for the power is either a power to rule according to4 Gods law, as he is commanded, Deut. 17. and this is the very office or official power which the King of Kings hath given to all Kings under him: and this is a power of the Royal office of a King, to govern for the Lord his maker; or this is a power to do ill, and5 tyrannize over Gods people: but this is accidental to a King, and the character of a Tyrant, and is not from God: and so the Law of the King in this place must be the Tyranny of the King, which is our very mind. 2. Barclay. Reges sine domination ne concipi quidem possunt.—Judices dominationem in populum minimé habebant. Hence it is clear that Barclay saith, that the Judges of Israel, and the Kings